Also this issue: Cable Excess A channel-flipping journey through Philadelphia's vast TV wonderland. -Debra Auspitz, Lori Hill and Patrick Rapa Steve Coates, "Coatesy's Corner" -Interview by Patrick Rapa Squeal Like a Wombat On La Salle University's TV game show Q&A, making animal noises is just part of the fun. -Debra Auspitz Bridget Small and Steven Horn, Scene 8 -Interview by Lori Hill The Hours Steven Horn, The Review -Interview by Lori Hill

March 13-19, 2003

cover story

Larry Kaspar, PCN Tours

Interview by Debra Auspitz

The Pennsylvania Cable Network, founded in 1979, is the nation’:s first educational cable network, and is probably best known for its C-SPAN-like coverage of Pennsylvania politics. But in 1995, it debuted a series -- PCN Tours -- that changed the face of the network. Taking a single, hand-held camera and a mic to Pennsylvania factories and museums and allowing the folks who run these places to lead their own tours, PCN has now documented more than 300 local institutions, from the Harley-Davidson factory in York to the Mummers Museum in Philly. The network recently put out a book, PCN Tours (Camino Books, $26 paper/$49.99 hardcover), detailing 28 of their factory tours. PCN Tours senior producer Larry Kaspar has been with the show from the beginning.

City Paper: What was your best tour experience?

Larry Kaspar: I would say that the potential of our format was best realized when we first visited Martin Guitars [in Nazareth]. When we visited Harley-Davidson [for the first PCN Tour], well, we were just happy to get in there quite frankly, we didn't even have a reputation so we were very pleased. But the content of the tour wasn't as ambitious as we hoped it would be.

The person who did the tour [at Martin] just knew how to use the medium of television, he knew exactly what to show us.

I want to emphasize we don't use professional performers, that's not what this show is about at all. And I'm always quick to tell [hosts], don't write a script, it will not work, when you read it you'll sound robotic and we must avoid that. I think on one occasion we did do a tour and someone did try to write a script and the results were terrible.

CP: Guess you're not going to tell which tour that was?

LK: Yeah, I think I'll keep that one to myself. [laughs]

CP: Is there still a Holy Grail of PCN Tours out there, a place you're dying to do?

LK: One museum I have my eye on in Philadelphia that we've been talking to on and off for the past couple years is the Mütter Museum.

Our visit to that place could be facilitated by the fact that we have a bureau in Philadelphia. We have a one-man [Philadelphia] bureau and we're gonna soon open a bureau in Pittsburgh; we expect that to be in April. It just goes to show how this whole operation just grows by leaps and bounds. There was a time when I did all these tours myself.

CP: What do you look for in a place to tour?

LK: The best tours are about things that consumers can immediately relate to. If it's a familiar item then people are usually interested in seeing that familiar item take shape, and then grow into something that they go down the street and get from the store.

CP: What kind of viewer feedback do you get about the show?

LK: In public affairs you're dealing with politics and you certainly can't satisfy all the people all the time. Now this tour series, however, let's say that it's nonpartisan or it's bipartisan [laughs] and it's a program that's popular with just about everybody. When we show these tours we hear from people who say, "I can't wait to see which one's next." Now if that isn't a measure of success I don't know what is.

PCN Tours airs weekdays at 5 p.m., Fridays at midnight and Sundays at 8 p.m. Check local listings to find PCN on your cable lineup. More information on the station and the PCN Tours book is available at www.pcntv.com.