Posted on 03/28/2002 8:26:16 AM PST by Temple Owl
Fans raise roof over Rukeyser flap
By Del Jones
USA TODAY
Viewer reaction to Louis Rukeyser's abrupt departure from Wall Street Week after 32 years has been unprecedented in volume and venom, with fans threatening to withhold contributions, PBS stations report.
Maryland Public Television, which produces the show, told Rukeyser last week that he would no longer be host. On the show Friday, Rukeyser chewed out MPT and appealed to viewers to call affiliates.
Programming director John Flanzer at Mountain Lake PBS in Plattsburgh, N.Y., says he was met Monday with a "deluge" of a dozen calls and 60 to 70 e-mails.
David Hosley, general manager of KVIE in Sacramento, calls it the "Rukeyser debacle" and says the station has received 400 e-mails and calls.
MPT spokesman Jeff Hankin says the volume may seem high but not if seen in the context of thousands of households watching the show in Sacramento.
And happy viewers rarely call. "It was getting old and boring," says viewer Robert Maglietta, a retired school administrator in Oldsmar, Fla. "Louis needed to go."
A phone call to Rukeyser was returned by Michael Holland, a longtime panelist on the show. He says lawyers advised Rukeyser, 69, not to talk to reporters. He says all 22 regular panelists will boycott the show.
Most stations are relieved that at least the flap started after key March fundraising ended. Albuquerque station KNME extended its drive until last Friday, the day Rukeyser made his exit. The station was flooded with furious calls and almost no pledges. "The whole night was a fiasco, a miserable night," program manager Kathy Burnett says.
About 2.2 million people watch Wall Street Week, the 12th-most-popular PBS show. Stations say those viewers tend to be well-heeled and top contributors.
The show's corporate underwriters, Deloitte & Touche and OppenheimerFunds, say they also have gotten complaints. Oppenheimer spokesman Rob Densen says Rukeyser's passionate viewers remind him of "wrestling fans or devotees to the Backstreet Boys." He compares the change with the New Coke-Classic Coke debate and says Oppenheimer will let things play out before it reviews funding.
Holland predicts underwriters won't contribute the same money for Marshall Loeb, former managing editor of Money magazine, who will be guest host starting Friday. In June, co-hosts Geoffrey Colvin, editorial director of Fortune magazine, and a woman still to be named will take over. Rukeyser plans to start another PBS program or move to cable.
PBS executive John Wilson says irate viewers can "ruin your day" but says he's been through enough program changes to know the backlash will fade. "I'm not making light of people's concerns," Wilson says, but adds that if a station even moves the Nightly Business Report by a half-hour, viewers "take the roof off."
A conservative boss would think twice before firing someone like that. But liberals are so self-righteous it probably never even occurred to them that audiences might object to what they did. Conservatives have been well taught to think carefully about what they say or do, or suffer public rebuke; but liberals are riding so high that they think that their every word and act will be received with cheers. Now they are learning that they were wrong.
A phone call to Rukeyser was returned by Michael Holland, a longtime panelist on the show. He says lawyers advised Rukeyser, 69, not to talk to reporters. He says all 22 regular panelists will boycott the show.... Rukeyser plans to start another PBS program or move to cable.Louis and the panelists should boycott PBS until it operates according to market principles and becomes self supporting.
I became a fan during the Florida election debacle when Louis used his show to comment on how ludicrous it was that we should be lectured day in and day out on election integrity by someone named Daley. He pulled no punches.
Oh, undoubtedly it was political. Maybe PBS was over their quota of token conservatives for the year.
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