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Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies 37.2 (2007) 23-31

PM Magazine:
A Missing Link in the Evolution of Reality Television
Richard Crew

Scholarship on reality television consistently overlooks the significance of the 1980s-era series PM Magazine. At its peak, this innovative television series was seen in nearly 100 US markets, and in the early 1980s it was the highest rated program series in television syndication1 (Sandeen 100). PM Magazine fits neatly into the chain of early reality shows2 , between PBS's An American Family (1973) and MTV's The Real World (1992). This article demonstrates PM Magazine's impact on the evolution of reality programming in the 1980s and 1990s, and its equally strong influence on national and local television news content.

I bring a unique perspective to this article with my experience as the National Executive for PM Magazine from 1979 to 1984. However, I use extensive research to support the conclusions reached here: journal articles on PM Magazine, information carried in the popular and trade press of the era, Group W newsletters and marketing materials, personal interviews, and academic studies on reality television.

What was PM Magazine?

The PM Magazine format debuted as Evening Magazine on August 2, 1976 on KPIX-TV in San Francisco. Within two years, the show was airing on the five Group W television stations3 , and by 1978 the franchise rights and format were being sold to additional stations under the title PM Magazine.4

As a 30-minute, Monday through Friday series, PM Magazine was designed to be a transition program for early evening TV viewers, bridging the time period between the topical dinner hour news block and the entertainment-based primetime network schedule at 8 pm. Each television market, big and small, had its own PM/Evening co-hosts: a personable young man and woman, who were perceived as solidly local. Group W provided the format, animated graphics, theme music, and feature material. A station only needed to do "the wraps" (introductions and tags) to each national feature, plus produce one local feature each week. Depending on their resources, stations could substitute additional local features for even more of the national elements. Each PM Magazine contained two, six-minute people-oriented stories, the mandatory locally-hosted wraps, and a set of three short lifestyle "tips" covering areas like health, "how-to" advice, and restaurant reviews. The resulting blend gave each market's PM show national scope, a quality look, and an important local identity.

PM was eventually seen in up to 85% of US television homes (Crew, "PM Magazine" 3). Each station produced its own version of the program, specializing in human interest narratives about regular people as well as celebrities, capturing lifestyle topics, and spotlighting interesting locations across the country. Then, in a cooperative arrangement, the local features having broad appeal were shared with all the producing stations.

PM's feature stories were unique programming for the late 1970s and 1980s. The only other successful television "magazine" at the time was 60 Minutes. However, in 1978 Newsweek observed that, "In content and tone, [PM Magazine] is to 60 Minutes what People magazine is to The New Republic" (qtd. in Burd 6). Some television journalists dismissed the content as "soft news" – a type of news "that doesn't have to be run today to [End Page 23] be topical" (Turow 118). But Burd's 1982 study of feature stories in television magazine shows concluded that PM Magazine reflected, "the reality of real life in smaller amounts than network news and with features and personalities the big networks haven't time to cover" (5).

PM Magazine – An Early Form of Reality TV

Once a genre becomes well established, older television programs sometimes get resituated. For example, in 1973, An American Family was considered an "observational documentary;" today it is frequently labeled "reality television" (Murray 41), with TV Guide retrospectively tagging it "the first reality television series" (An American...

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