There are faith-sponsored
production companies that produce specialty programming. Family
Theater Productions, a Catholic family media production organization
sponsored by the Congregation of Holy Cross, has three programs
that relate the mysteries of the rosary to the real experiences
of three families, being planned by NICC for broadcast on three
Sundays starting May 14, Mother’s Day, at 7 a.m.
In addition, there
are special seasonal programs, such as this past Christmas:
live broadcasts of the Opening of the Holy Door and Christmas
Eve Mass from St. Peter’s Basilica with Pope John Paul II and
Midnight Mass from St. Patrick’s Cathedral. And this Lenten
season NICC is trying to arrange live coverage of the pope’s
planned activities in the Holy Land. Also, Odyssey will broadcast
Mary, Mother of Jesus, the made-for-TV movie that first
aired on NBC last fall. It will be broadcast on the day before
Palm Sunday, April 15, at 8 p.m., and Easter Sunday, April 23,
at 9 p.m.
Ecumenical
and Family Programming
Moreover, 10 hours
of programs are aimed at viewers of all faiths. Landmarks
of Faith explores the roots of different faiths. Great
Preachers highlights members of the clergy preaching from
their faith traditions at their own worship services. News
Odyssey is a thoughtful exploration of current events from
a spiritual and values perspective, hosted by Mary Alice Williams.
Quiet Triumphs,
also with Mary Alice Williams, features celebrities talking
about how they got through the tough times of their lives. Attracting
much viewer and media attention, the TV journalist was asked
by HarperCollins Publishers to write a book about her celebrity
interviews.
One of Odyssey’s
more popular family shows is Donna’s Day starring Donna
Erickson, a parenting expert who presents fun and easy projects
for parents to do with their children to strengthen family ties
and build self-esteem.
Then there are
the acclaimed values-centered, entertaining programs from Henson’s
and Hallmark Entertainment’s Emmy Award-winning libraries and
acquired syndicated shows, as well as new productions, such
as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a movie that premiered
last fall on Odyssey.
The Henson and
Hallmark library of programs will include Merlin, Gulliver’s
Travels, The Muppet Show, The Muppet Movie,
Moby Dick and numerous Hallmark Hall of Fame presentations,
including Sarah, Plain and Tall. Some of the syndicated
shows are Doogie Howser, M.D., Beauty and the Beast
and The Road to Avonlea.
Catholic
Priest Is Key Player
A Catholic priest
has been a key player in Odyssey’s development and is now senior
vice president for religious affairs. Father Bernard R. (Bob)
Bonnot compares the cable network’s transition to new partnership
and format to two things: the Hebrews entering the promised
land after wandering uncertainly in the desert for 40 years
and “a marriage made in heaven.
“We’re integrating
interfaith religious culture with family entertainment, which
is the culture of Henson and Hallmark,” Father Bonnot tells
St. Anthony Messenger in an interview.
Admittedly, there
has been some restriction of religious programming in an effort
to make the channel more marketable and competitive in the vast
cable environment with the inclusion of the Henson and Hallmark
Entertainment and other family programs. Viewers of regularly
scheduled or special religious programs need to be home 8:30-11
a.m. Mondays through Fridays, or be night owls (2-4 a.m.), or
know how to set up their VCR’s for timed recordings. On Sundays,
however, religious programming airs from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Father Bonnot,
a priest of the Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio, thinks the blending
of entertainment with spiritual and interfaith components “is
our goal in redefining family entertainment. This partnership
enables the full flowering of what instinctively NICC set out
to do: redefine religious TV and make faith visible on television.”
Father Bonnot
says, “The faith groups entered the partnership responsibly,
addressing any concerns they had. They realize the partnership
is a work still in progress. So this image surfaced for me:
Abraham being called to a country God would provide. He didn’t
have a clue where it was, what it looked like. NICC entered
the promised land after 12 years. They are out of the desert,
getting out of religious TV as it was and seeing the potential
of what they want to achieve in the larger context.”
Father Bonnot
is the in-house expert on religion and spirituality and the
connection point between the entertainment part of Odyssey and
NICC. In his spare time he likes to read theological and communication
industry periodicals to keep himself updated. His brother-in-law
calls him a “theological manager.”
The priest sees
his role in administration as ministry, helping people to grow
spiritually through Odyssey’s programming.
Religious
Programming Integral
Odyssey moved
its main offices from New York to the Los Angeles area after
the new partnership formed, but maintains an office there as
well as in Chicago (advertising).
Ed Murray, a Catholic
layman, is president and CEO of NICC. As such, he works hand
in glove with the Odyssey executives to ensure that religious
programming is an integral part of the network.
Murray’s journey
has taken him from being the first lay director of religious
education for the Diocese of Richmond in the 1970’s, to the
founding CEO of Oblate Media, St. Louis, for the Missionary
Oblates of Mary Immaculate in the 1980’s and 1990’s, to the
head of NICC, based in New York, last July. A family man, he
and his wife, Dianne, who celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary
last year, have five children, ages 23 to 35.
Murray is also
a former president of the Catholic Telecasters Group (CTG),
and served as the Catholic representative on the interfaith
coalition. CTG is composed of several Catholic production houses,
most affiliated with religious congregations. CTG recommends
what Catholic programs NICC should consider for NICC’s programming
segments.
“It’s the sense
of the faith group members that the 30 hours of weekly religious-oriented
programming that they produce and which NICC schedules on Odyssey,”
Murray says, “is about as much quality programming as the groups
can produce right now.”
As
Much Programming As NICC Can Handle
Regarding NICC’s
regular programming, Murray says, “I want folks to understand
that the 30 hours of religious programming is produced by real
people, who make it happen day in, day out. They assume a large
financial responsibility to produce the programs and pay an
administrative fee to NICC each time their programs run. They
have taken on a large burden for the long term.
“Resources were
spread so thin when NICC managed everything,” says Murray. He
knows because he has been involved nearly from the beginning
of the channel.
“Those [founding]
faith groups realized from the beginning that, unless the channel
was a mix of entertaining, informational and inspirational programming,
it was going to be extremely difficult to grow,” Murray says.
The brands of
Henson and Hallmark Entertainment, the availability of 4,000
hours of successful and many Emmy Award-winning family programs
from their libraries and more resources for the production of
original programming have certainly given greater prominence
to the network, making it more attractive to cable operators,
viewers and advertisers.
“These strong
brands, burned into the minds of the American public for their
high-quality, positive values, dependability and commitment,
not only don’t conflict, but actually are compatible,” says
Murray.
Murray and Father
Bonnot both say that the high quality of programs and services
that Henson and Hallmark Entertainment bring to the network
raises the bar for religious producers. They are challenged
now to rise to that level but they will need the resources to
do it.
Murray hopes that
improved religious programs will merit more premium time slots
in the Odyssey environment.
Relationship
to the Church
The National Interfaith
Cable Coalition was a pioneer from the start. Twelve years ago
John Malone was chairman of TCI, the largest cable provider
at that time, and he wanted to provide a legitimate place for
religious and faith expressions in the cable universe. Malone
approached mainline faith communities, saying he would fund
the channel but the faith groups would have to organize together
to run it. NICC was born and owned 100 percent of the Odyssey
Channel.
The U.S. Catholic
bishops’ Communications Committee declined to be officially
involved, opting to affiliate with Mother Angelica’s Eternal
Word Television Network (EWTN), Murray says. (That exclusive
arrangement between the bishops and EWTN ended in 1990.) The
committee’s chairman, Bishop Anthony Bosco of Greensburg, Pennsylvania,
however, expressed the need for some unofficial Catholic affiliation
with NICC and Odyssey.
After a 1987 meeting
of an association of Catholic TV and radio producers, the Catholic
Telecasters Group was organized to represent the Catholic faith
in NICC and to produce programs and recommend programming for
the new channel. The U.S. bishops’ Communications Committee
has continued to have a cordial and collaborative relationship
with the channel. In fact, it currently produces one of NICC’s
programs (Msgr. Jim Lisante’s Personally Speaking).
Odyssey's
Now Growing
“We’re one of
the fastest-growing cable networks,” Lana Corbi, Odyssey’s chief
operating officer and a former Fox Broadcasting Company official,
told a group of religious leaders and producers in Los Angeles
last October. Sharply dressed in dark business attire, the well-spoken,
focused and vivacious Corbi reported that Odyssey added 2.7
million homes in 1999, which gets it into nearly 30 million
homes. The network’s goal is 50 million homes within four years.
Odyssey has signed
deals with some of the major cable corporations and is negotiating
with all of them, she says. This gives them more freedom and
success in dealing with corporate cable outlets at the local
level.
Odyssey is available
on 1,500 cable systems and to C-Band dish antenna owners across
the country (SatCom C-3, Transponder 5) and on Primestar, a
direct broadcast satellite service (Channel 84). To find out
if any cable systems in your particular area carry Odyssey,
search zip codes on the Odyssey Web site: www.odysseychannel.com.
You can also get involved in Odyssey’s extensive community-relations
efforts to get the network on local cable systems by contacting
Odyssey at 1-800-522-5131, ext. 2423, or by calling your local
cable company.
No
On-air Fund-raising
Because the faith-produced
programs for Odyssey are not normally attractive to advertisers
or produced with sponsoring spots, these programs do not generate
income but incur costs to air them. So NICC normally charges
these producers an administrative fee averaging approximately
$400 per half-hour program. And Odyssey/NICC’s policy prohibits
on-air fund-raising. This puts programs under a substantial
challenge to generate income for their productions, says Murray.
One Catholic producer,
Divine Word Father Michael Manning, left Odyssey because the
NICC fees became too expensive. The well-known host of The
Word in the World, Father Manning depends on donations from
his viewers for premiums he offers. Though the priest engages
in other fund-raising efforts to preach the gospel on TV, such
as pilgrimages, banquets and even a golf tournament, his major
source of funds is from 600-700 viewer contributors, which stays
fairly constant, losing and adding supporters every year.
Father Manning’s
program continues to be aired on the evangelical Trinity Broadcasting
Network, the largest religious network in the world, on which
he can ask for funds.
“The big question
is how do we get Catholics to give money to support Catholic
programming,” says Father Manning, a tall, 50-plus-year-old
priest with a boyish face and a zest for spreading the Word
via television. It has been a financial struggle for more than
20 years to keep his program on the air, he admits.
Father Manning
says he first had a positive reaction to Henson and Hallmark
Entertainment joining Odyssey. “I felt it would make the channel
more attractive, and I think it has. The power of Henson and
Hallmark Entertainment is that their programs attract a larger
and broader audience, which is good for the religious programs
on Odyssey and their viewers,” says the affable priest.
“The danger [to
religious programming] can be the success of the commercial
aspect of Odyssey,” Father Manning says. “You gotta admit that
religious programs are not going to have the same attraction”
to audience and advertisers as “watching a Hallmark movie or
Henson Muppet or cartoon show. I hope the network remains courageous
in its commitment to religious programming.”
Odyssey COO Corbi
and Father Bonnot both insist that Henson and Hallmark Entertainment
are family-owned companies aimed at a family audience. Their
goals are to entertain and serve their publics, and thus are
not solely profit-driven.
“That’s a unique
situation,” Father Manning says. “It’s the only way you can
keep the religious programming on the air in such an environment—that
financial success not be your only goal.”
A
Work in Progress
Father Bonnot
says that is in fact what brought the parties together for this
unique partnership. “It was a coming together of two parties
looking for what the other had.”
A marriage made
in heaven? Father Bonnot thinks so: “We in the coalition would
be comfortable with describing the partnership as a marriage.
Like all marriages, it is a work in progress. Thus far, it has
been a wonderful marriage for all concerned including, we trust,
God’s people.”
Dan Pitre is director
of public relations for Family Theater Productions in Hollywood,
California.
