Friday, February 04, 2000
Christian music debuts for teens
BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Tristate TV takes a sharp turn late Saturday night, with the debut of a contemporary Christian music program for teen-agers.
180 Videos (11:35 p.m., Channel 9), from the Victory Videos public access studio, also will feature reports on “positive, uplifting” activities by local high school students and church teen youth groups.
“We see this as a 180-degree turn from all the violence we see in society today. We want to tell stories about teens doing good things, something you don't see enough of today,” says Harold Hay, executive director of the nonprofit Victory Videos ministry founded in 1988. The interdenominational Christian organization has produced 281 hours of Victory Videos public access shows in 12 years.
The “faith-oriented” show, shot at the Victory Videos' studio in the basement of St. George Church in Clifton, is certainly 180 degrees from Saturday Night Live, NYPD Blue reruns, Mad TV and other Saturday viewing options.
Victory Videos personalities Dave Dobbins and LaVella Kraft host the Channel 9 show, taped with a studio audience from the Springdale Church of the Nazarene youth group. Each show will include four alternative contemporary Christian music videos from artists like Michael W. Smith, Audio Adrenaline, Shaded Red and Out of Eden, and a two-minute report on “local young people making a positive impact on this community,” Mr. Hay says.
180 Videos had a surprisingly professional look, with snappy graphics and MTV-style jittery hand-held camera shots. It reaches Mr. Hay's goal, to look “network quality with a local flavor.”
I have two quibbles with the pilot — an insufficient introduction of the musical artists for a mainstream audience, and the lack of pertinent information on the two-minute video on the 5K Walk for Victory. (When? Where? Why?)
Mr. Hay says future shows — 11 have been shot — will provide more information. Stories will include YMCA groups, Big Brothers-Big Sisters volunteers, and an Amelia church that lets skateboarders use the parking lot.
Mr. Hay credits Tony Maas of JTM Provisions, a Victory Videos board member, for supporting the commercial TV venture. 180 Videos will be sponsored by JTM, LaRosa's, Grippo Potato Chips and Berean Christian Stores.
“I don't expect to beat Saturday Night Live,”says Bill Fee, Channel 9 general manager. “But I know the program will find an audience with some of our area's youth.”
DUELING HALLMARKS: Hallmark Hall of Fame fans have a tough choice Sunday between CBS' Missing Pieces and Showtime's remake of Rod Serling's A Storm In Summer, which originally aired as a Hallmark special 30 years ago.
CBS' new Hallmark stars James Coburn as a Colorado rancher who investigates the death of his son (Paul Kersey) in a small Mexican town (9 p.m. Sunday, Channels 12, 7).
For Showtime, Peter Falk plays a Jewish deli owner who befriends a young African-American child (charming newcomer Aaron Meeks). It premieres at 8 p.m. Sunday.
Mr. Serling, who started his TV career in Cincinnati in 1950, wrote Storm in Summer in 1970, five years before his death. Peter Ustinov starred in the original production, which aired exactly 30 years ago Sunday.
A major difference in the two Storms is the length. The 90-minute Showtime version is 16 minutes longer than the original. Additional scenes were drawn from Mr. Serling's papers at Ithaca University in New York, says Renee Valentine, executive producer.
“They gave me 1,500 pages of his rewrites of this script, of every page he had done on this story,” Ms. Valentine says. “From that, I culled the 20 minutes that were never in the first movie ... (because) they were all exteriors.”
Robert Wise (The Sound of Music) directed the remake.
SERLING REPEAT: Cable's E! Entertainment channel repeats its True Hollywood Story about Rod Serling 10 p.m. Sunday. It covers Mr. Serling's career in the early 1950s on WLWT, WLW-AM and WKRC-TV. E! producers interviewed Saul Marmer, his former Cincinnati neighbor, and H. Michael Sanders, a Serling historian and collector at the University of Cincinnati Raymond Walters College in Blue Ash.
HOPKINS HIRED: Former Channel 9 morning anchor Michelle Hopkins, who quit in 1998 after the birth of her second child, will replace Wendy Cicchetti on Channel 5's 5-7 a.m. news Feb. 14. She'll co-anchor with Greg McKinney.
GET HIP: “Cool Bobby B.,” also known as Bob Backman, broadcasts his weekly Doo-Wop Stop show from Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum 5-7 p.m. Saturday on WGRR-FM (103.5).
PBS SEARCH: Wire services say CNN executive Pat Mitchell could be named the Public Broadcasting Service president when the PBS board of directors meets this weekend in Florida. Wayne Godwin, the WCET-TV president who is search co-chair, had said a decision could be made by early February. He could not be reached for comment. Ms. Mitchell, 57, produced CNN's Peabody Award-winning Cold War documentary series.
RADIO HIGHLIGHT: Jonathan Love debuts his weekly Public Access talk show 8-9 a.m. Saturday on WIFZ-FM (100.9).
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