SUMMER SCHEDULE SHIFTS

posted by Susie Hernandez

Say so long to Waiting for God

It's time to say so long to some old friends. While some viewers leave for the summer, there are plenty who stick around. We decided to take a look at our schedule and refresh it for those of us staying in town.

So long, Waiting for God. We aired you! Some viewers love this series. Some asked me to get it off the schedule. Well, it's off for now but not due to a few calls. The contract is up with the BBC. June 26th is the last night for at least a year and we moved some of our other BBC shows to new slots. Do you love Waiting for God? Let me know. I may just buy it again in a year or two.

So what's going to be on? Let's focus on primetime (7 to 10 PM) this blog entry, shall we?

Sundays are reliably the same. Nature @ 7 PM followed by Masterpiece @ 8 and then Sherlock Holmes immediately following.

Mondays we have History Detectives launching their new season at 9 PM. Some interesting cases come their way but that's not the reason I'm writing about it in this blog! The series isn't all new. Some of the episodes are like a "best of" that you may find interesting. After months of production, from my standpoint, seeing a few repeats isn't so great. I want to bring you all new episodes but do see the value of bringing on pertinent segments of the show when its warranted. We will also have a few Mondays with back-to-back History Detectives shows. They offered it this way and since we love History Detectives in Southern Arizona, I am keeping the schedule as is!

Tuesdays you will see some changes at 10 PM once Frontline takes the summer off. They will have an important show on the 5th anniversary of Katrina but that's not till August 25th. In it's place, I'm repeating Secrets of the Dead on Tuesdays at 10 PM.

Wednesdays will be all about Baseball in July. It's Ken Burn's Baseball and I highly recommend recording it. After Baseball ends it's three week run, Great Performances is returning to Wednesdays. They aren't offering new shows but some of their "best of" for the summer.

About Thursday. You may want to sit down but then you may jump back up. I'll cut to the chase...MI-5 is not airing on Thursdays at 10 PM anymore. It will move to Saturdays at 10 PM. Why? WHY? Well, I've gotten a lot of complaints about that 10 PM timeslot on a work night. And after this last season, I'm having a hard time of it myself. Due to the language, the topic and the content flags, I cannot air it earlier in the evening so I chose a night that perhaps you won't mind staying up late for! Thursday's lineup is now "Nature and Science"-type shows from 8 PM to 11 PM. We will have some new stuff, shows from the vault, and programs about to disappear from my library forever.

Fridays you may have noticed that we are no longer strictly public affairs the whole night. For more on this, read my previous blog. I've received a lot of calls on the Masterpiece programs I've selected to air on Friday nights at 9:30 PM. A lot of suggestions have come across my phone and email box. Keep the suggestions coming! By the way, I'm also interested in Saturday Night movies and many of you LOVE that idea. There is something about staying in on a Saturday night with an old Hollywood movie. We like it and I'm looking into it.

Saturdays will be fun this summer! We are rolling out with a few new-to-AZPM BBC comedies in the fall so we need to phase out some old shows this summer. So here's the lineup for you—Keeping Up Appearances @ 8 PM; As Time Goes By @ 8:30 PM; Monarch of the Glen @ 9 PM; MI-5 @ 9:50 PMish (immediately following Monarch) followed by Austin City Limits @ 11 PM. Not drastic but enough changes that will take some getting used to. If you are an MI-5 fan, tell all your friends to check out this show. I am hoping that it's new night will bring in new fans. There's too few of us out there!

By the way, one of my seasons of Sherlock Holmes is going away. We purchased several seasons and the early ones are expiring. The seller may let me buy the old seasons back. I'm looking over my budget to see if I can afford it once we start our new fiscal year. As a salute to our favorite sleuth, I am giving him a lot of play. More on this in a later blog. For now, chew on these changes, and let me know what you love, like and dislike.

So there's your summer lineup for PBS HD Ch. 6. Create, Kids and World will keep it's core programming and in the fall, those channels will have some great new shows that I'll be happy to keep you in the loop about!

Stay Tuned!

Susie

JUNE SLIDES, JUNE DRIVES

posted by Susie Hernandez

Alison Stewart formerly from MTV and now on Need to Know!

We all have our "must have" PBS shows. For many of our loyal viewers, it's the public affairs programming. A night without Newshour is not a night at all! Antiques Roadshow on Mondays? Some folks never miss it. I have a long list of faves and love to get calls from eager fans whether mad, sad, happy or thankful, about their TV favorites. They often tell me what can't be missed, what they want more of, and what can be left behind! A few months ago a viewer asked me why can’t he continue to watch Motorweek and the German TV equivalent, Drive IT! (On PBS HD--Sundays @ 10 AM and 10:30 AM) during AZPM's pledge drives?

He knew we were in a pledge drive and knew that the pledge drives interrupted his beloved "car" hour on PBS HD Channel 6. He said he was willing to go to one of our other channels if I continued to air those programs even during pledge drives. Other calls came in about public affairs and we thought we'd test it out. Would fans really move to a different channel to catch their favorite show?

Quite often folks call about missing a show and when we explain why and that we tried to promote the time, etc as much as possible, some viewers still miss the news. We wondered, would the fans notice our TV spots about the "slide" during our pledge drives? Hope is all we had along with a bunch of spots!

Many of the viewers were thrilled about the "slide" but switching channels takes practice! After a few tries we now have Motorweek and Drive IT! viewers who understand that their show is on PBS HD Channel 6 except when there's a pledge drive. They don't miss their show all together, they just go to AZPM's Create Channel! When pledge is over, their shows return to PBS HD Channel 6. Our viewers are up to date on the latest motor trends and have been introduced to one of our newest and fasted growing channels!

So now I'm working on the same strategy for you public affair lovers! During Pledge on Friday Nights, we will slide Washington Week with Gwen Ifill (On PBS HD--Fridays @ 8 PM) and the new series Need to Know (On PBS HD--Fridays @ 8:30 PM) to the AZPM World Channel. If you haven't been watching the World Channel and you love documentaries, public affairs and news you must check out this channel. Many of the staff here love this channel. It's their favorite of the bunch. Check out the schedule!

We have fewer "bumps"! We slide! In the next year, I'll be looking for more of these kinds of opportunities on World, Create and even the Kid's Channel as we evolve our services for the community!

Stay tuned!