Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 30, 1994                   TAG: 9411300071
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PUBLIC TV SEEN AS A 'BEACON'

But speaking in Roanoke on Tuesday, the Public Broadcasting Service president and CEO rejected a reporter's question about whether commercial TV programs are a cause or effect.

"It's impossible to answer than question. The relevant question is whether broadcasters will choose to be a mirror or a beacon."

His contention is that the television stations served by PBS "have a great opportunity to be a beacon that challenges us to a higher set of values" and not simply reflect society at large.

Duggan spoke at the annual luncheon for underwriters of programming on Blue Ridge Public Television. The regional public-television outlet broadcasts over Channel 15 in Roanoke, Channel 47 in Norton and Channel 52 in Marion.

PBS is a national corporation that provides programming services, similar to a commercial television network's, to independent public television stations. It is funded primarily by fees or "assessments" to member stations. About 14 percent of its $162million annual budget comes through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is funded primarily by federal tax dollars.

Duggan, a former commissioner with the Federal Communications Commission, was joined by former Virginia Gov. Gerald Baliles, now chairman of the board of PBS. Both men were encouraging continued financial sponsorship of regional public television.

Duggan outlined the "triple crises" he sees facing the nation: There is a crisis of access to and quality of education; a "coarsening and vulgarization of culture," as seen in exploitative television talk and quasi-news shows; and a crisis of citizenship in which civil discourse "free of bitterness" is being lost.

Public television is one of the few institutions capable of addressing all three of those crises, Duggan asserted. Its educational programming helps children and adults, supplementing and in some cases supplanting classroom experiences.

The audience for "The MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour" has grown dramatically in recent years, while commercial network news viewership has dropped, he said.

And Duggan contended that PBS documentaries have covered controversial political and social issues that commercial broadcast and cable operations are afraid to cover for fear of alienating advertisers.

In answer to a question from the floor, Duggan said he would work to convince the new congressional leadership that a suggested privatization of the national public-television system would be counterproductive.

Though he sees public television remaining primarily a broadcast medium for the foreseeable future, Duggan said PBS already is discussing the implementation of a "Horizon Cable Network" that would be a "C-SPAN of the imagination and intellect." Instead of putting cameras in congressional hearing rooms and legislative chambers, the Horizon network would place cameras "in the lecture halls and the recital halls of college campuses."