PBS Launching Deep-Dive Discourse Series

Noncommercial WETA TV, one of the anchor PBS producers, is producing a weekly, Friday night, limited series--eight weeks in prime time--dubbed In Principle, to air on PBS starting April 13 at 8:30 p.m.

The half-hour public affairs program will be co-hosted by PBS NewsHour (a WETA production) contributor and Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson and Amy Holmes, formerly with MSNBC and TheBlaze TV and Radio Network.

The series will follow Washington Week (also a WETA production) on Fridays and bring together guests from across the ideological spectrum, according to WETA.

The goal is to "engage newsmakers and culture shapers at a deeper level, exploring their beliefs and motivations in a way viewers might not get in other formats on television," said Gerson of the show, calling it deep-dive TV.

It is being offered at a look at fundamental issues in a thoughtful way, in contrast to the "degraded discourse" of current American politics.

The series will be produced in WETA's Arlington, Va., studios. It is executive produced by Dalton Delan, EVP and chief programming officer at WETA, and produced by Grace Cutler, most recently managing editor of Sinclair's Circa.com.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.