The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 19

i THE GAZETTE, MONTREAL, TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 1990 7 Videotron's station switch takes its toll on pledges to Vermont ETV an CBC parliamentary reporter Don Newman. -r i rs -a Some good radio listening this evening: Prime Time (CBM-940 at 8:05) begins probing The Dark Side ofCelebri-ty. The documentary begins charmingly enough. The president of the Star Trek fan club in Houston talks about how much he loves the series, and we MIKE BOONE TV RADIO if they think Videotron subscribers are going to click off their cables and start messing around with UHF dials and loop antennas. Curran says Channel 33 has begun tightening its belt to cope with the fundraising shortfall.

Programming has been spared the scalpel, but there is a hiring freeze and "our development director is on her 19th temporary secretary" (life imitates Murphy Brown). While Vermont ETV pinches pennies, WCFE is planning where to spend its increased revenue. Channel 57 almost certainly will be broadcasting in stereo by September. The more immediate benefit for viewers is a longer WCFE daily schedule, beginning next month. One of Videotron subscribers' main beefs when the PBS station switch occurred was the short broadcast day on Channel 57.

Vermont ETVs late-night schedule includes an 1 1 p.m. movie, followed by repeats of prime-time series until 2 or 2:15 a.m. WCFE telecasts The Best of Your Show of Showsit 1 1 p.m., followed by a rerun of the evening's MacSeilLehm Newshour and a 12:30 a.m. sign-off. Channel 57 will launch a daily late movie in ApriL The station's post-prime time schedule will also include two British comedy series, Black Adder and Alio, Alb.

The package will push WCFE's sign-off to 2 a.m. an improvement for PBS-loving Videotron Pierre Trudeau You don't have to be a Mystery detective to solve the case of the missing PBS pledges. The annual March fundraising drives are over at Vermont ETV-33 and WCFE-57. To the surprise of no one, money raised by the Public Broadcasting Service station in Burlington, was less than in March 1989. The total was up, however, at the PBS station in Pittsburgh, N.Y.

Those are the clues, amateur sleuths: Vermont down, Pittsburgh up. Although neither station has done a detailed breakdown on the source of its funds, we can safely conclude that the changes are due to Videotron. Switch branded a catastrophe The Montreal cable company switched PBS stations just before Christmas, substituting WCFE for Channel 33. Suddenly deprived of access to about 600,000 Videotron subscribers in Montreal, Laval and on the South Sshore, Vermont ETV anticipated tough times during its March begathon. Hope Green, general manager of Channel 33, called the switch "a catastrophe." Green estimated that 25 per cent of her station's fundraising comes from Videotron subscribers, about 1 5,000 of whom are Vermont ETV members.

Green was on a post-pledge drive holiday yesterday. But Ann Curran, who handles PR for the Vermont PBS station, said Channel 33 had raised approximately $240,000 down from $327,000 a year ago. "We set a goal of $260,000 for the campaign, trying to factor in the reduced audience as best we could," Curran said. "Clearly there was some impact, and we are kind of relieved it wasn't worse. The most telling statistic is the percentage of Canadian pledges.

It was 37 per cent for this campaign, and typically that'll run 45 or 46 per cent." Meanwhile, across Lake Champlain in Pittsburgh, WCFE officials were still crunching numbers to determine how many new Canadian donors Channel 57 picked up during its drive. The station raised 124,600 up from $102,600 a year ago. The percentage of Channel 57 donors who are Canadians (in Quebec and Eastern Ontario) has gone from 53 per cent in March 1 989, to 70 per cent this year. Note that the year-to-year dollar loss at Vermont ETV is $87,000 while the gain at WCFE is $22,000. Assuming that the changes were the result of the cable company's manipulations, one can conclude that a significant number of Videotron subscribers are still so annoyed that Vermont ETV disappeared that they have not transferred their loyalty or their largesse to WCFE.

A vulnerable system This is yet another reason No. 3,587 if you're counting to hate your friendly local cable company. Videotron's channel switch seems to be resulting in a net money loss for perenially poor PBS. The company that fills its channel grid with dating services, real estate ads and all manner of unwatchable sewage is hurting a vulnerable system that provides some of the best television on TV. Vermont ETV has tried to target its members in Videotron areas with special mailings urging its missing Montrealers to pull in the distant Channel 33 signal on UHF antennas.

But given the passivity of TV viewers and their disinclination to get out of comfortable armchairs, Vermont ETV execs are dreaming hear a sound excerpt from his wedding vows, which included several references to Star Trek. Strange? You bet. But a Trekkie's enthusiasm is quite benign compared with the craziness that is turning star-stalking into a popular American pastime. Prime Time host Geoff Pevere quotes a chilling statistic: there are 200,000 people in the U.S. "wbose obsession with celebrity is unnatural." Kelly Lange, a local TV news anchor in Los Angeles, describes a fan who pursued her for five years, writing letters that became progressively more threatening and frightening because it was obvious he knew her schedule.

"This man had it down," Lange tells Prime Time. "He knew where I worked, had my hours It terrified me. If someone wants to kill you, they can." They can in the U.S., where guns are easily available and well oiled star-making machinery cranks out publicity about celebrities. "Never before," Pevere says, "have we had so much access to personal information about the stars." In many cases, the knowledge fuels resentment. Celebrity interviewers, such as Barbara Walters, play to viewers' anger by asking rude personal questions.

Take a short break from TV stars tonight to hear Prime Time's analysis of celebrity worshiphatred and what the phenomenon says about society. It must be rerun season: Trudeaumania is back on TV this week. Tonight at CFTM-10, Pierre Elliott Trudeau is interviewed by Pierre Nadeau. The former prime minister is uncharacteristically accessible these days because he is promoting the soon-to-be published Towards a Just Society: The Trudeau Years. The book tour takes Trudeau to Toronto on Thursday.

Newsworld, the CBC all-news channel, will be at Jarvis Collegiate at 1 1 a.m. for coverage of Trudeau's encounter with overmatched high school students. There will be tougher questions at 1 p.m., when News-world telecasts Trudeau's conversation with veter- Ckftfsrrnrtjfir' 4t Si Quebec silver on display in Washington i 1 11 Kl)H BK1J.E FOLK I Ull 4j (. 1U IfHrf iWl IMI III i i.i El -t CANADIAN PRESS J1 I i Maria Maples Letter reveals vain, Cyhill Shepherd Intimidated by pretentious personality marriage talk I ADVEtTtSiNC FILM FESTIVAL JI i. qi.

mf9t Wi ffWi JESSICA LANGE LLj 1 1 1 I I 3 'l' TI 1 WMSSgZJ ESSHEBBa iS ssssL; -T yP vrf-y mr" ra academy award -YS I I Ifesjg nominations 3 g-jj. wBlJj THE LITTLE iTTTCgti r. Km Hri it (SffSS BagHFta JOE VElSCs THE rihllll iLCSSECAinaSSl mnra-rS' VOLCANO U1 i NOMINATIONS ia w7m mmm Epgi gas mxl Maria Maples doesn't have the write stuff, 'expert' says WASHINGTON Mario B4-land still has vivid childhood memories of taking part in church processions through the streets of his native Grand'Mere. "I still remember looking up at the crucifix as I carried it," B6land says, recalling his days as an altar boy. "It seemed very exotic." Bcland has tried to bring that sense of exoticism to a show at the art gallery of the Canadian Embassy in Washington: a priceless collection of 1 8th-century silver used in Quebec homes and churches.

The collection of 35 pieces is on loan from the Musee du Quebec, where Beland is curator of early Quebec art. As guest curator for the embassy exhibit, which runs through June 15, Beland has used the silver works to tell a story about life in New France. "It was probably one of the most important art forms from that period," BeMand says. "There was sculpture, silver and painting, but silver was especially remarkable. It is very identifiable as Quebec art." Most of the surviving silver from that time has been handed down by the Catholic churches.

Religious objects make up the bulk of the show, but also included are silver trays, cups and bowls used in upper-class New France homes. "They were not so rich, but we have to change our mind about this period," Bcland says. "Often we think they were poor peasants with no culture, but that's not right. You can see they had very good taste." Early works were imported from France and the first Quebec silversmiths had to melt down coins to do their work. Early Quebec artists were influenced by the silversmiths of France, but they developed their own techniques.

i POUQ CAMILLI lem that could scuttle it. He's a hearty 81, I gather, but lenders and doctors get a bit touchy about these things. Watch this space for developments. "A DIVINILY FUNNY VITH Ah iTi'itllf I LOTS OF LAUGHS." I Clint Eastwood, a pilot, has just spent $500,000 on a nice new French-made helicopter. Bobby Orr turns 42 today.

mm.1 Oh, shut up: The Trump front was quiet last week no press conferences, counter-suits, casino openings, revelations, or catty remarks. So the New York Daily Sews was reduced to having some pretentious "expert" analyse the handwriting of the Other Woman in the case, noted bimbo Maria Maples. (Well, one of the Other Women, anyway.) How amazed are you to learn that her flamboyant way with the letter "tell us she is vain and pretentious, a theatrical creature who loves to dazzle and amuse society." What's more, it seems "there is a rich sensuality revealed in the sweeping tails of her Ys and Gs." BIB You may recall that Billy Idol was going to play Tom Baker, the best friend of Jim Morrison, in a big Hollywood movie about The Doors. But then Billy got himself banged up in a motorcycle accident. Turns out that Oliver Stone and the other people behind the picture can't wait till Billy is all mended and they have rewritten the script a bit so that he can play a movie director who hangs around with Morrison and the band, or some such gimmick.

David Lean, who has directed such mega-hit movies including Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge on the River Kwai, and Doctor Znivago, is preparing for yet another big project, a movie version of Joseph Conrad's novel Nostromo. (No, neither had But there's a catch: Lean can't get the money to go ahead with the irojcct until somebody assures the endcrs he's in good physical shape, wilt be able to see the project through and will insure the project against some kind of medical prob- CRUISINO BAR(Kjrrt) 1:04 3:0 OS NS TOLEHANCE (14 yrt) 100-lOS-SlO-TH-HO HUNS ON THE RUN mi STORY Of AN niiiiniiirrnmiirinu trw-duvai ROGER ETMOI(O) (o.v. Milh Fnnch tublillM) 1 20-3M-SM-? Wl-10 IfnmWmULMit 1cv.trnwiY. NUNS ON THt NUN (0) Oolby tl(f0 THX 1 15-1 No eoupont acctpttd MV LEFT FOOT (O. .) INCMIf A LOVE STONY yn) Dolby SIfo1 30 M- OO REVENGE (II in) Dolby tltroa 10-4 J0-700-JJ I ic.

on Morch 2J I 40 10 K0 No Coupon acetpltd Nov mowing at: Cyblll Shepherd, twice married and twice divorced, is spending every available moment with L.A. lawyer Frank Smith. She is telling friends that they have talked about marriage but she is a little intimidated by the prospect. I don't know how many times Frank has already been to the altar. MYSTERY TRAIN (Q) to t.

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Hew thommg it: Wo eoupont acttpttd PLACE ALEXIS NIHON, POINTE-CLAIRI ASTRE Last summer Don Johnson and somebody called Jennifer Connelly filmed a movie down in Texas. The Hot Spot, which I gather still hasn't been released, apparently had some pretty steamy bedroom scenes. So who was that woman Don was dining with in New York the other night? Good guess. And where was his wife, Mclanie Griffith? Yes indeed, out in L.A. Naaah.

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