Bravo cable channel gives Kansas City an 'ArtsBreak'; Special on local arts scene should air this spring

The wave of national attention for Kansas City's arts community
continues to rise.
Last month a warm profile of local jazz singer Kevin Mahogany
appeared on "CBS Sunday Morning. " And this week Bravo, the movie
and arts cable channel, sent a crew to Kansas City to film the latest
in its series of community profiles called "ArtsBreak."
The Bravo crew interviewed Mayor Emanuel Cleaver and arts
benefactor Adele Hall during a two-day whirlwind tour that included
the State Ballet of Missouri and Kansas City Symphony in their
rehearsal of this weekend's performance of "Carmina Burana," the
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Toy and Miniature Museum and the
Kansas City Jazz Museum.
Host Suzette Charles said the objective of "ArtsBreak" is to
show its viewers that New York isn't the only city where the arts
have large, enthusiastic civic support.
"I learn more than anybody every time we go out," Charles said.
"I personally didn't know Kansas City had all this."
Bravo credits American Cablevision President Robert Niles with
calling its attention to Kansas City and urging it to bring
"ArtsBreak" here.
"ArtsBreak" is an "interstitial" - meaning that Bravo drops
it in between movies and other regular programming. Each
"ArtsBreak" is about 20 minutes.
A Bravo spokesman said Kansas City's profile should air this
spring and will remain in Bravo's on-air library for encore showings
for up to five years.
BET on Jazz meets the Blue
When Jefferi Lee donated a satellite dish to the Blue Room to
pull in the network he operates, BET on Jazz, he gave the struggling
cable channel a substantial spike in viewers.
The Blue Room, the nightclub at the Kansas City Jazz Museum, will
air BET on Jazz during its 5 to 7 p.m. happy hour. That means
thousands of patrons a year will be exposed to it - a sizable number
when you consider that BET on Jazz only reaches 2.5 million homes
nationwide, or about 3 percent of all homes with cable.
Not surprisingly, Lee, who heads the BET Networks group that
includes Black Entertainment Television, has made it a priority to
get his jazz channel into more homes. The Blue Room donation is part
of his strategy to get patrons interested enough to demand it from
their cable companies.
"The city of Kansas City has obviously made a commitment to
economic development here at 18th and Vine and is using jazz as a
catalyst," Lee said on his recent trip to visit the Blue Room and
18th and Vine museums. "BET on Jazz can only be an asset to that."
While Lee works on building an audience for BET on Jazz, he has
it running on a shoestring. The channel produces only six hours of
programming per day (repeated three times), two hours of which are
older shows acquired by BET.
Still, Lee estimated that BET Networks has $ 60 million to $ 80
million invested in BET on Jazz, making the 2-year-old channel's
problems an expensive frustration.
"When we first launched BET on Jazz, some of the responses were,
'What is a black jazz channel? "' Lee said. "And we said, 'Wait a
minute. We didn't say anything about it being a black jazz channel. '
"
But Lee said those questions have been answered now that cable
operators have seen BET on Jazz. Now it's up to cable operators -
like American Cablevision, Kansas City's largest operator - to find
room for his channel on their systems. Lee's optimistic they will.
"Jazz is nonoffensive; it's something that's individual, and if
there's one thing our society is today, it's individual," he said.
"Our challenge is to make jazz an interesting visual commodity."
You also can sneak a peek at BET on Jazz weeknights at 2 a.m.
when BET, which most cable homes in Kansas City do get, airs "Jazz
Central."
StarTouch: 889-7827 and enter 8852 (TVKC). E-mail:
writeme@tvbarn.com

'Oprah'? What's the beef? The show and its host are winning Texans' hearts despite cattlemen's lawsuit.

For legal reasons Oprah Winfrey can't discuss the $ 12 million
lawsuit filed against her by cattlemen that took her to Amarillo,
Texas, for an extended stay.
But listen carefully during a broadcast of "The Oprah Winfrey
Show," which has been originating from a theater in Amarillo the
last few weeks, and you'll hear America's most-watched talk-show host
quietly waging another battle: a battle for the hearts of Texas.
Take the telephone interview Winfrey conducted a week ago with
Mary Kay LeTourneau, who was back in prison after violating the terms
of the suspended sentence she received for having sex with a
13-year-old boy.
Twenty minutes with LeTourneau is an opportunity just about any
interviewer would relish. But it's hard to think of anyone other than
Winfrey who could get her questions answered while preserving an
atmosphere of warmth and respect.
"Listen," Winfrey told LeTourneau before turning up the heat on
her, "I'm in Amarillo, so I don't stand in judgment of anybody."
The next day one of Winfrey's guests was Nicole Contos, a
well-to-do New Yorker whose father plunked down $ 125,000 for her
wedding. When the groom stood her up, it made the covers of the
city's tabloids. Contos made it crystal clear that she had gotten
over the chump months ago. Still Winfrey had a moral to impart, not
to her guest so much as her audience.
"The biggest lesson I ever learned," Winfrey said, "and this
comes from Maya Angelou: When people show you who they are the first
time, believe them. Don't let them tell you 29 more times."
Winfrey rolled her eyes for the camera.
"But - that's just my opinion."
The crowd roared its approval.
It's been like that pretty much every day on "Oprah in Texas,"
as the show is being called during its stay in Amarillo. The
Panhandle town of 165,000 was not Winfrey's lawyers' first choice -
they tried to get the trial moved to Dallas - but the star of the
show frequently assures her audience that the only aspect of her
Southern sojourn she's unhappy about is spending time in the
courtroom.
As an interviewer, Winfrey is unexceptional. She rushes ahead,
cutting people off, asking new questions before her old ones have
been answered.
Her insistence on keeping interviews tight and fast-paced is one
of the reasons she's in Texas. A beef spokesman who appeared on the
1996 "Oprah" show that sparked the food-defamation suit claimed his
comments were selectively edited after the show was taped.
Where Winfrey excels, rather, is in her asides - those tossed-off
comments she floats out to her audience in between questions. The
asides not only reinforce her bond with viewers, they supply the only
distinctive content on her program.
When Winfrey says, as she did last week, "We're just folks from
Amarillo," her aside is met with easy laughter. She may not be one
of them, but she is theirs.
In her autobiography Jenny Jones whines: "I'm not a former
actress, journalist or beauty queen. I understand my guests
because we come from the same world."
But the success of Oprah Winfrey suggests that people would
rather watch TV personalities who aren't from their world. They want
someone who can carry on amiably with celebrities and the other
special people of the world - like the society girl left at the altar
- and then, with a gentle beckon, will draw the audience in and give
them co-ownership of the show. Not for nothing is the "Oprah" set
designed like a giant living room, while other talk-show sets appear
as large interrogation chambers.
Big in Texas
Across Texas, interest in "The Oprah Winfrey Show" has soared
since it rolled into town Jan. 26. Amarillo does not receive
overnight Nielsen ratings, but in Dallas the scores show viewership
is up 45 percent for the Texas shows. Ratings are up 20 percent in
Houston and 6 percent in San Antonio. (In Kansas City, "Oprah's"
viewership is flat compared with the pre-Texas shows.)
The show received 215,000 ticket requests in the first 15 minutes
that the Amarillo hot line was open, and crowds of people gather
every afternoon outside the theater where the show is taped hoping
for standby tickets.
That's not to say the soaring popularity of the "Oprah" show
has translated into higher approval ratings for her side in the
cattlemen's lawsuit.
James Hunt, who is host of a morning-drive talk show on Amarillo
radio station KGNC, said support for the cattlemen's case was running
"about 50-50" and hadn't changed since Winfrey's arrival.
"But the intensity of the reaction to her has diminished because
it's like, 'Yeah, she's here,' " Hunt said.
"This is just my opinion, but a lot of people here feel they
don't have to take a side, that they can like Oprah and they can also
support the beef industry," said Kathy McLean of KAMR-TV, the
"Oprah" affiliate in Amarillo. "Our mayor said it - that's why
they have the courts."
Still, Winfrey's gender politics are unmistakable: While her men
do battle with the cattle breeders up at the courthouse, she works
the home front, trying to win the women of Texas to her side.
"Support for her among women is a little bit higher, and among
men it's a little bit lower," Hunt said, "but it's not like her
support among women is at 90 percent or anything."
With the February ratings sweep in full swing, Winfrey is
choosing big-name guests that appeal to her new home crowd - Garth
Brooks Feb. 9 and Hanson on Monday - to augment the usual celebrity
mix. Pop singer Celine Dion and TV and movie star David Schwimmer
will be guests Wednesday.
During her interview with Brooks, who is almost as famous for the
years he toiled in workmanlike obscurity, Winfrey asked, "Did you
ever think, why you - why you are where you are?"
"Arsenio Hall (once) said, 'I used to wonder why me, when there
were people more deserving or more talented,' " Brooks recalled.
"And then - this is a great quote - he said, 'God only gives you the
light for so long, so you just go with it. ' "
Fitting words for the citizens of Amarillo, providentially pulled
into big-time television's orbit by a lawsuit. The light of "Oprah"
will only be among them for so long.

He's doggin' it (and that's good); Joe Garagiola's workload includes being host of Westminster dog show on USA

At 72, Joe Garagiola has done it all: He's played major league
baseball, been emcee of three TV game shows, written two best-sellers
and endeared himself to a generation of NBC "Today" show viewers.
Tonight he begins the fourth year of one of his unlikeliest
assignments: host of the USA Network's coverage of the 1998
Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show from Madison Square Garden.
Garagiola brings his TV-ready enthusiasm to the program, which
begins at 7 p.m. and continues at 7 p.m. Tuesday. His sidekick will
be dog breeder David Frei.
In a recent phone interview from his home in Paradise Valley,
Ariz., Garagiola expounded on the dog show and his more serious
off-camera pursuits.
Q. The Westminster Dog Show doesn't feature any stupid pet tricks
- it's a beauty pageant - and yet millions of people tune in to watch
it on TV year after year. Why?
A. First of all, let me shoot down the beauty-pageant myth.
That's what I thought it was. I thought they were brought here in
swaddling clothes and felt-lined cages.
But the dog people are the hardiest people I know. Two years ago
there was a snowstorm in New York City. You can hardly get a cab in
New York during rush hour. It's impossible to get one during a snow
storm.
But to hail a cab during a snowstorm with a dog cage under one
arm
Having said that, yes, these dogs are groomed and they are combed
- all of that stuff. But see, I always thought they went out against
another dog. But they don't. When they go out there, the judge has in
mind the perfect one.
Say it's a schnauzer. He knows what a perfect schnauzer looks
like and he judges this dog against that one, the standard. That's
what really tickles me.
But some of these dogs, they walk out there as if to say, "Hey,
look at me, I'm a champion, get those other dogs out of there."
Q. What got you interested in doing a dog show?
A. To be honest, they called me and asked if I would be
interested in hosting a dog show. And I said, "Man, I don't know
anything about dogs. " They said, "Do you have dogs? " And at the
time, I did. And they said, "We saw you do the Rose Bowl Parade and
you're really good at that."
David Frei, he sits right next to me, breeds Afghans. He knows
all the dog people, calls them by name. And yes, I put the show on,
but I just sit there and watch. All I say on the air is what I would
say if I were up in the stands. Like, "Why would a guy spend $ 800 on
a suit and then put Alpo in his pocket to feed a dog?"
Q. What are you doing the 363 other days of the year?
A. Oh, I've got all kinds of projects. I'm still doing stuff for
the "Today" show. I'm president of Baseball Assistance Team
(B.A.T.), which is a group of former players that help others who
have come up against some hard times. It used to be just former
players, but now we take care of their families, umpires, Negro
Leagues players and the widows - and those are the two groups most
often overlooked, the Negro Leagues and the widows.
I have been doing anti-chewing tobacco and spit tobacco campaigns
for 20 years on my own, but now we have an organization, NSTEP
(National Spit Tobacco Education Program), and we finally got
baseball to join with us on a cessation program that we hope to
launch this spring.
All the publicity has gone to cigarettes, but I believe we've got
this silent epidemic of chewing tobacco in this country. One of the
things that has gotten me so hot and heavy on this is that in 1993
here in Arizona, the department of health and human services put out
a sheet and one of the statistics on it was just appalling - 9.8
percent of third- to sixth-graders were reported spit tobacco users.
Third- to sixth-graders. And it's just hidden. But we're making
inroads now.