KPBS Helps Launch Weekly TV Show About California
New Accounts Crop Up for Area Marketers
MEDIA & MARKETING by Tanya Rodrigues
Staff Writer
How do you forge a state identity? The question is being asked by David Brancaccio, the host of a new weekly TV newsmagazine that hopes to provide an answer.
The show, “California Connected,” is a joint project between KPBS and three other public television outlets in California.
It will be taped on Wednesdays and broadcast on Thursdays, and is funded through an initial run of 13 weeks.
After that, the ratings and additional funding will determine if the show will continue, said Doug Myrland, KPBS’ general manager.
“Those two are not disconnected one from the other,” Myrland said. “A program has to be successful to attract funding, and it has to have funding to be successful.”
He feels confident about the show.
“I think it’s an idea whose time has really come,” Myrland said.
The show’s executive producer is Marley Klaus, who had worked with “60 Minutes,” and its senior producer is Bob Melisso, formerly of CNN.
Brancaccio is the host of Minnesota Public Radio’s “Marketplace” show.
According to Myrland, “California” has been talked about for more than a year, but it’s only been in the last six to seven months that it’s been seriously planned.
The idea began with San Francisco station KQED, which brought it to KCET in Los Angeles, KVIE in Sacramento and KPBS.
Each station brought its own strengths to the process, Myrland said.
In San Diego, “We have a very active newsroom in our radio station, so we have resources in terms of journalists who are very valuable to the project,” he said. KPBS has seven full-time reporters.
Myrland said the station’s experience with the Internet, ability to do live video streaming, and production and graphic capability will likely be a part of the project as well.
He couldn’t talk about the stories that the local staff is producing for the show.
He did say the staff has been discussing stories that are relevant to people all over the state.
“The old idea is that Californians in the north and the south and in all these diverse places don’t really have that much in common, and I think that it’s incorrect,” he said. “I think that we have many things in common and hopefully this program will be able to make this explicit.”
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Status Chart: 760 Media, Inc. in Carlsbad recently said it will be doing public relations for Cal State San Marcos, which is expected to generate $40,000 in billings. The goal of the campaign will be to increase enrollment for the fall 2002 semester from the area’s high school graduates and transfer students. The work began April 1 and the contract lasts to the beginning of the fall semester. Drasnin Communications was recently signed to promote Red Circle, a new vodka bar being launched by Mike Vicuso, who owns several other nightclubs in the Gaslamp Quarter area. According to president Ray Drasnin, there wasn’t an account review. Vicuso called the agency because it had promoted the launch of his club, On Broadway. The contract ended in November, a year after On Broadway’s opening. Red Circle’s grand opening was April 4. Drasnin isn’t saying how much revenue the account is expected to bring in. Berkman Communications announced a couple of new accounts. The most recent among them was Faz Restaurant & Bar, which is being launched at the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel downtown. Berkman has a six-month contract to handle promotions, which began when the account was signed in late March. There wasn’t a review , Berkman was introduced to Bay Area restaurateur Faz Poursohi by a referral , and the firm isn’t disclosing the account’s billings.
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Sound Bites: Locally based Formula PR promoted Matt Kovacs to director of the agency’s Los Angeles office. Nuffer, Smith, Tucker, Inc., which touts itself as the oldest agency in town, recently moved to a new location Downtown, on the 19th floor of the Washington Mutual building on Broadway.
The deadline for the next Media & Marketing column is April 18. Rodrigues can be reached at (858) 277-6359, Ext. 107, or via e-mail at
trodrigues@sdbj.com.
