Why PBS Dropped DCI Broadcast - Other Thought

[Grumpy]

As Tim K stated above, Star was NOT the last corps to use Disney music...IIRC, Cadets 2000 championship show used ALL Disney music, although not the Disney music that many are familiar with. As for the original topic, here in NH the PBS station didn't use the DCI telecast for fund raising...it was shown every year on the day after Thanksgiving, in the middle of the day-hardly a prime time slot, and let's face it by the time we get to Thanksgiving, the "casual" drum corps fans that might have tuned in during a late summer broadcast had long since shifted their attention spans elsewhere hence I'm sure viewership numbers here were nearly non-existent.

[Fred Windish]

traverbanking-

Your information is solid. First of all, we need to remember, those first days were a much different era. It's difficult to make assumptions about how things went down back then using today's understanding of how similar efforts are done. I can speak about the early PBS/Allentown days. I was involved directly. First, alongside DCI's Don Whiteley, and then on my own with the DCA telecast. The Allentown broadcast was produced with our own local PBS affiliate (WLVT39 in Bethlehem, PA). The product was put out for sale, first to the Eastern Educational Television Network, a group of 43 stations located east of the Mississippi. A secondary purchase opportunity was made to other stations nationwide. There was no obligation for any particular station to buy-in. However, many did. Some chose to present it live, some on delay, others did both. Some fundraised during it, but that was a local decision. It was certainly not easy to 'man the phones' during a live broadcast, obviously.

I am certain, the late Don Whiteley was a key player in getting the DCI/PBS productions going. Don was a nationally known television producer with friendships at stations all across America. His participation with DCI was more critical to DCI than most today can understand. It really is 'who you know' that gets things done.

As an aside, the original masters of anything produced by TV39 are gone forever. Our station only archives back 25 years. Those originals were destroyed. Some private individuals do have copies. Although in its earliest stage, recording at home (VCR and Betamax) was beginning. Copies are out there.

[garfield]

The PBS/DCI production history (I believe) was as follows: Starting in 1975 WGBH produced and paid for the DCI telecast, hoping enough other PBS stations would pay WGBH for the broadcast rights to cover their production costs. This lasted for several years until WHA in Madison took over using the the same financial scenario (as far as I know) of hoping enough other stations would sign up to cover the costs. This also lasted for several years. Eventually, no PBS station could afford to produce this on their own. DCI then decided to continue the broadcasts (and this is about the time the broadcast went to the 2-hour format) and found corporate sponsors to cover the costs (Tombstone PIzza). Eventually Bill Cook underwrote the the expenses for the telecast. When Bill Cook stopped underwriting the telecast is when DCI eventually decided to pay to buy broadcast time on ESPN.

traverbanking-

Your information is solid. First of all, we need to remember, those first days were a much different era. It's difficult to make assumptions about how things went down back then using today's understanding of how similar efforts are done. I can speak about the early PBS/Allentown days. I was involved directly. First, alongside DCI's Don Whiteley, and then on my own with the DCA telecast. The Allentown broadcast was produced with our own local PBS affiliate (WLVT39 in Bethlehem, PA). The product was put out for sale, first to the Eastern Educational Television Network, a group of 43 stations located east of the Mississippi. A secondary purchase opportunity was made to other stations nationwide. There was no obligation for any particular station to buy-in. However, many did. Some chose to present it live, some on delay, others did both. Some fundraised during it, but that was a local decision. It was certainly not easy to 'man the phones' during a live broadcast, obviously.

I am certain, the late Don Whiteley was a key player in getting the DCI/PBS productions going. Don was a nationally known television producer with friendships at stations all across America. His participation with DCI was more critical to DCI than most today can understand. It really is 'who you know' that gets things done.

As an aside, the original masters of anything produced by TV39 are gone forever. Our station only archives back 25 years. Those originals were destroyed. Some private individuals do have copies. Although in its earliest stage, recording at home (VCR and Betamax) was beginning. Copies are out there.

Exactly.

And at every step along the way it was dreamed that audiences would, in various ways, financially support the broadcast. That never happened. DCI was, of course, the greatest beneficiary in the national exposure on, what was at the time, the only "arts" channel on the tube. Eventually, DCI themselves had to pay to keep that reach going and they realized very quickly it was not self-supporting.

To suggest that PBS and DCI enjoyed anything like a "mutually financially acceptable level" of support from its audiences mischaracterizes what actually occurred.

The theater broadcast, on the other hand, appears to be growing in demand.

[BRASSO]

DC Finals was on TV when there was not a third of the number of stations we have today. Today, we have hundreds more available.

Its regrettable that the hard working and talented DCI performers of today do not have their efforts rewarded with a Finals performance shown on TV.

For those that can't attend Finals live, watching Finals on a computer hook up to a TV in a den as a pay for view venture, is no way to effectively grow the activity at levels that will offset the increasing costs of the activity anticipated in the coming years.

I don't pretend to have the answers as to how DCI gets back to having Finals on TV in some manner that works for both DCI and that TV station network. But it needs to find some way, imo.

Edited November 15, 2014 by BRASSO

[Tim K]

PBS does not expect to make money on broadcasting individual shows. PBS does a huge fundraising appeal in December. There will be big name shows, complications of Christmas specials, and anything else that draws in viewers. The hope is that the occasional viewer will become a regular viewer. Regular viewers are the people who support PBS. Watch an appeal and you'll see all kinds of highlights of shows PBS features. Today you develop donors, you don't simply fundraise.

The "who you know" comment (Fred Windish) is probably accurate. A producer at WGBH had kids who marched. GBH not only broadcast DCI, it also did a documentary on the 27th Lancers and "Zoom" once featured a segment on a boy who marched in either the Cardinals or BAC. I have no idea if this producer (I can't recall his name but my guess is some other Boston area person will know) had anything to do with the drum corps shows, but my guess is his interest in the activity certainly did not hurt.

Finally, there is one thing we have forgotten. "Blast" was one of the broadcasts used by PBS in appeals, which is at least related to drum corps.

[Pete Freedman]

The PBS/DCI production history (I believe) was as follows: Starting in 1975 WGBH produced and paid for the DCI telecast, hoping enough other PBS stations would pay WGBH for the broadcast rights to cover their production costs. This lasted for several years until WHA in Madison took over using the the same financial scenario (as far as I know) of hoping enough other stations would sign up to cover the costs. This also lasted for several years. Eventually, no PBS station could afford to produce this on their own. DCI then decided to continue the broadcasts (and this is about the time the broadcast went to the 2-hour format) and found corporate sponsors to cover the costs (Tombstone PIzza). Eventually Bill Cook underwrote the the expenses for the telecast. When Bill Cook stopped underwriting the telecast is when DCI eventually decided to pay to buy broadcast time on ESPN.

traverbanking and brutus: Both your perspectives are interesting and valuable in ways I have not heard before. Thanks for that.

A couple of points nobody has mentioned that I have heard before:

1. There was supposedly a problem with product branding. Was it that DCI's own sales were affected somehow by PBS requirements, either in terms of the money split or something else?

2. Broadcast standards at PBS kept going up throughout the period (compare TV blurriness in 1970 vs 1990). That means better cameras, recorders and other equipment.

I don't know to what extent these were factors, only that they have been brought up before. I do agree with Garfield that the dominant view in the past has been the DCI ultimately pulled the plug, not PBS. Does anyone know how much DCI/Bill Cook paid the last year, and how much they would have had to pay the year it stopped?

[JimF-LowBari]

As an aside, the original masters of anything produced by TV39 are gone forever. Our station only archives back 25 years. Those originals were destroyed. Some private individuals do have copies. Although in its earliest stage, recording at home (VCR and Betamax) was beginning. Copies are out there.

Have seen some of the 77 DCA clips on YT but haven't checked if they are all there. I googled Westshoremen for vids one night and the link popped up. Quality looks like a copy of a copy so you do not want to expand the screen size. FYI: For the 10th (last) place corps the concert number was shown... not too exciting. LOL And stations destroying old tape would explain why a Madison station logo shows up on the 75 DCI DVD. Guess Madison taped the live broadcast for use later and (thank goodness) never destroyed it.

Edited November 17, 2014 by JimF-LowBari

[perc2100]

This has been gone over a few times but a thought finally hit me and might as well start a new thread if any discussion results. The usual reason given for PBS dropping the broadcasts is "People were making fake pledges and PBS got tired of being burned". Never dealt with fund raising so maybe someone here has the knowledge but this don't sound totally square with me. With fund raising there are always bad pledges, bounced checks, etc but way I see it as long as the fund raiser is making the greatest amount of money (with good pledges) they will continue what they are doing. IOW - PBS was getting burned by some but DCI was still drawing in the money as wanted.

The as interest in DC went down the pledges went down. PBS and their stations being pro-active looked for other ways to bring in the pledge bucks. As PBS did find pledge night programming that brougt in more money, DCI was dropped.

Bottom line (IMO) - it wasn't the bad pledges that turned PBS against using DCI. It was that PBS found better options. Especially since the amount of good pledges was going down.

Do we know for a fact that PBS dropped DCI and not vice versa? I don't recall reading any specific announcement or hearing an official story about that. It makes sense, but is that what really happened or are we speculating?

[perc2100]

Man, this is NOTHING like my understanding of DCI's relationships with PBS. I've looked at lots of financial docs in archive from BITD, and had many discussion whom I believe were actual parties at the time.

The best, most concise explanation that I've received is that DCI pulled the plug when they realized they couldn't afford the expense of producing the broadcast.

Quite different from your explanation that PBS pulled the plug.

That's what I thought I heard as well. Add to that the logistics of local markets controlling programming, and the whole PBS thing could've turned into an expensive, ginormous logistics cluster for DCI

[JimF-LowBari]

Do we know for a fact that PBS dropped DCI and not vice versa? I don't recall reading any specific announcement or hearing an official story about that. It makes sense, but is that what really happened or are we speculating?

Want to make a big point here for anyone who doesn't realize (not singling out perc): The decision to carry/not carry the live broadcast was made by the individual stations not by the network. PBS provided the feed but each year, each station made the decision to show/not show DCI. And as the years went by less and less stations made the decision to show.

Whole thing kinda went out with a whimper and would be interested in the decisions made the last few years. Maybe Cook Group was the one who pulled the plug at the very end since they were paying for a two hour(?) show that PBS stations put on if they felt like it.

What I remember from the end days of the live broadcasts was stations started showing a taped version later on or did not put it on at all. Just looked to me that the individual stations took a look at things to bring in money other than DCI and acted accordingly, IIRC Ownings Mill, MD PBS did a broadcast of the live show the next day but not sure if it was a repeat or not, this was ca 1979. The Western PA station I posted about earlier decided in 1984 to have regular broadcasting during DCI and show the broadcast the next day.

Also would love info on who/what/how it was decided to go from the full live broadcast to a chopped two hour mess. And how that was paid for. And who decided it was a good thing to talk over the corps shows that one year.

Edited November 17, 2014 by JimF-LowBari