Wgbh Television Station

A collection of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs--already a lightning rod for controversy in four cities--has acquired a new dimension with disclosure that the Federal Communications Commission is reviewing a complaint against a Boston public-television station for airing several sexually explicit Mapplethorpe images. The FCC said that it initiated an inquiry Tuesday into the broadcast of the Mapplethorpe images by WGBH-TV in Boston as a result of a complaint by the American Family Assn.

In the end, it won't be the butler in the drawing room with a candlestick who killed off one of PBS' most venerable series, but PBS itself--in the boardroom, with a flick of the budget pen. The Public Broadcasting Service plans to stop funding production of the current incarnation of "Mystery!," the Thursday-night anthology series of British whodunits that has been on the air since 1980, spawning a whole genre in the U.S. In its place, PBS is working with the show's U.S.

Everybody likes steve and Norm. And some people really like them. Unknown to the pair as they dig into their Tex-Mex at an elegant Tucson restaurant, two well-dressed women in the powder room discuss how they'd like to take Steve and Norm home and demonstrate their keen appreciation for men with tool belts. Or so I'm told by someone who sat in a stall listening. And why shouldn't these women be, um, fans?

It's the unlikeliest premise for a television show: People haul out their grandmother's vase, an old, dusty cabinet, a trinket from Japan or a worn teddy bear, take it to a local hotel, and have it discussed and appraised by auctioneers and antique dealers. That's it. No car chases, no bloody shootouts, no steamy bedroom scenes, no laugh tracks. It's "Chubb's Antiques Roadshow," better known as just "The Antiques Roadshow," and it is, in the public television sphere at least, a hit.

A local public-television program was being pulled from the air. Along the banks of the Charles River, the reactions reached seismic proportions. "I can't imagine life without 'The Ten O'Clock News,' " declared Robert B. Reich, a Harvard economist, when he heard that the show on WGBH had been canceled. "Evelyn Riesman and I organize our schedules so that we will be home . . .

In the end, it won't be the butler in the drawing room with a candlestick who killed off one of PBS' most venerable series, but PBS itself--in the boardroom, with a flick of the budget pen. The Public Broadcasting Service plans to stop funding production of the current incarnation of "Mystery!," the Thursday-night anthology series of British whodunits that has been on the air since 1980, spawning a whole genre in the U.S. In its place, PBS is working with the show's U.S.

It's the unlikeliest premise for a television show: People haul out their grandmother's vase, an old, dusty cabinet, a trinket from Japan or a worn teddy bear, take it to a local hotel, and have it discussed and appraised by auctioneers and antique dealers. That's it. No car chases, no bloody shootouts, no steamy bedroom scenes, no laugh tracks. It's "Chubb's Antiques Roadshow," better known as just "The Antiques Roadshow," and it is, in the public television sphere at least, a hit.

For millions of television viewers worldwide, the thrill of the BBC's "Antiques Roadshow" isn't in the discovery of a long-lost Constable landscape or perfectly preserved Ming vase. It's in watching the unimpeachable British reserve of the participants. Whether told that a tatty piece of canvas should be insured for 100,000 pounds ($158,000) or that the silver vase they have so diligently polished is a cheap copy, the owners' reaction is almost invariably "Oh, really?"

Public broadcasting stations that go head-to-head vying for viewers and donations now are knocking heads in another arena: shopping malls. The competition is especially hot in Southern California, where two privately held retail chains with strong ties to public broadcasters are opening stores in Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties.

Last fall, Store of Knowledge opened an outlet in the Glendale Galleria. On its heels in the spring came Learningsmith Inc. at the Beverly Center and South Coast Plaza. In coming months, other Southern California shopping malls are likely to become the settings for a unique competition involving for-profit enterprise and nonprofit public broadcasting.

Everybody likes steve and Norm. And some people really like them. Unknown to the pair as they dig into their Tex-Mex at an elegant Tucson restaurant, two well-dressed women in the powder room discuss how they'd like to take Steve and Norm home and demonstrate their keen appreciation for men with tool belts. Or so I'm told by someone who sat in a stall listening. And why shouldn't these women be, um, fans?

For millions of television viewers worldwide, the thrill of the BBC's "Antiques Roadshow" isn't in the discovery of a long-lost Constable landscape or perfectly preserved Ming vase. It's in watching the unimpeachable British reserve of the participants. Whether told that a tatty piece of canvas should be insured for 100,000 pounds ($158,000) or that the silver vase they have so diligently polished is a cheap copy, the owners' reaction is almost invariably "Oh, really?"

Public broadcasting stations that go head-to-head vying for viewers and donations now are knocking heads in another arena: shopping malls. The competition is especially hot in Southern California, where two privately held retail chains with strong ties to public broadcasters are opening stores in Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties.

A local public-television program was being pulled from the air. Along the banks of the Charles River, the reactions reached seismic proportions. "I can't imagine life without 'The Ten O'Clock News,' " declared Robert B. Reich, a Harvard economist, when he heard that the show on WGBH had been canceled. "Evelyn Riesman and I organize our schedules so that we will be home . . .

A collection of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs--already a lightning rod for controversy in four cities--has acquired a new dimension with disclosure that the Federal Communications Commission is reviewing a complaint against a Boston public-television station for airing several sexually explicit Mapplethorpe images. The FCC said that it initiated an inquiry Tuesday into the broadcast of the Mapplethorpe images by WGBH-TV in Boston as a result of a complaint by the American Family Assn.