Remote patrol

Time to say goodbye - again - to the Princess of Wales as KCPT and the cable news channels set aside the worries of today for a look back at Diana's death a year ago. "Diana, Princess of Wales: The Shrine" (7 tonight on Channel 19) is the aptly named snapshot of the world's grief following news of her death; that's followed at 8:20 by a replay of her funeral, which was watched by an estimated 1 billion people.

Good luck outshines bad steps in KPXE's first Pax week

Despite a major promotional blunder by its parent network, a scheduling goof and reception problems in some area homes, it had a surprisingly strong first week as a Pax TV network affiliate. Nationally Pax TV's launch Monday averaged a 1.4 rating in prime time (that is, 1.4 percent of all homes with TV were watching). KPXE averaged nearly twice that (2.7), fifth-highest among the 70-plus Pax TV stations. Industry analysts think the network will make money averaging as little as a 1 rating in prime time. KPXE made a strong outing even though a print advertising campaign by Pax TV failed to include its call letters or channel location. Pax TV made a large purchase of advertising space in Sunday newspaper TV sections nationwide, including Star TV. The ads featured the tagline "Only on Pax TV" but omitted any reference to local Pax TV affiliates. A Pax TV spokesman said the network thought giving channel positions would make the ads confusing, because there are "so many" different channel positions in each market. The spokesman then cited KPXE's channel placement on an obscure cable system serving far western Wyandotte County and Time Warner's Leavenworth system. Such slips suggest that Pax TV chairman Lowell Paxson, a legend in the cable industry for his role in building the Home Shopping Network, is still adjusting to life as a broadcaster. In the cable model Paxson knows so well, local cable operators serve merely as repeaters for the network signal. By contrast, the broadcast model requires a local TV station to spend time and money promoting itself in the community and developing an identity distinct from that of the network. Had Paxson's people in Florida been more in touch with Kansas City, they would have known that KPXE, formerly known as KYFC, has been sitting on Channel 9 on Time Warner Cable and Jones Intercable for years. And that its chief rival, family-friendly KMCI, Channel 38, takes out a skinny half-inch ad in Star TV clearly showing where it can be found on area cable systems. Another mixup this week caused KPXE's old schedule of infomercials and religious programming to run in the daily TV grids of The Star instead of the new Pax TV schedule. (The listings in Star TV published Sundays are up to date.) The updated daily schedules will begin running Sept. 14. Other viewers called KPXE offices this week complaining of signal interference on their cable systems. Time Warner Cable and Jones Intercable assign KPXE to Channel 9, which is the broadcast frequency of KMBC. When a customer's cable is not adequately shielded, a faint "ghost" of the broadcast picture can be superimposed on the cable picture. On some sets, for instance, the ghost of Jerry Springer was seen flitting in the background of "Dave's World" on KPXE. Spokesmen for both cable companies say their technicians are happy to come out and "tighten" the line at the customer's request, which solves most reception problems. A support representative will first recommend several steps for the customer to take to tighten the line before a technician is sent to the customer's home. StarTouch: 889-7827 and enter 8852 (TVKC). E-mail: writeme@tvbarn.com.

Remote patrol

AMC's delightfully period sitcom "Remember WENN" wraps its fourth season tonight and next Friday at 9 p.m., repeating 10:30 p.m. Saturdays. As the advancing rumbles of war in the Pacific grow louder, Jeff (Hugh O'Gorman) hears the advancing footsteps of Pavla, the actress claiming to be his wife. Thinking quickly, Jeff gets into drag to make himself look like his real wife, Hilary (Melinda Mullins), and pretty soon the cross-dressing bug has infected the whole office.

Remote patrol

"World's Wildest Police Videos" (7 p.m. on Channel 4) was last year's breakout hit among young male viewers who'd had it with "Friends. " This reality series is like a '70s police drama without all the boring dialogue and plot development. We cut right to the chase every time. Easily 90 percent of "Videos" is high-speed pursuits, enhanced with sound effects and teased relentlessly throughout the program. Between the hype of the teases and retired sheriff John Bunnell's bland voice-overs, the actual videos take up less than 30 minutes of every hour.

Remote patrol

ABC's surprise summer hit, "Whose Line Is It, Anyway? " (8:30 tonight on Channel 9), should come as no surprise to anyone who has seen Ryan Stiles of "The Drew Carey Show" and the show's other comedic panelists perform hysterical improvised routines on a moment's notice. One of the reasons the show works is that it immediately follows the sitcom featuring Stiles and "Whose Line" host Carey, and it lets us see both men play against their characters on "Drew Carey. " You never see Stiles' lightning-quick mind on "Drew Carey," where he's the slow-witted Lewis. And lovable loser Carey is a winning emcee here.

Remote patrol

Digital remastering - the final frontier. My friends on the Internet have been looking forward all summer to this: the Sci-Fi Channel has completely remastered the original NBC series "Star Trek" and begins airing the pristine remakes at 6:30 weeknights beginning tonight. Also tonight, a repeat of Karin Muller's (above, left) gutsy camcorder chronicle, "Hitchhiking Vietnam," at 9 on Channel 19.

Remote patrol

One leg of the new Pax TV lineup on KXPE, Channel 50, (see cover story) is the nightly repeat of "Diagnosis: Murder," beginning with the 1992 made-for-TV movie "Diagnosis of Murder" at 8 tonight. Dick Van Dyke's (left) sleuthing M.D. has more spring in his step after the show recorded its best season ever, climbing into the Nielsen top 25 and helping CBS finish ahead of Fox in young adults on Thursdays. Expect to see a lot of Scott Baio; he was a "Diagnosis: Murder" regular during the show's first two seasons. Twice-nightly episodes begin at 8 p.m. Tuesday for two weeks before shifting to 9 p.m. only. Also, tonight is your last chance to see Howard Stern make a mockery of "The Magic Hour" at 11:30 p.m. on Channel 4.

Nick tries to make kids stick around another half-hour

Rupert Murdoch is spending an estimated $ 100 million this year to promote his newest acquisition, Fox Family Channel, and get kids interested in watching Pat Robertson's old network. Then there was the cable channel that didn't need to spend a dime to command the attention of millions of youngsters. All it needed to say were two simple words: New Rugrats! Nickelodeon is America's No. 1 basic cable network, and it has the animated adventures of four toddlers known as the "Rugrats" largely to thank. Now it is enlisting that show's creators to help the network push further out into prime time, reclaiming another half-hour that had been, for 13 years, the domain of golden-oldies Nick at Nite. Tonight, Nickelodeon begins branding its 7 to 8 p.m. hour as "Nickel-O-Zone" and introduces three new series there this week. They're led by "The Wild Thornberrys," a raucously entertaining new cartoon about a family that makes nature films. Nickelodeon's kid appeal is almost as legendary as the teen appeal of its sister network MTV. (Both cable channels, as well as grown-up VH1 and pay cable's Showtime, are owned by Viacom.) As a result, it can spend all day promoting new programs during its existing favorites - marketing muscle that every cable network, not just Fox Family, wishes it had. The success of "Hey Arnold! " convinced the network to do more kids shows at night. "Arnold! " has had a 7 p.m. time slot for two years. "The timing (of the "Arnold" launch) was critical for us, because it was a time when it looked like the networks had abandoned the kid audience in prime time," said Cyma Zarghami, Nickelodeon's general manager. Now it looks like the kids have abandoned the networks. Two weeks ago, when Nickelodeon launched a new series of "Rugrats" episodes, an average of 2.5 million viewers ages 2-11 were tuned in, more kids than were watching the top three networks - Fox, ABC and NBC - combined. Such is the popularity of "Rugrats" that the show's creators, Klasky Csupo Inc., didn't produce a new cartoon for three years, yet during that time not one but several airings consistently rated among cable's 20 most-watched shows each week. Klasky executives had been kicking around the idea of a child who talks to animals. "The Wild Thornberrys," which debuts at 7 p.m. Tuesday, evolved from that kernel. It's organized around what Nickelodeon calls its "first animated girl heroine," young Eliza Thornberry (voiced by Lacey Chabert of "Party of Five"). Accompanied by her best friend, a chimp named Darwin, Eliza travels the world with her nature-photographer parents, her older sister and her adopted younger brother Donnie (Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers), who spins around like a dervish and speaks only in whoops and grunts. Eryk Casemiro, who is supervising producer on "Rugrats" and this new series, says there are obvious comparisons between the famous toddlers and the Thornberrys. "These are experiential stories, whether on 'Rugrats' it's of a 2-year-old who's seeing the giant toilet for the first time and is in awe of this giant porcelain thing, or on 'Thornberrys,' where it's imposing the family life on this land that's vast and wild," Casemiro said in a recent interview. "Eliza's gift is experiencing things much as Tommy Pickles or Chuckie Finster do." Nickelodeon also will roll out two live-action series this week in its new prime-time block. "Cousin Skeeter," which follows "The Wild Thornberrys" at 7:30, pairs a real 13-year-old boy (Robert Ri'chard) with a smooth-talking "cousin" (voiced by Bill Bellamy), who's a cross between Li'l Penny and a Jim Henson Muppet. The show is produced by Michael Tollin and Brian Robbins, who've delivered the goods for Nickelodeon with "Kenan & Kel" and "All That." The third new series, "Animorphs" (7:30 p.m. Friday), is a live-action adventure about teens who can "morph" into horses, dogs, mice - any creature they can imagine being - then use their animal disguises to thwart the schemes of bad guys. It's produced by juvenile book publisher Scholastic. In fact, much of the new prime-time hour will be a showcase for some of Nickelodeon's greatest hits, a demonstration of the incredible cultural influence one cable channel can exert over its viewers. "The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo" (7 p.m. Sunday), "Nick News" with Linda Ellerbee (7:30 p.m. Sunday) and "The Journey of Allen Strange" (7:30 tonight) are among the returning shows airing new episodes this week. "Hey Arnold! " also launches in the "Nickel-O-Zone" at 7 tonight. Will Nickelodeon take its young viewers further into the night? Apparently not: Zarghami said the network's research shows that the number of kids watching TV remains high throughout the 7 p.m. hour but then "drops off significantly" after 8. The conclusion is inescapable even to a TV executive. "With respect to kids and parents, they need a bedtime," Zarghami said.

Climbing Nielsen's ladder Pax TV lays plans for cablelike success, but has KMCI to deal with here

Evangelical Christian businessman Lowell "Bud" Paxson launches his family-friendly broadcast network Pax TV today. Anchored by repeat episodes of such wholesome dramas as "Touched by an Angel" and "Promised Land," Pax TV will make its debut at 11 a.m. on KPXE, Channel 50. Although Paxson has set extremely modest audience goals for his network, KPXE will have a battle on its hands to achieve even those locally. That's because KMCI, Channel 38 - which carried Paxson's previous venture, Home Shopping Network, for eight years - has had a family-friendly schedule of its own since 1996. On a national level, Paxson says his network will make money with just 1 percent of the viewing public tuned in - and some in the TV business believe him. By comparison, top-rated NBC hopes to attract, on average, about 10 percent of the viewing public for its evening programs. Fox is hoping for about a 7 rating, and smaller networks WB and UPN should average in the 3 range. How can he succeed with 1 percent? Paxson's secret is that while he is technically a broadcaster, in practice he is much closer to a cable operator, with heavily centralized operations and low overhead. Very little of Pax TV's programming will originate at the local level but will instead be beamed out of a state-of-the-art facility in Florida. As even KPXE general manager Lisa Bench readily admits, "We're not really a local station - we're a network." KPXE runs on a bare-bones staff of 18, a third of whom are sales people. The local contribution to KPXE's broadcast day will consist of several hours of paid programming, including infomercials and religious services. Like the typical start-up cable network, Pax TV's programming is heavy on "acquisitions" - shows that aired somewhere else first. Sprinkled in are some new shows, mostly talk shows, that are relatively cheap to produce. It shouldn't be surprising that Paxson's network resembles a cable service. He founded the Home Shopping Network and made it an enormous success before selling it off to begin buying up TV stations. When his current round of deal-making is over, Paxson will own or operate 90 stations capable of reaching 75 percent of the country - all of them airing Pax TV. And a broadcast-cable hybrid is not unknown to Paxson, either; Home Shopping Network was retransmitted by a network of broadcast stations so that people in the one-third of American homes without cable could also buy fake diamonds and ceramic collectibles over the phone. From 1988 to 1996 one of those broadcast affiliates was Lawrence-based KMCI. Today that station is called "38 Family Greats" and is one of the few in the country that can claim to be doing a family format already. While Paxson can brag that Pax TV is endorsed by James Dobson of "Focus on the Family," KMCI has the first-ever endorsement given to a TV station by the pro-family values Parents Television Council. The first skirmish has been won by KPXE, which stole away KMCI's daily reruns of "Dr. Quinn. " Pax TV now holds exclusive rights to the show beginning Sept. 14. Monte Miller, KMCI's president, admires Paxson's ability to pinch a penny and his salesmanship. "If anybody could sell refrigerators to Eskimos, Bud could do it," Miller said. "At some point he will make an impact on the market, but like everything else it takes a little longer to get there than you might think." Miller still has the press kit Paxson sent out a couple of years ago touting the benefits of his all-infomercial network. That was what KPXE began airing after Paxson bought Channel 50 from Kansas City Youth for Christ last year. "I'm doubtful that he really ever met those expectations," Miller said. "I think he set the bar too high." Over time, said Bench, KPXE's general manager, the consistency and quality of Pax TV programming will distinguish the station from its main local competitor. She said that with former CBS executive Jeff Sagansky at the helm of Pax TV - he put "Touched by an Angel" on the air - the network's future is in good hands. "But right now we're just focused on building up our name and image and telling people they can rely on us," Bench said. KPXE will still air infomercials and religious programming 10 hours a day. Most of the paid programs will be sold locally. Paxson's commitment to the family notwithstanding, he has been criticized for not putting diversity high on his list. One Pax TV advertisement that appeared in print this summer attacked other networks for airing shows that "peddle alternative lifestyles" - probably not referring to people who eat while standing over the sink. What may harm Pax TV's financial outlook more directly is that, other than "Touched by an Angel" and "Promised Land," most of its programming appears aimed at viewers 55 or older. Advertisers pay more money to reach younger viewers. By contrast, KMCI has a block of shows historically popular with teens, including "The Simpsons," "Full House," "Home Improvement" and two "Star Trek" franchises. Weekday schedule Pax TV will subsist on a diet rich on infomercials and classic TV and light on new programming (indicated in bold). Its weekday schedule, which begins at 11 a.m. today: 7 a.m.: "Great Day America" (repeat of previous day) 8 a.m.: Paid programming 11 a.m.: "Here's Lucy" Noon: "The Love Boat" 1 p.m.: "Woman's Day" (talk) 1:30 p.m.: "Reel to Reel" (game) 2 p.m.: "Eight Is Enough" 3 p.m.: "The Hogan Family" 3:30 p.m.: "Dave's World" 4 p.m.: "Great Day America" (talk, live) 5 p.m.: "Highway to Heaven" 6 p.m.: "Life Goes On" 7 p.m.: "Touched by an Angel" 8 p.m.: "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" (Sept. 14) 9 p.m.: "Diagnosis: Murder" 10 p.m.: "Father Dowling Mysteries" 11 p.m.: "Highway to Heaven" Midnight-7 a.m.: Religious/paid programming