When veteran network executive Garth Ancier — top jobs at NBC, Fox and the WB are all on his resumé — took over BBC America earlier this year, one of his first decisions was to expand its news footprint. Ancier ordered up another hour of carrying BBC World, the 24-hour news channel seen only in half hour chunks on BBC America. But this hour would air in prime time, and would be specifically geared to U.S. viewers.
In hindsight, you wonder why it didn't happen sooner. The Beeb's coverage of the early weeks of the Iraq War showed why its world news operation is second to none (though now, with Al Jazeera English on the air, it's got competition). But the BBC America channel, which is distributed in the U.S. by Discovery Networks, always seemed to sell BBC news short. No longer.
Ancier hired Rome Hartman (pictured), a veteran CBS News hand who left after spending the first few months as Katie Couric's producer, to run the new newscast, which will sign on later this year. He agrees that after 9/11, and then the Iraq War, BBC News should have had a larger presence on BBC America than it does now.
"The way we get news and information is not the only thing that everyone expected would change dramatically after 9/11," said Hartman in a recent interview. "However I do think there may be a bit of a lag between mass market journalsim and public interest or appetite. One of the things that's striking about the BBC is there's a really significant audience for BBC News that exists now in the U.S. and yet, it's hard to find. People have to work to find the BBC News in the States now. And yet they do, in very significant numbers."
"I think people in America are more hungry, first of all just for more volume of world coverage and more specifically, really smart and sophisticated coverage of world events."
Well, yes, that's a nice way of saying CNN and Fox and MSNBC dumb it down. But these Brits, and that includes unofficial Brits who work for Brits, are nothing if not civilized.
The U.S. is one of the few countries that, for the most part, doesn't carry the 24-hour BBC World news channel, which is available in 235 million households worldwide. Perhaps that's because of CNN International, or cable operators just don't sense the demand.
The hour newscast Hartman will be creating will be based "primarily in Washington," and it will air on BBC World. So the whole world will get to see it, but "it will be constructed each day by a dedicated team" led by Hartman, he said.
Other world news offerings recently made available to U.S. viewers (at least some of them) include:
- Link TV, the only-on-satellite world news and culture channel based in San Francisco, continues to air the Peabody-winning "Mosaic," a half-hour nightly digest of network newscasts from countries in the Middle East. To that it has recently added "Latin Pulse," same concept but from Latin American newscasts; and a new three-to-five-minute program airing throughout the day called "Global Pulse." If you don't have DirecTV or Dish, you can see LinkTV on demand at its web site.
- France 24, an English-language world news channel sponsored by the French government, also launched late last year, as did Al Jazeera English, and like AJE has limited distribution here. In fact, I only know of one U.S. system that carries France 24, the Comcast system in Washington, D.C. There was some concern that it would be shut down this year, but those fears were dispelled when the Socialist candidate lost.
- My cable system actually lost a 24-hour world news channel in 2005 when the Canadian CBC Newsworld International was bought by a group led by Al Gore and turned into Current TV, a video jukebox of short-form films, many of them made by viewers. But Current TV likes world video, and features a lot of it, indeed has a department called Current International. Whether it's a report about rappers in Cuba or the 40 million Chinese who still live in caves or the intriguing news that Iran's fiery president is in trouble at home because of the skyrocketing price of tomatoes, there's no place to get such a wide and interesting array of little slices of life from our big blue marble than Current TV.
John Lehr may be one of the most overexposed and least known entertainers out there. Though he's the star and producer of his own TBS show, "10 Items or Less," Lehr was also the original Geico caveman and continues to appear in TV commercials for the insurance giant, but because of "10 Items" he won't be part of the new ABC "Cavemen" sitcom, which may yet prove to be a blessing in disguise.
I'm reposting our interview from earlier this year. Lehr, who's from Kansas City, also told me about a couple hilarious brand extensions that Geico's ad agency has signed him up for, including his recent Maxim magazine shoot and doing interviews on the red carpet at the Oscars — both in full caveman getup.
Or at least my educated guess.
It would be the first TV group to headquarter here, though it doesn't own a station in Kansas City — yet.
