Brewer Critical Of NYC-TV’s Coverage

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In its zeal to lure more viewers, NYCTV has strayed too far from its public service mission by transmitting programming such as “Full Frontal Fashion,” “Le Journal: French News,” and Italian soccer games, the head of the City Council’s Government Technology Committee, Gale Brewer, said yesterday.

“I don’t think they’re focusing enough on what is the educational need of New York City and making it fun at the same time,” Ms. Brewer said after a hearing on the mission of NYC-TV.

NYC-TV’s five cable stations are so successful that they’re proving to be trendsetters for local TV stations in municipalities across America, the general manager of NYC-TV, Arick Wierson, told Ms. Brewer’s committee.

“Television is meant to be watched,” Mr. Wierson testified.

Mayor Bloomberg, a press and broadcast mogul before he became mayor, during his first term in City Hall ordered that NYC-TV be made more chic even while it continued to televise city hearings, forums, and press conferences, station officials say.

In the three years since Mr. Bloomberg’s decision to revamp NYCTV’s programming, the network’s primetime audience has become 10 times larger and received 14 local Emmy awards.

Popularity shouldn’t be the only benchmark of success, Ms. Brewer said.

“There could be a little more of what I could consider more substantive,” she said. “You need something that has the sizzle or the excitement of a younger audience programming, but in addition, has something more substantive about the role of government and education.”

Existing programming can be tweaked to fulfill the educational mission she is pushing for, Ms. Brewer said. Instead of tedious broadcasts of hearing testimony, for example, she suggests NYC-TV feature snippets of a hearing, then host newsmagazine-like roundtable sessions and man-on-the-street interviews. She also said broadcasting soccer games is fine if the game is in New York.

While she is critical of NYC-TV, Ms. Brewer praised the station management for trying to appeal to large numbers of New Yorkers.

“How do you make commissions interesting, how do you make the City Council, how do you make some of the things that the administration is doing interesting?” Ms. Brewer said. “That’s a challenge, but I do think we have to be more creative about doing that, and it has to be done.”


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