When Gwyneth Paltrow asked to join the chef Mario Batali and the food writer Mark Bittman on their planned cooking and travel show set in Spain, executives at American Public Television actually debated whether it was a good idea. In an era when publicity potential dictates many programming decisions elsewhere, public television remains wary of celebrity, despite its own well-chronicled lack of money to promote its programs.
American Public Television Mario Batali and Gwyneth Paltrow in a scene from the public television food show “Spain ... on the Road Again.”
But in the end Ms. Paltrow, the 35-year-old star of films like “Shakespeare in Love,” was admitted to the group, and the show, “Spain ... on the Road Again,” is already a game-changer for public television in terms of attention. Even Ken Burns, PBS’s biggest star, didn’t get a segment on “Oprah” for his epic World War II documentary series last year; Ms. Paltrow and Mr. Batali, however, nabbed an entire hour of exercise talk and Spanish cooking on Wednesday.
This week stations will find out whether the publicity, which included a four-page spread in People magazine, an article in Glamour and features in food and travel magazines, has paid off in viewers when the 13-week program begins at various times around the country. In New York, Channel 13 will run the hourlong episodes at 3 p.m. Sundays, grouped with its other more traditional in-kitchen cooking shows. But Channel 21, like many other stations nationwide, has confidently scheduled it right in prime time, Mondays at 10 p.m. With its breezy style and banter, Willie Nelson theme song and car-mounted cameras to catch the scenery whizzing by from a passenger point of view, Charlie Pinsky, the director and executive producer, said the show is “going after more than just the traditional PBS audience, and we think we’re going to bring new people to public television with this.”
“To have this kind of star power doing this on PBS is a first. Public television doesn’t necessarily need to be less star power-driven than other networks; it just has been,” Mr. Pinsky said. Celebrity, he added, “opens a lot of doors.”
Channels 13 and 21 already experienced that phenomenon this summer when the Police donated the final concert of their reunion tour as a fund-raiser. The stations raised $3.1 million before expenses (up from the $2.35 million first reported).
To round out the group in Spain, Mr. Pinsky invited the Spanish television actress Claudia Bassols. The four are occasionally together but often split up as they roam the country: cooking saffron-vegetable rice and partridge with the chef Adolfo Muñoz outside Toledo, touring the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao with the architect Frank Gehry, visiting manchego and cava producers and pig farms. Mr. Pinsky called it an “eating, drinking and driving show” (with one caveat: “Always have a designated driver”). It was a traditional road trip in name only; the participants took breaks to see their children and take care of business obligations.
The show is distributed by American Public Television, not PBS; many public television stations run programming from both distributors. PBS’s national high-definition network is carrying the show, at 7 p.m., Eastern time, on Saturdays.
The program was originally to feature Mr. Batali, in his first foray away from the Food Network and into public television, and Mr. Bittman, who writes the column The Minimalist for The New York Times (a sponsor of the Spain show) and has hosted public television cooking shows.
But it took a turn when, as Mr. Batali tells it, he was talking about the road trip at a dinner party. Ms. Paltrow, who had participated in a high school exchange program in Spain and speaks Spanish fluently, overheard, and asked to come along. “I thought it sounded like someone being very polite at a dinner table,” he said. But she persisted.
Initially, said Judy Barlow, the vice president of business development at American Public Television, executives wrestled with the concept. But, she said, they soon decided that given that Ms. Paltrow knows Spain and speaks the language, it was “kind of a no-brainer.” She added, “We wouldn’t have had her come along just for the sake of it.”
Some station managers were wary. “That was something that we discussed quite a bit: how much of it was going to be the celebrity factor, how much was going to be public television, in terms of the content. We really do think it has the kind of information and education and cultural learning viewers expect from public television,” Ms. Barlow said. “This is not a Food Network show by any means.”
That’s fine by Mr. Batali, who has been outspoken about changes at his longtime television home. He still appears there on “Iron Chef America.”
Food Network and public television both have “massive and incredible” audiences, Mr. Batali said, but “the Food Network isn’t so much about cooking anymore. It’s more about food as a glue in society.”
“Public television is my next move,” he said. “It’s got a great audience, it’s got a different business model than the Food Network. I can own the show and sell it elsewhere.”
Mr. Pinsky, whose Frappé Inc. owns and produces “Spain ... on the Road Again,” explained that each of the four stars had a share in the proceeds, and that overseas sales were in the works. He and Mr. Batali are also in the process of setting up a separate production company for future ventures. If the Spain program is a success, other road trips are being contemplated, the first one to Italy.
Ms. Barlow said she thought potential corporate underwriters would take note. “We certainly hope that this helps funders look at public television a little bit differently, or even just consider it,” she said.
Source: nytimes.com
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