Word: pbs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...while sharing a New Orleans mansion. There's Joyce Bowler, 44, who persuaded her family to spend three hardship-filled months in a house outfitted with 100-year-old technology (or lack of it) for The 1900 House, a fascinating British show that made its debut last week on PBS. "[Celebrity] does become quite addictive," she says. "But you have to realize it's not your whole life. We don't do this for a profession." In VTV-crazed Europe, where Survivor and CBS's forthcoming voyeur game show Big Brother originated, ex-contestants have become pinups and pop stars...
...hooker's toes and Ted Koppel walking out for lack of news. Viewers' attention spans were still too short: Ratings dropped 26 percent from 1992 for the GOP and 18 percent for the Democrats. So this time around, American politics' quadrennial summer showcase is being consigned to cable - and PBS, of course - where the junkies and the partisans can drink their fill...
...like all good metaphors, Gormenghast's works on other levels. To the tired bloodline of PBS-endorsed British programming, BBC America's appealing, often lacerating new-wave series are a Steerpike-like intruder. And for the delicate, powdered neck of proper Anglophile telly, the long knives...
...motivation behind the channel is not cultural rehabilitation but the chance to grab a piece of the lucrative American market. The BBC has long sold reruns to the likes of PBS and licensed programs for adaptations (All in the Family, for instance, was based on Till Death Us Do Part). "The BBC was very proud of its success on [American TV]," says Paul Lee, BBC America's chief operating officer. "But it had no equity stake." So the broadcaster--a public entity in Britain--negotiated an alliance with Discovery Communications, parent of Discovery and other channels, which helped launch...
...would have been easy to fill 24 hours with proven favorites. "People told me, 'The only things you can do are what you've already made a success of,'" Lee says. "Mysteries, classic dramas, maybe the more conservative sitcoms from PBS." Instead BBC America opted to distinguish itself with shows "closer to the new Beetle than to the Jaguar: vibrant, contemporary, different." While the network is not yet rated by Nielsen, it's the edgier programming--running in blocks called Cool Britannia and the Britcom Zone--that has inspired a dedicated audience following and critical praise. But the channel also...