When she took over PBS five years ago, Pat Mitchell seemed expertly qualified. She had been a college professor, a local TV producer, reporter and anchor as well as a correspondent on NBC's "Today" show and a CNN producer -- the first producer to become the public broadcaster's president.
But three years into the job, Mitchell was saying, "I had no idea how hard it was going to be." The Public Broadcasting Service's ratings, which began to fall as cable TV spread in the '90s, continued to sag, prompting Mitchell to warn public TV programmers in 2002: "We are dangerously close in our overall prime-time numbers to falling below the relevance quotient."
This week, under attack from the right and the left, Mitchell announced she would quit as PBS president when her contract expired in June 2006. She pledged to dedicate the next 15 months to a series of fundraisers to help improve PBS' programming, and to choosing her successor.
But whoever replaces Mitchell is likely to be confronted with deeper problems at the private, nonprofit media enterprise. Once a broadcaster with its own distinctive niche and a reliable supply of funding, PBS is struggling on many fronts.
Dependent on the federal government for 15% of its budget, PBS faces a significant cutback -- President Bush's new budget effectively proposes a 25% cut for public broadcasting.
Cable networks such as A&E, Bravo, the History Channel and Nickelodeon, which reach most American TV homes, offer many of the documentaries and children's fare that PBS once had nearly to itself. PBS' average viewer is 58 years old. And the increasingly polarized political climate puts pressure on programming decisions.
Mitchell said Wednesday that politics played no role in her decision: "There are no dots to connect." The 62-year-old TV executive said her only immediate plans after leaving PBS would be to take some time off and to stay involved in public broadcasting.
Asked Wednesday if she was leaving PBS in better shape than she found it, Mitchell answered, "I'd like you to ask me that in June of '06."
Marvin Kalb, a member of the new PBS editorial-standards panel and former NBC News reporter, said whoever replaced Mitchell would struggle with today's political climate.
"This is a difficult time to be in broadcasting. One has to be so incredibly careful about what one says ... the slightest thing can be hyped so that it takes on political colorization and suddenly you're a liberal."
