The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 62

I Hfc BUSVIUN GLOBE 1HUKSUAY, AUGUST 4, 1914 r. i TV and NBC pays top dollar Radio to stay on VHF dial NBC said it was 'happy to be back in business with Ed Ansin, one of the most innovative broadcasters in It was only five years ago that NBC jOted Ansin's Miami station. ED ANSIN ings performance. However, because NBC was facing the prospect of searching for a new Boston affiliate on the lower-powered UHF dial (which might have cost it precious ratings points), it was difficult to put a price on affili-. ation with WHDH.

That's what NBC, ABC and CBS have been discovering in other markets in recent weeks, since rival Fox launched its May raid that bumped networks from their affiliates in several big cities. NBC was forced to negotiate with WHDH after Group Television which owns WBZ-TV (Ch. 4), NBCs current Boston affiliate announced a 10-year affiliation deal with CBS last month. NBC wouldn't comment on the compensation figures. Neither would Ed Ansin, Sunbeam's president, though he did acknowledge that the timing of Sunbeam's purchase of the station last year for $215 million was "most fortunate." Indeed.

In the estimation of Paul La Camera, general manager of rival WCVB-TV (Ch. 5), WHDH "is worth at least $100 million more today than when Sunbeam took it over a year ago, because of this extraordinary turn of events." La Camera isn't just speculating, since television stations are commonly valued at 10 times cash flow. "I've heard of similar increases in other regions," said the general manager of another network affiliate By Frederic M. Biddle GLOBE STAFF IV one's calling it a record. But ill the immense sum NBC will pay as part of the 10-vear affiliation deal with WHDH-TV (Ch.

7) that was announced Tuesday further proves how valuable VHF television stations have become to the networks in recent weeks. NBC wifl pay Sunbeam Television the station's owner, a total of $100 million to $150 million oyer the next 10 years, said industry sbutces who requested anonymity. A "balloon" provision will increase annual payments in the later years of the affiliation agreement, these sources said, meaning that the payment will be at least 10 times the $1 million to $1.25 million a year that CBS, WHDH's current network, pays the station. A 10- to 15-fold increase for the privilege of renting time on a local station might seem to defy logic. After all, NBC with its valuable lineup, including everything from Patriots football games to Jay Leno will be the engine that should boost WHDH's own most profitable programs: its newscasts.

And the station shares with NBC the revenues from commercial time sold on network programs, too. And, unlike some affiliation agreements, the one struck between WHDH and NBC doesn't even link payments to rat rights to show New England Patriots football games this fall. Group Television officials were to meet in Philadelphia today to discuss several issues involving the company's TV stations, including the switch in Boston. Meanwhile, back in the world of what's already been on: July's Nielsen ratings, which closed yesterday and are to be announced today by Boston's stations, show that WHDH's newscast beat WBZ's at noon and 5:30 p.m., though Channel 7 still trails Channel 4 at 6 and 11 p.m. Channel 5 maintained its rating lead at 6 and 11 p.m.

70s cyborgs return to TV CBS has announced that the $6 million man and the bionic woman live! Yes, Lee Majors will be back as astronaut Steve Austin, and Lindsay Wagner will return as rebuilt tennis pro Jamie Sommers, in a two-hour movie called "Bionic Breakdown," scheduled to air Oct. 25. Joining an estimated $12 million worth of ham at the reunion will be Richard Anderson, who played Oscar Goldman, their boss at the top-secret Office of Strategic Information (OSI) in the old series. Weather Sioux novelist bridges a divide in the self Michael Sloan, who wrote the pilot for "The Equalizer" series, wrote the "Breakdown" script, in which the two early-model cyborgs "find love again," the only hint of a plotline CBS was offering. Majors starred in the ABC series between January 1974 and March 1978; Wagner appeared as Steve's girlfriend before getting her own spin-off series in 1976 on ABC.

She moved to NBC in 1977 for one last season. The last time we saw Majors, co-starring in the short-run "Raven" series on CBS in 1992, he was a little plump to be jumping over medium-sized buildings and outracing sports cars. Maybe he gets a desk job in the reunion. WASHINGTON POST NATIONAL FORECAST infkwJS- iuus s. cgjus CSKS Pressure Center 90s! A Ni-T1 Houston IS il VT Pressure Center Warm front vgsui ft Ill mltmmmmmm Mostly hot, hazy sunshine, high 93 70s mt X- fqrv Alternating I LJ-f shaded and bneans? on e-'-xSL show areas wp of common temperature CoM Front Forecast for 2 pm EDT.

TMap 1994 Weather Services Corp. in southern New England, who asked not to be named. "Writh everybody grabbing VHF affiliates all over the place, and given what NBC was facing in Boston, it's not out of the question." The deal between NBC and WHDH even overcame hard feelings over the network's past dealings with Sunbeam. In a press release, NBC said it was "happy to be back in business with Ed Ansin, one of the most innovative broadcasters in television." It was only five years ago that NBC jilted Sunbeam's WSVN-TV Miami, now a Fox affiliate, in favor of WTVJ, a former CBS affiliate that it purchased. Asked about the irony Tuesday night, Ansin said, "As I always say, Boston isn't Miami It certainly didn't get in the way." The hangup over exactly when WHDH and WBZ will switch networks remains unresolved.

CBS, NBC, and the owners of both stations must agree and as of yesterday, Group which owns Ch. 4, was still hanging tough for a January switch. As Sunbeam's Ansin said in a press conference that the switch would happen sometime between the end of August and January 1995, WBZ was reporting a January date. Both Sunbeam and Group would like to profit from NBC's In 1987, her mother sent her a clipping about the Iowa Writers' Workshop, incubator for many successful fiction writers. "It sounded like mecca," she says.

"It was the only place I wanted to go, the only place I applied." She was accepted; not only that, she received a complete scholarship based on an assessment of her work. "I was writing short stories at Iowa," she says, "with no idea of writing a novel. In 1992 I was in the hospital, having an emergency appendectomy. I had had a lot of morphine, and I had an image of an older Indian woman, in Sioux regalia, dancing on the moon. Days later, I wrote 'Moonwalk' I knew it was going to be part of a novel." The story, about a woman whose grandson, moments after her death, sees her walking on the moon on television with Armstrong and Aldrin, became a chapter in "The Grass Dancer." Power received her master's degree in fiction writing from Iowa in 1992, stayed on for a year on a special fellowship, then received a Bunting Fellowship at Radcliffe, where she is now working on her second novel, "War Bundles," set in the world of urban Indians.

Through faculty connections at Iowa, "The Grass Dancer" found its way to an agent, then to an editor at G. B. Putnam. Putnam is giving the book an unusually strong promotional push for a first novel, sending Power on a 20-city tour. Foreign rights have been sold in eight countries.

Though she feels close to her Indian roots and identity, Susan Power is still clearly at a remove from the people of the old Sioux ways; she's a modern American, after all, and the 19th-century Indians in "The Grass Dancer" seem less fully realized than their contemporary descendants. Even so, she does not feel that the people of the old way and their traditions are inaccessible to her. "I never feel it is so distant," she says. "I was raised listening to stories about the ancestors, stories passed down from generation to generation. It's not hard to imagine and put yourself in others' shoes at another time, what they must have thought and felt.

Not that I necessarily always got it right, but I was not afraid to imagine." Power seems happy and relaxed, as well she might be. It's the perfect time in a writer's career: first book published, a second on the way, visions of a bright future. She's not worried about reviews, she says, and has no fear of writer's block or a dry-ing-up of creative juices. "I'll keep writing, no matter what happens," she says. "I get excited about the work: That's where the joy is for me.

I never get blocked, I never procrastinate. I always have the next idea and the next idea." Part of that equanimity may come from feel ing rooted in tradition. "I live a life that's going fonrartTin muses, "yet my mind is going 3 12 p.m. WMSX (1410 AM) Mark Snyder goes to Gilligan's Island. Guests are Bob (Gilligan) Denver, Russel (Professor) Johnson and Dawn (Maryanne) Wells.

1 p.m. WMSX (1410 AM) Mindy Jackson. First-hour guest Sarah Pitzer talks about the spirit of Southern hospitality today. Then Lorraine Carly of the Department of Social Services discusses social workers' case overload. 6 p.ra.

WSSH (1510 AM) The Right Side with Armstrong Williams. Guest is Republican Sen. Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming. 9 p.m. WBZ (1030 AM) David Brudnoy.

Guest Dan Gross discusses Ross Perot Noon WUMB (91.9 FM) Live at Noon. Folk duo Amy Leslie provide live music and conversation. 9 p.m. WCRB (102.5 FM) St. Paul inamoer urcnestra.

uoncertos by Handel, Geminiani and Vivaldi. Thursday, August 4, 1994 (EDT) Sunrise 5:40 Moonrise 2:56 A.M. Sunset 8:00 Moonset 5:56 P.M. Length of day 14:20 Day of year 216 A.M. P.M.

HIGH 9:50 10:00 Hgt. of tide 8.5 9.9 LOW TIDE 3:36 3:43 Hgt. of low tide 1.0 1.5 MOON'S PHASES Pint Full Last Ntw (DOCDO Aug Aug Aug Aug 14 21 29 7 EVENING STARS AND PLANETS Face east hght after dusk and look very high. The brightest star nearly overhead is Vega. Off to its lower left is Deneb, and farther to its lower right is Altair.

Bright Jupiter is low in the southwest. SOURCE: Alan MacRobert Tomorrow Frcst High shwrs pcldy pcldy tstms tstms shwrs pcldy tstms tstms pcldy pcldy pcldy tstms shwrs tstms tstms pcldy pcldy pcldy tstms pcldy tstms sunny pcldy pcldy shwrs pcldy pcldy tstms pcldy pcldy pcldy tstms tstms sunny sunny tstms sunny pcldy tstms pcldy pcldy sunny pcldy pcldy shwrs tstms pcldy pcldy pcldy shwrs pcldy tstms pcldy tstms pcldy tstms sunny sunny sunny pcldy pcldy pcldy pcldy pcldy pcldy pcldy pcldy tstms 75 91 71 80 86 82 96 85 87 83 CLIMATE DATA 8 p.m. EDT Wednesday, August 3, 1994 BOSTON TEMPERATURES High yesterday 87 Low 70 Mean 79 Departure from normal ...5 Departure this month 19 92 78 89 81 73 75 69 90 92 88 76 73 96 75 86 70 88 89 91 75 89 94 79 109 87 86 78 86 91 71 75 84 88 84 89 89 76 93 84 108 71 77 89 86 87 94 98 76 68 74 85 78 94 80 104 87 87 Departure this year ....149 Record high for today 96 in 1928. Record low for today 52 in 1900 BOSTON COOLING DEGREE-DAYS Degree-day units 14'' lotai mis Total for season 693 luiat corres. uaie lasi year 3.

30-vr. normal, corres date 402. BOSTON HEATING DEGREE-DAYS Degree-day units 0,. Total this month 0.. Total for season 1 Total corres.

date last 3 30-yr. normal, corres date. 0' BOSTON PRECIPITATION Inches' lotai in nours, enoing p.m... u.uo- Total this month to date 0.06' Dnnarture fmm nnrmal Sf)A- Total this year 25.98 Departure from normal. BAROMETER AT SEA LEVEL llfinnr QO ftQ in mifitmh.

At 8 p.m., relative humidity 60' YESTERDAY'S SUNSHINE INDEX 265 31 of possible HIGH TIDE ii. Old Orchard ME 9:45 9:51" Hampton Beach NH 9:59 10:05 Plum Island 10:16 10:22 Ipswich 9:57 10:03 Gloucester 9:49 9:59 MarWehead 9:50 10:00 Lynn 10:00 10:10 BOSTON AREA 9:50 Scituate 9:47 Plymouth 9:57 10:07 Cape Cod East 9:51 10:01 Cape Cod West 6:23 6:45 Fnlmnntri 9:34 9:44 Hyannis Port 10:53 11:00 Chatham 11:46 11:56 Wellfleet 10:04 10:14 Provlncetown 10:06 10:16 Nantucket Harbor 10:57 Oak Bluffs 10:22 10:32 New 6:19 6:40 Newport, ft 6:11 6:33 weather is forecast across the northeast, today with humid conditions. Thunderstorm activity will begin arriving western New York this afternoon, associated with a cold front also stretches back through the Great Lake states northern plains. Along most of the frontal boundary, showers and thunderstorms are possible. In the southeastern scattered showers and thunderstorms are also forecast moist winds move in from the Gulf of Mexico.

For plains states, a few thunderstorms are possible in western otherwise, sunshine mixing with clouds will be found move into the 80s and 90s. In the western US, conditions will prevail with the exception of isolated across the Rocky Mountains. Cool winds from the Pacific coastal regions for the northwest in the 60s. CITIES US CITIES for Today REGIONAL FORECASTS Boston area: Skies remaining mostly sunny. Hot, hazy and humid.

Highs from 89 to 93. Tonight: partly cloudy. Lows 69 to 74. Tomorrow: mostly cloudy with the chance of showers or thunderstorms. Highs 80 to 85.

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut: A mostly sunny start. Becoming partly cloudy in the afternoon for western regions. Highs from 80 to 94. Tonight: partly to mostly cloudy. Lows from 67 to 74.

Tomorrow: mostly cloudy with the chance of showers or thunderstorms. Highs between 77 and 85. Cape Cod and Islands: Areas of morning fog, then mostly sunny. Highs in the 80s. Tonight: partly cloudy.

Lows in the low 70s. Tomorrow: mostly cloudy with the chance of showers or thunderstorms, mainly in the afternoon. Highs from 77 to 83. Massachusetts coastal marine forecast: Southwest wind 15-20 knots. Seas 1 to 3 feet.

Low visibility in areas of fog and haze. Tonight: southwest wind around 15 knots. Seas 1 to 3 ft. Maine: Partly cloudy for the north and mostly sunny for the south. Highs in the 80s.

Tonight: partly cloudy, chance of showers or thunderstorms. Lows 60 to 68. Tomorrow: mostly cloudy, chance of showers or thunderstorms. Highs from 72 to 81. New Hampshire: Partly cloudy.

Highs 82 to 90. Tonight: chance of a showerthunderstorm. Lows 60 to 65. Tomorrow: mostly cloudy. Chance of showersthunderstorms.

Highs from 73 to 80. Vermont: Partly cloudy. Highs 84 to 90. Tonight: chance of a showerthunderstorm. Lows 62 to 67.

Tomorrow: Possible showers thunderstorms. Highs 71 to 78. EXTENDED FORECASTS Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut: Saturday: mostly sunny, comfortable. Highs 73 to 83. Lows 55 to 63.

Sunday: mostly sunny. Highs 75 to 85. Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont: Saturday: mostly sunny. Highs 72 to 79. Lows 48 to 56.

Sunday: mostly sunny. Highs 75 to 85. Lows ranging in the 50s ULTRAVIOLET INDEX Today's forecast of ultraviolet intensity: Moderate. People with fair complexions will be safe in the sun for 10 to 12 minutes without protection; those with more protective skin types will be safe for 50 to 60 minutes. POLLEN COUNT Yesterday's mold spore count: and pollen count: 2 (on a scale where 0-3 is mild, 4-6 is moderate and 7-10 is severe) according to the New England Allergy and Immunology Corp.

AIR QUALITY City Amsterdam Athens Auckland Bangkok Barbados Barcelona Beijing 8eirut Belgrade Berlin Bermuda Brisbane Brussels Budapest Buenos Aires Cairo Copenhagen Dhahran Dublin Frankfurt Geneva Hanoi Harare Havana Helsinki Hong Kong Istanbul Jerusalem Johannesburg Kiev Lisbon Madrid Manila Moscow Nairobi Nassau New Delhi Nicosia Osaka Oslo Paris Rome Sapporo Seoul Singapore Stockholm Sydney Tel Aviv Tokyo Vienna Warsaw LATIN Bogota Mexico City Rio De Janeiro Low High Summertime hazy, hot and over front. The and into the scattefed U.S., as warm, the southern Texas, but as temperatures generally dry thunderstorms will keep FOREIGN Forecast POWER Continued from Page 57 was born on the Standing Rock reservation, and her father, Carleton Gilmore Power, came from what she calls a WASP family from upstate New York. He died when she was 11, so she was drawn more into her mother's cultural orbit. But the non-Indian world was all around. "At the University of Chicago Laboratory School," where she attended grades 7 through 12, "you had to be aggressively competitive -the teachers expected that.

People were very grade-conscious, always asking, 'How did you do? What did you Outside school, she spent much of her time at Chicago's American Indian Center, a nucleus for many of the city's 25,000 Indians. In that setting, a humble, self-effacing demeanor was valued. "Among Indians," she said, "you were not supposed to be competitive or aggressive. It's very rude to ask people direct questions about themselves, whereas among my non-Indian friends, you were considered rude if you did not ask questions and show an interest in people. So I was constantly having to make that shift.

"When I was 14," she recalled, "I stepped in a hole and sprained my ankle. My godmother, who was Winnebago, scolded me, Tou were out playing at twilight don't you know that is when the most mischievous spirits are Meanwhile, I was reading 'The Brothers Karamazov' and studying for my trigonometry and German exams. It was confusing sometimes." She was an only child (except for half-siblings from her father's first marriage). Her mother, who left the reservation when she was 16 and moved to Chicago to get work, is a Catholic and Susan went to parochial schools through Grade 6. "Her mother worked for a book distributor, and her.

father was a salesman for Far-rar' Straus Giroux. Both were great readers and the house was full of books, although financially things were so tight that when they bought their first house, when Susan was 6, "they got most of the furniture from the Salvation Army." The cultural stresses Susan felt were apparently not felt at home. That was due partly, it seems, to Carleton Power's admiration for Indian culture and his sensitivity to his daughter's feelings. He became so well liked among Indian friends that the; Winnebago people gave him a traditional four-day Wake when he died. "My mother was always taking me to museums and teaching me about she says, "but my father was the one who read to me every night.

Our favorite book was 'Peter It was an unspoken rule that I would never read that book alone it was our book together. It took me a long time to look at it after he died. When I became an adult, I got a copy and read it and was horrified: There was a lot of racism in it about blacks and Indians. He had 'My godmother, who was Winnebago, scolded me, You were out playing at twilight don't you know that is when the most mischievous spirits are Meanwhile, I was studying for my trigonometry and German quietly edited all that out as he read, without skipping a beat." The sense of being pulled from different directions, of struggling to find one's own true voice, infuses "The Grass Dancer." Set in North Dakota, it's about two young modern Sioux looking for love, meaning and their own voices amid the demands of strong family and tribal traditions and values, set against the ways of contemporary America. Full of minor characters and subplots, the story begins in the present but backs up in time, retelling the stories of parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.

One key chapter, set in 1864, tells of Red Dress, a young woman whose powers and unearthly reach ultimately redirect the lives of her descendants. The book's theme is the struggle to bridge the emotional and spiritual gulfs between generations. After Carleton Power died, his widow went to work at the University of Chicago, which made it possible for their daughter to go to the elite University of Chicago Laboratory School at half-tuition. Susan thrived there and in 1979 came east to Harvard, where she majored in psychology and met her future husband (they are now separated). As a child, she had wanted to be a dancer and also loved creative writing.

While at Harvard (class of 1983), however, her ideas about her future were uncertain. "My passion was performing arts," she says. "I was doing a lot of theater and enjoyed acting, but behind it all there was always the writing. I never stopped doing that. I thought I might be a psychologist.

I had many different interests, but the odds of succeeding were so poor that I was scared to commit, so I decided to be sensible and go to law school." Even before she graduated from Harvard Law School in 1986, she knew the law was not for her. "All my life," she says, "I wrote poetry but never thought I could write fiction." After law school she began to write short stories: "I enjoyed the process. I never thought about publication." Meanwhile, her mother was writing stories, and they exchanged and read one another's work. i Today Frcst. High HI Lo Weather City 82 93 59 91 93 87 95 84 92 84 89 69 84 87 59 91 79 101 67 91 84 91 69 89 76 94 86 83 64 84 83 83 95 86 .....74 71 .91 92 ...83 97 77 91 91 87 91 87 ........79 61 84 86 98 87 81 61 77 48 80 81 74 76 75 68 63 78 39 64 64 42 73 61 78 52 66 63 81 43 77 61 81 68 61 37 62 64 64 66 76 53 54 78 80 78 81 61 66 70 74 78 75 59 45 72 72 82 tstms sunny cldy tstms pcldy sunny pctdy sunny pcldy sunny pcldy pcldy tstms pcldy pcldy sunny pcldy sunny cldy pcldy pcldy pcldy pcldy pcldy pcldy shwrs sunny sunny sunny pcldy sunny shwrs sunny tstms sunny pcldy pcldy pcldy sunny pcldy cldy tstms sunny tstms pcldy pcldy pcldy pcldy rain sunny pcldy pcldy sunny Albany Albuquerque pcldy Anchorage sunny Ashevllle tstms Atlanta tstms Atlantic City pcldy Austin pcldy Baltimore pcldy Birmingham Boise sunny Buffalo tstms Charleston SC.

Charleston WV Charlotte tstms Cheyenne tstms Chicago tstms Cincinnati tstms Cleveland tstms Columbia Dallas Ft. pcldy pcldy Das Moines pcldy Detroit tstms El Paso Grand Rapids Great Falls pcldy Green Bay pcldy Greensboro pcldy Honolulu pcldy Houston tstms Indianapolis tstms Jackson tstms Jacksonville pcldy Kansas City tstms Las Vegas pcldy 111 Little Rock pcldy 88 Los Angeles sunny Louisville tstms Memphis Miami pcldy Milwaukee shwrs Minneapolis pcldy Nashville pcldy New Orleans tstms New York City Norfolk tstms Oklahoma City. Orlando pcldy Philadelphia pcldy Phoeni 110 Pittsburgh tstms Portland pcldy Raleigh tstms Rapid City pcldy Richmond pcldy Sacramento sunny Salt Lake City San Diego sunny San Francisco. Seattle pcldy pcldy St. Louis tstms 85 78 89 B3 93 91 99 77 67 74 AMERICA 67 51 pcldy 75 55 shwrs 79 64 pcldy San Juan 88 78 shwrs Sao Paulo 68 54 cldy CANADA Calgary 74 48 pcldy Charlottetown 76 59 tstms Montreal 77 52 shwrs Toronto 72 52 pcldy Vancouver 75 57 shwrs Today's air quality forecast: Moderate statewide, according to the American Lung Association vironmental Protection.

Forecasts 1994 Weather Services Tampa tstms 93 Topeka tstms 85 Tucson pcldy 108 Tulsa pcldy 91 Washington, pcldy 93.