The absence of a corporate angel for “Masterpiece Theatre” continues to baffle PBS executives, but they promise the show will go on.
“We’ll find the money,” says co-chief programmer Jacoba Atlas. “We will always find the money to get the gems we don’t want to see go anywhere else.”
There will be far fewer gems, however, until the public network finds a corporate underwriter to replace longtime sponsor ExxonMobil, whose annual $7 million contribution ended in December.
Since “Masterpiece” debuted in 1971, ExxonMobil had been its sole underwriter. PBS is picking up the tab for two more seasons, but at half the previous budget. That translates to about seven titles over 20 Sundays this season — half the output of previous years.
A co-production with the BBC, “Masterpiece” has a core audience of “highly educated, higher-income” women over 50, says a rep for the program. Though that’s not the most prized demographic, PBS President Pat Mitchell can’t understand why the network’s crown jewel is such a tough sell.
The fall season is not without marquee material. Rupert Everett will star in the two-hour “Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking” on Oct. 23. In the spring, Helen Mirren will do her seventh turn as Inspector Jane Tennison on “Prime Suspect.” Also on the slate: Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Kidnapped” and a miniseries about Elizabeth I, “The Virgin Queen.”
