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Louis Rukeyser is pissed at PBS

I mean really mad. Maryland Public Television produces Wall $treet Week In Review, which Rukeyser created and hosted for 32 years. Last month, MPT partnered with Fortune magazine to "update" the show. Fortune, naturally, wanted a reduced role for Rukeyser and more airtime for its correspondents and editors. Why else would AOL Time Warner want to spend money on public television unless it got to build its brands?

On the March 22nd W$W, Rukeyser told the audience that MPT was changing the show, but that he was developing a new show and hoped they'd all watch. MPT couldn't handle that level of criticism and fired Rukeyser that weekend. Since then, W$W has been under temporary hosts, but none of Rukeyser's rotating 22-person panel has agreed to appear on the show again. You can read Rukeyser's description of events as told to Larry King in this CNN transcript.

Today, Rukeyser announced that his new show, Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street, will debut one week from Friday -- directly opposite W$W at 7:30 PM CDT on cable network CNBC. What's more, it airs commercial-free, sponsored by underwriters, just like W$W, and features Rukeyser's entire 22-member expert panel. What's more, CNBC is offering the show to PBS affiliates free of charge, though they won't be allowed to air it until after Friday night. CNBC, which has previously been getting about 10% as many viewers on that night as W$W, will air the show twice on Friday nights, at 8:30 PM ET and 8:30 PM PT.

MPT is lamely saying PBS stations won't be interested in airing a show that CNBC has already aired twice, but a good chunk of the country doesn't get CNBC, the airing is free, and it's with a host and panel with a 32-year track record. MPT's W$W page lamely says only that since Wall Street has changed in 30 years, it's time for W$W to do the same. Rukeyser says they told him the same thing for years, but never offered a single concrete suggestion, something MPT does not deny.

I say W$W loses 50% of its viewers within six months, and all because MPT was more eager to get in bed with Fortune than to stick with respected public television talent that had gray hair. Rukeyser has done his best to build a new program designed to kill W$W. Now we'll see if viewers tuned in because of Rukeyser and his panel or because it was produced by MPT and aired on PBS. I think it's the former.

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