It could be argued that the heroines of Jane Austen’s novels are the precursors to “Desperate Housewives” – or even the ladies of “Sex and the City.” So if anyone can convince TV viewers that PBS’s “Masterpiece Theatre” is relevant and modern, it might be a British woman who has been dead for nearly two centuries.
Of course, a new, living host could help, too.
Both will be enlisted as “Masterpiece Theatre,” the iconic series produced by Boston station WGBH, prepares for an unprecedented makeover. A four- month Austen festival will launch the new season in January, including dramatizations (old and new) of all six Austen novels and a new biopic, “Miss Austen Regrets.” The Austen push is part of a much larger effort to rebrand the series as a whole, drawing in viewers who left long ago for flashier TV fare.
Producers have a sense that with this new image, the future of the series is at stake. But with no major changes planned in the direction of programming, critics are already questioning whether new window dressing will make “Masterpiece,” or PBS, feel relevant today.
The decision on a host to fill the shoes of Alistair Cooke and Russell Baker has not been made, and producers will not talk about their wish list.
“It’s worse than choosing a husband. Much worse,” executive producer Rebecca Eaton said. “But it feels of about the same importance.”
Some other branding details are emerging. The theme song by the French Baroque composer Jean-Joseph Mouret – that old, regal “da-da-dum-dum- dum” – will not change. But the logo and title will, as the series splits into three sub-seasons: “Masterpiece Classics,” “Masterpiece Contemporary,” and the tentatively titled “Masterpiece Mystery.”
There might even be an official “Masterpiece” blogger dubbed the “Drama Queen,” another effort to convince newbies that British drama can be fun.
“We realized that people who didn’t know us were scared off by the perception of ‘Masterpiece Theatre,”‘ Eaton said.
Admired, not watched
In focus groups, she said, people feared the series would require time and work, like choking down a Shakespeare play each Sunday night. That’s the paradox “Masterpiece Theatre” faces in a crowded TV landscape: It is recognized, admired, but often underwatched. The showcase for British drama is iconic enough to merit a parody on “Sesame Street” – which turned Cookie Monster into “Alistair Cookie” – and to enter the common lexicon as a metaphor for quality. But viewership has flagged in recent years.
ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” which airs opposite “Masterpiece Theatre” on Sundays, drew an average of 17 million viewers per episode last season, according to Nielsen ratings. “Bleak House,” the award- winning “Masterpiece” adaptation of the Dickens novel, starring Gillian Anderson of “The X-Files,” drew an average of about 500,000 viewers per episode, replayed by PBS stations throughout each week.
Other “Masterpiece” productions last season fared better.
“Jane Eyre” averaged more than 2.5 million viewers per episode, and “Prime Suspect VII” drew an average of 2.4 million per episode. For the 2006-07 season, “Masterpiece” reached an average of 3,884,000 viewers in 3,265,000 households per week.
With the rebranding, WGBH hopes to attract corporate sponsorship as well as viewers. “Masterpiece” has hobbled along for years without corporate funding, after Mobil Oil, which spent $250 million on the series over 30 years, dropped its sponsorship in 2002 after it became ExxonMobil.
Public-relations woes
In many ways, the “Masterpiece” saga has mirrored the public-relations woes of PBS, said University of Florida communications professor Sylvia Chan-Olmsted, who has studied the branding of public television.
Viewers “have a very high opinion, expectation, trust for PBS. But behaviorally, they don’t watch it,” Chan-Olmsted said. “When I talk to my students, the opinion is, ‘Well, it’s high quality, but it’s boring.”‘
It is that perception that “Masterpiece” producers decided to tackle about a year ago. With a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, they hired a firm to conduct deep interviews with executives from PBS, CPB, and various PBS stations, as well as members and viewers.
They found that viewers like the programming once they watch it, but the series’s reputation is an obstacle. Margaret Drain, WGBH’s vice president for national programming, said they also found that “women in their 30s who love costume drama, who are Jane Austen freaks,” also are big fans.
So Austen, Drain said, seemed a perfect person to embody a new “Masterpiece” brand. The Austen mini-festival will encompass “Miss Austen Regrets,” based on Austen’s letters and diaries; new versions of the novels “Northanger Abbey,” “Persuasion,” “Mansfield Park,” and “Sense and Sensibility”; and re-airings of “Emma,” starring Kate Beckinsale, and “Pride and Prejudice,” with Colin Firth.
