Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 84

8G April 3, 1983 Minneapolis Tribune COLEMAN: 'Shoestring' reputation haunts WTCN-TV 4 1 ingness to make it work, to get into the horse race." The Gannett Broadcasting Group, which owns six other TV stations, is a division of Gannett the giant newspaper publisher, which counts the St. Cloud Dally Times among its holdings. It also owns USA Today, the new national newspaper dubbed "MePaper" by some critics due to its resemblance to a fast-food restaurant offering a smorgasbord of short, catchy items. But Sieger, the Gannett group's vice president for news, said Ch. 11 will not become "McTV Station." And he said Gannett's approach to TV Journalism has changed since a few years ago, when it was reputed to value flash and sizzle more than the basics.

year or two. You can't change viewing habits overnight; you can't gain trust overnight. It doesn't happen that way." (KSTP's news director, Dennis Her-zig, declined comment, but in doing so he paid WTCN a back-handed compliment. "I'm not going to give advice to my competitors," Herzig said. Ch.

li hasn't been granted that status very often by Chs. 4 and 5). Few immediate changes are likely to be noticed by viewers. So far, Gannett has announced only that it's bringing in a new station manager, Joe Franzgrote. He's coming from Gannett's Denver station, KBTV-TV, which is tops In that market and wins nearly half of the Denver news audience.

And WTCN's news director, Chuck Biechlin, Is likely to be replaced soon, perhaps by KBTV's "Our approach to news is more is-' sue-orlented than Sieger said. "We don't cover things' just because they happen; we like to" take a look at how events fit into something broader." Sieger is angered by some critics who call Gannett's news philosophy "news by the numbers." I "That's a very unfair kind of thing that has absolutely nothing to de with what we've done," Sieger "It raggles me. If research shows our audience wants bodies In the streets, 1 that doesn't mean we show rapes and murders In the first two parts" Gl the show. i "We pay more attention to the than the sizzle. We're the new neigh--" bor, but we're not transients.

We're i here to stay." i From IG of life for Ch. 11, a fact that is due. In large part, to the station's past mistakes and the reputation it has learned as the poor man's news station that always turns up on a story a day late and a dollar short, if it turns up at all. Much of that reputation can be traced back to the years when the station was an independent with a shoestring news operation. More of it can be traced to the fiasco that oc-' curred in 1979, when the station joined NBC and Metromedia prom- ised a revamped, "million-dollar" news operation that would be on a par with the news operations at Chs.

4 and 5. The make-over failed spectacularly and there was so much turnover among news, directors, anchormen and reporters that viewers lured by the promotional campaign got dizzy and turned back to KSTP and WCCO. That syndrome Is so ingrained by now that you could light a small city with the energy spent by viewers getting up from their sofas to turn Ch. 11 off at news-time. In the last ratings survey, for example, an average of 225,000 Twin Cities' households were tuned to Ch.

on Thursday nights for NBC's popu-. lar series, "Hill Street Blues." But the moment the show ended at 10 p.m., the station's viewing audience dropped to 90,000 homes. And that was still 20,000 more than its average weekday audience at 10 p.m. And things have been getting worse since last August, when the sale of the station to Gannett was announced. Metromedia has had very little reason to invest any more dollars In personnel or equipment at WTCN during the seven months it has taken the Federal Communications Commission to approve the sale.

And Gannett can't do anything i until it legally takes control of the station. "It's awful," one longtime WTCN employee said last week of the bleak transition period. "The joke has been, 'Will the glue and Band-Aids that are keeping this station together hold until Gannett gets blowing bugles about Its news operation like Metromedia did in 1979. Instead, Gannett probably will spend a few months analyzing its new station and trying to figure out the Twin Cities' news market before moving, by sometime next fall, to change the station's image and beef up its newsroom. Davidson, the Gannett group's president; said Gannett recognizes that it may take years for WTCN to become a true competitor to Chs.

4 and 5. But he said that Gannett is taking over the station with the sincere intent of turning it into a major force in the Twin Cities' news market. coming in here humbly with the understanding that we have a lot of problems and trying to figure out what we have to do in order to do a good news job," Davidson said. "Gannett is in the news business, and that's what we're proud of. We better have the best source of local news and Information that we can offer to the public or else we're down the drain.

We're coming in here to stay and we want to be part of the community." Gannett has commissioned a market-' lng survey of the area but doesn't plan to hire a news consultant to help design a new news format for WTCN. Davidson wouldn't say how much Gannett plans to spend in adding new staff and equipment or in promoting the station. But he did say that a million dollars, as in the "million-dollar" newscast ballyhooed at WTCN four years ago, Is "peanuts." "We're going to come to town to do the news," Davidson said. "We're going to bring the resources to do what we need to be a competitive news operation and give the viewers three choices. And we have the resources to do that." Gannett probably will have to use a lot of those resources if it wants WTCN to have an impact in the mar- -ket, its competitors say.

"Most knowledgeable observers would say that to correct the situation at WTCN is really a 3-to-5-year project," said Reid Johnson, news director at WCCO. "They're going "to have to decide what they want to do and stick with it and not panic after they don't become a close No. 3 in a 1 1 1 mi li-. nn nn mm Join our Cone Club! Get a free cone when your Cone Club Card is Med. We'll stamp your card each time you buy a cone.

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Over the long run, WTCN Is likely to expand its newscasts (it only does an hour of local news now, compared with two hours by WCCO and KSTP); double its staff of reporters, producers and photographers; make use of Gannett's Washington bureau, which now serves three other stations; and perhaps even add a high-ticket item like a news helicopter that would increase its visibility. All of these prospects have caused a lot of excitement and nervousness among the ranks of TV journalists out on Hwy. 55 and Boone Av. "Most people around here think it's going to be good," said one WTCN veteran. "People hope Gannett will have a better philosophy about news than Metromedia, where they just schedule 'MAS'H' and 'Family Feud' and stick some news in between.

We hope they're going to be interested in spot news and getting to stories more than we are now with our 'Mary-Tyler-Moore' approach to the news: 'Oh, we missed the story? Oh, that's too Another employee said: "Everybody's very anxious and -very nervous 'about hanging onto their jobs. We feel we gof dumped on our butts when we tried to be a news station four years ago, and we look to Gannett as a savior. From that standpoint, there is excitement and a will- have it After a year, the Pittsburgh company began having problems, and Bowles and many 1 other company members left. He returned to Minneapolis, his adopted home, in the summer of 1977 and discovered opportunities for black actors at both Mixed (Blood and Penumbra theaters. He joined Mixed Blood and directed "Joanne," and has been there ever since.

He has played Candlde, Lord Chaos in "Warp" and numerous other parts, including his just-completed dual roles in "Kabuki Spectacle." When he arrived at Mixed Blood he was struck more by its dedication than skill. "It reminded me very much of the situation I had come from in Pittsburgh. It was a close company, learning to work well together. I could see there was a lot of room for Improvement, but I liked the dedication and the fact that Jack (Reuler, Mixed Blood founder) was really committed to make a go of the theater. The long-term goal was to keep improving, and I liked that." Bowles says he has no plans to leave Mixed Blood in the near future, though he knows he probably will have to move on eventually.

"As long as the theater continues to grow as we are growing, then I am satisfied. I worry about being associated with one place too long and eventually there will come a time when I will have to move on," he said. Until that time, Bowles will continue to wake up in the morning and won- der which personality will claim his body that day. Museum names curator Mark Rosenthal has been named curator of 20th century art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Rosenthal, currently a curator at the University Art Museum in Berkeley, will assume his new position in July.

John Bachman The problems have been compounded by the fact that Metromedia ordered two rounds of budget cuts during the past few years, forcing reductions in the news staff and further hampering the station's news coverage. At this point, the station only has about 40 people on its news staff, compared with about 100 each on the payrolls of Chs. 4 and 5. (Metromedia hasn't been totally inactive since the Gannett purchase was announced. WTCN's management sent all of its on-air talent to a noted Minneapolis hair stylist and to a makeup specialist in an effort to get the staff all gussied up for the station's new beau, Gannett.) Gannett is planning to turn the situation around.

But it won't come in Onstage, thought of himself as a great mind. He had much more sense of personal pride. "I want both shows to be forceful. Robeson Is more forceful as a person, but for King, his own life was forceful, not his personality. Yes, the King show is definitely my favorite, but I really enjoy performing Robeson, Bpwles has discovered in performing the Robeson play that the famed black singer and actor has been virtually expunged from the nation's memory.

Robeson, who was a victim of the purges of the House Un-American Activities Committee In the 1950s, refused to capitulate to its charges and spent most, of his final years in Europe. "He's gone. It's incredible but Robeson has been virtually written out of history," Bowles said. "You can't find out anything about him anymore. And when we offer the show to schools, many times we get the reply, 'Who is Robinson has been a different story.

Bowles and the famed Dodgers second baseman have so far eluded each other. "I did 'Jackie Robinson' sporadically this year and I realized I never got comfortable with him. But I will get there the same as I have gotten there with the King show," he said. Bowles began Tils acting career in his living room in Dodge City, where the legend of Wyatt Earp still lives, he said. Bowles even worked with the legendary marshal's grand-niece.

His first stage appearance was before an appreciative audience of town women attending meetings of his mother's Appreciation of Fine Arts group. "I did a little monologue. I must have been 8 or 9 at the time," he recalled. "I still have a fairly vivid picture of the audience reaction, and I loved It." But Bowles found an even more theatrical world in the Catholic church, where he served as an altar-boy and acolyte and was fascinated with the ritual and costuming. miliums SUNDAY BLOOMINGTON the eyes "Church was the best theater by far.

It was a great show and I loved it." Bowles's father died when Bowles was young and he was raised by his mother, whose cultural interests spread to her only child. "My mother was great at handicrafts. She did tremendous crocheting and needlework. She always had that artistic flair. She had a real artistic bent, but she got arthritis real bad and couldn't walk for a while," he said.

When Bowles graduated from high school, he went to Notre Dame University, where he planned to major in languages. In his sophomore year, be began to have some doubts. "I spent a year abroad in France and I came back and I looked at the Russian alphabet and said, 'No, I had done a lot of theater and the thought of becoming a high school French teacher didn't cut it at that point," he said. He switched to theater, and when he graduated, he received a Ford Foundation grant for further study. He wound up at the University of Minnesota in the theater department.

There he studied and acted. One of his major roles was Iago to Lou Bellamy's Othello. Bellamy is artistic director of Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul and frequently acts with Bowles at Mixed Blood. Bowles also tried his skills at local community theaters, but after four years left to begin the itinerant career of an aspiring actor.

He taught in Florida and Illinois and soon found himself in Pittsburgh, where he joined the Pittsburgh City Players, a group that performed primarily In parks and community centers. There he met Steve Pierson, a Californlan who makes yearly trips to the Twin Cities to direct shows at Mixed Blood. (Pierson is directing Bowles's latest performance In "Happy Birthday Freddie," a bizarre comedy now at Mixed Blood.) BOWLES: From lG Softball game or working on a character in rehearsal, Bowles doesn't ruffle. His smile is an easy and often occupant of his broad, handsome face. Anger does not come easily to its expanse.

Bowles does not have the sharp, eccentric features of an actor's face. He can't rely on an angular nose or jutting jaw to etch his emotions. Instead, he seems to rely on his eyes. They are dark, sensitive gates to a broad sense of humor and righteous anger. Bowles's portraits of King and Robeson show how effective the actor can be in softening and hardening characters, primarily through vocal intensity and the glint of his eyes.

When Bowles walks out on stage as King, his physical appearance differs little from his appearance as Robeson. Yet, almost Immediately, one notes the contrast. Where Bow les's King is quietly determined, his Robeson flashes defiance and independence. The spirit in King's eyes is tempered with resignation. Robeson brooks no compromise.

Fire flashes from his eyes. He courts confrontation. King seeks reconciliation. Not surprisingly, the gentle Bowles prefers King as a subject to the fiery Robeson. His one-hour portrait of King was the first entry in his growing gallery.

He and director Claude Purdy adapted an existing script, and Bowles has been performing it since 1979. A year later, he added his abbreviation of Philip Hayes Dean's script about Robeson, and this year Jackie Robinson hung his uniform on the wall. Bowles has yet to know Robinson. He seems uncomfortable with Robeson's anger. It is King who claims his "With King, it's the real sense of his commitment, and yet the humility of the man," Bowles explained.

"He was such a hard worker and had such a commitment to peace and people. But he always tried to keep It in perspective, and not once did he depart from the Idea. "With Robeson he had such a great mind. He was always aware that he o.l 'I'i 8v COUPON BREAKFAST SPECIALS Our famous Embers breakfast of I. pancaxes or toast 2 eggs hash browns I gul I with bacon or sausaaeSl.99 or 50 off any omelette Iiiivbv binvei oieaKTlw specials good from 12 midnight to 11:00 1 dally.

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