It’s not “Masterpiece Theatre” and boasts a distinctly homegrown feel, but Minnesota’s public affairs hour “Almanac” draws a loyal audience for a weekly discussion of local politics, culture and business, with folksy humor and live musical performances.
Twin Cities Public Television prides itself on “Almanac,” embraced for more than 20 years as a Friday-night institution and one of the longest-running public-affairs shows on public TV in the nation. Maybe this sort of success is to be expected from the state that brought “A Prairie Home Companion” to public radio.
Bill Hanley, the TPT executive vice president who invented the series, was initially told to “fix the Friday-night problem” – that is, move beyond the existing dull talking-heads show. Hanley aimed to create an informal end-of-the-week chat show that would reflect and reinforce the “high level of civic engagement” for which Minneapolis is famous.
He cast as co-hosts a sitting judge with an alcohol problem and a woman who ran a welfare department. They clicked.
The half-hour expanded to an hour, musical and historical elements were added, and the show took off.
Why has “Almanac” succeeded where so many local productions fail?
Hanley says many public broadcasters haven’t stayed committed to long-term development and to achieving distinct programming identities. Sometimes management churn is the problem.
And he notes that the success or failure of a local series owes to “a lot of weird little personality things.” He is a bit of a showman himself, picking eccentric personalities as hosts and sticking with them.
With “Almanac,” he said, “we dared to be creative.”
The risky blend of serious and light features, news and monologue, was not an immediate hit. “There was a lot of criticism when we launched,” Hanley said. “Public affairs is a tough one. You don’t get a lot of praise. You do get a lot of criticism.”
He insists it doesn’t take much to inject personality into talking-heads programs, a format often prone to inducing narcolepsy. “In public broadcasting, bless our little hearts, we tend to have mixed feelings about adding personality,” he said. “That’s seen as a little bit too commercial.”
“Almanac” still operates on a shoestring budget ($700,000 a year) with a full-time editorial staff of fewer than three. The cumulative audience is roughly 75,000-80,000 households a week.
Hanley’s advice to public broadcasters: “You need one or two really creative people, then get behind them and let them do their thing. A committee will kill a creative idea every time.”
Brendan Henehan, executive producer of “Almanac,” says the program remains studio-
bound for financial reasons, but “we like being eclectic, turning from a serious conversation with the governor to a live musical performance, to someone cooking at the other end of studio. It keeps us amused.”
Henehan figures PBS doesn’t have to mean “broadcasting for the humor impaired.” It’s possible to do educational television without all the bad connotations.
“I grew up watching the Watergate hearings and Monty Python at the same time,” Henehan said. “We always thought, heck, you should be able to get away with that. And we have.”
