ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 18, 1996 TAG: 9604180034
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: CARL HARTMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
A new cable channel devoted to art, plays and classical and jazz music is coming soon to television sets across the country, with programs from all over the world.
Ovation, which begins operations Sunday and will be on the air seven days a week, 20 hours a day, is headed by J. Carter Brown, who President Clinton recently reappointed as chairman of the U.S. Commission on Fine Arts. sports or all weather,'' said Brown, who directed the National Gallery of Art in Washington for 23 years.
Brown is convinced the potential audience is there - and that the competition is meager.
He noted that Bravo, which also does arts programming, has been devoting more time lately to films and that the Arts and Entertainment network runs to mysteries, adventure and documentaries.
In April, about 400,000 households will be able to see Ovation's shows in local areas from Connecticut to California, including Fairfax County, Va. and Indianapolis.
Ovation's first program tonight will be a documentary on cellist Yo-Yo Ma and his contacts with the Bushmen who live in the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa. Next is a session of Irish music and a profile of James McNeill Whistler, who lived in London when he did the famous portrait of his mother.
The first week of programming also includes profiles on two Americans - Fats Waller, the jazz pianist, and Jackson Pollack, the abstract painter sometimes called ``Jack the Dripper.''
More Americans go to arts events and museums than to sports contests, the National Endowment for the Arts calculates.
It sponsored a 1993 survey, based on Census Bureau figures, indicating that 76.2 million adults had visited an art museum, a classical concert or a ballet performance at least once during the year before, while only 68.7 million had gone to a sports event.
And, adds Tom Bradshaw, the endowment's researcher, ``The price of a museum ticket doesn't go up nearly as fast as sports tickets do.''
Like other cable channels, Ovation will collect both from advertisers and local distributors of its programs. Distributors will pay an average of 8.5 cents per subscriber. Advertising would have to build up for several years before it provides a comparable income.
Investors who contributed to the $20 million financing include the New York Times Co., Time Warner Cable and Agnes Gund, president of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Their money is expected to keep the channel going for another 21/2 years until advertising revenue builds up.
The channel has no government subsidy.
Commercials will be limited and won't interrupt opera arias, said Patricia MacEwan, a spokeswoman at the program's Alexandria, Va., headquarters.
Backers hope for a potential audience of 3 million by the end of the first year, 6.5 million the second year and 14 million the third year.
Ovation still is looking for a cable outlet in the nation's largest market, New York, where Time Warner has 77 channels but hasn't yet found room for it.
LENGTH: Medium: 61 linesby CNB