Argus-Leader from Sioux Falls, South Dakota • Page 62

f2G LIFEFEATURES Argus Leader, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Sunday, April 20. 1997 Stewart: Cooking to gardens popPen: Makes Fox programming fit family Continued from 1 "Sho rpallv Hrws opt nn at 4 a tn ar Continued from 1G "She really does get up at 4 a.m. Continued from 1G "We were taken more seriously immediately," Poppen says. "It's been a pain a lot of the time. It was a real learning lesson," Bob Elmen says.

"But Chuck is one of those people that falls into the thing of wanting to do something. In Chuck's case, he wanted to run a TV station." Fox and KTTW Fox stgns on the air in October 1 986 with a late-night talk show hosted by Joan Rivers, it died a quick death. The network's first prime time broadcast is "Married With Children" on April 5, 1 987, a Sunday night. Within weeks, several new shows are added to the Sunday-only network, including "The Tracey Ullman Show," which features 30-second animated spots by "The Simpsons," who would later get their own show. KTTW goes on the air as a Fox affiliate in Sioux Falls on May 29, 1 987.

Fall 1994: Fox outbids CBS for programming rights for NFL football. April 1 995: KTTW moves its offices to current location on West 1 1 th Street Fall 1 996: Fox airs World Series. January: Fox airs Super Bowl. r. 'Anaconda (PG-13) 1 15, 3:15, 5:15, 7:30, 9:30 have to worry," he says.

Ed Hoffman, who doubles as the station's marketing and programming director, says his boss isn't simply giving lip service to the families-first issue. It's true not only in the programs that are on the air, but in the community work that KTTW does, he notes. KTTW's just-completed Family Fair is now in its third year, and the station is a sponsor of the annual Zoo Boo at the Great Plains Zoo and Delbridge Museum. "In the wintertime on a snow day when we know a lot of kids are confined to the house, we'll take a look at the talk shows. If we feel a specific subject matter might not be appropriate, we'll pre-empt it," Hoffman says.

"There's been times when I've been tempted to put things on the air to garner some numbers, but Chuck holds his ground. He won't do it." Poppen's success ties in directly with the rise of the Fox network. "The Simpsons," "The X-Files" and "Beverly Hills, 90210" all have been ratings smashes. But the addition of sports was the kicker particularly NFL football. The English Patient (R) 800 liar, liar (PG-13) dts 1 00.

3 00. 5 00,7 00.9 00 and wash the deck," said a New York ad man who knows Stewart casually. "Most people I know like that would be on Thorazine." She is a model of efficiency as a hostess. During a luncheon at one of her East Hampton homes to announce the Kmart deal, she maintained an animated dining-table conversation while scanning the room with her dark brown eyes and giving small hand signals directing the staff to dirty plates or empty water glasses. Martha Stewart Living, pretty to behold but costly to produce, finally turned a profit in 1996, its sixth year.

Magazines typically lose money for several years after start-up but can garner immense profits afterward, especially if they keep growing. MSL's growth has been spectacular. Circulation climbed 39.7 percent in 1996 by far the biggest gain among magazines selling 1 million or more, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Although Stewart's magazine readership is mainly upper-income professional women, she is not content with just that niche. Her goal is to marry class to mass.

Thus, she sees the Kmart deal as perfectly logical and shrugs off the notion that associating with a price cutter will somehow rub the veneer off her gilded image. "How else could I reach 77 million people?" she asked as she hosted a reporter in her unadorned office in midtown Manhattan. For marketing strategy, she consults herself. She's a reader, and experience has taught her that if something interests her, it will interest millions more. What interests Stewart these days is technology.

In a recent letter to readers, she noted: "Now, a single human being, have six personal fax numbers, 14 personal phone numbers, seven car-phone numbers, and two cell-phone numbers." As ever, Stewart has a full platter. Double Team (R) bass in a rock roll band during his college years at the University of North Dakota and moved to Sioux Falls in 1973. He spent the next decade raising a family and learning the business of broadcasting. Both of those elements the family and the industry came together when Poppen assembled a plan for KTTW in the mid-'80s. He launched the station when he was 34, when his children were still small.

You might say that he programmed the station with his family in mind. He bought rights to the shows that he liked and those that he thought were safe for his kids. Poppen had two credos back then. One, the station would be run by South Dakotans. He didn't want out-of-state investors, because he felt KTTW would better serve the community if it were owned locally.

Two, no matter what Fox put on the air, KTTW's local programming would be safe for the family. Especially in the early days, those local choices were vital. Nationally, Fox didn't grow to a seven-night network until 1993. That gave Poppen a wide open schedule to fill. Even today.

Fox provides just 15 hours of weekly prime time programming, not counting sports. If he didn't offer educational programming, he would at least put on the kind of entertainment "I Dream of Jeannie," "Dark Shadows" and even a boatload of Minnesota Twins games during the early years that wouldn't be harmful to children. As much as anything, he's proud that he's been able to stick to that principle. "Fox takes over our programming at 7 at night, and there's nothing I can do about that. After 7, our shows are as racy as ever.

But during the day, people can tune into our channel and parents don't 4 15,9 40 The Devils Own (R) 115, 7 15 Inventing the Abbots (R) 1 30,4 00 Return of the Jedi (PG) 1 10, 4 10, 7 10. 9 45 build her magazine, Martha Stewart Living, into what real estate and publishing tycoon Mortimer Zuckerman calls "one of the most remarkable growth stories in magazine history." The 2.3 million-circulation magazine feeds a mail-order business Martha by Mail that allows Stewart to test-market products and hone her retailing skills. There is a nationally syndicated newspaper advice column and a popular line of decorating, cooking and gardening books, many recycling material from the magazine. Stewart even has created two lines of wall paint upscale and not-so whose colors pop up regularly in the magazine's decorating features. All the ventures even the planned high-tech ones serve a Stewart aesthetic that emphasizes natural ingredients, earth tones, laboriously hand-made gifts and decorations, and a perfectionism that extends to the tiniest details.

Extremism in pursuit of homely virtue has made Stewart a fat target for parody, examples of which flood the Internet, newsstands and television. No fewer than three network sitcom pilots are in the works, based on Stewartlike characters. Her less humorous critics never fail to point out that her own domestic bliss was marred by a nasty divorce. Stewart has spent her career transforming herself into a brand name that serves as the fulcrum for an array of media and merchandising ventures. And like Walt Disney, she must devise a strategy to wean Martha Stewart the brand from its dependence on Martha Stewart the person.

On the job, Stewart is by all accounts a demanding boss. Former employees have told tales of her micromanagement and tirades when orders aren't carried out perfectly. But she also has attracted a well-regarded corps of designers, photographers and other creative people. "What hard-driving, ambitious person is not said to be a control freak?" asked action-movie producer Joel Silver Hard," "Lethal a Stewart friend whose Frank Lloyd Wright house in South Carolina was the setting for a Thanksgiving feature in Martha Stewart Living. During waking hours, she is never idle, and she is famously stingy with sleep, allowing herself only four or five hours a night.

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I Sun. MMrwm OnM Sat. Sun. Matinees Only (1:30 4:30 at $3.75) 7:00, 9:40 (1:15 $3.75, 3:15 4 5:15 9 $3.00) 7:30, 9:30 (1:30 4:30 $3.75) 7:30, 9:30 WE'D DO IT IF UJE COULD. Wouldn't it be great if airplanes worked like taxis and picked you up at your door? Of course, the 9,000 foot driveway and the noise level might be a bit inconvenient.

What is convenient is flying from the Sioux Falls Airport at Joe Foss Field. There's easy access from I-29 and 1-90. No traffic. Abundant, inexpensive parking. Plus scheduled jet service from major carriers that can take you where you want to go and bring you home again.

Well, pretty close to home. A lot closer that any other airport, anyway. And we'd drop you off at your door if we could do it without bothering the neighbors. 'SfouxfZiffs. Call your travel professional or airline for flight and fare information.

in South Dakota Northwest Northwest Airlink TWA United United Express Downtown The Empire.