Beyond the Box: Full Court Press

Paula Apsell is realistic about the power of television. "The quality of the program and the size of the audience have almost nothing to do with each other," admits the senior executive producer of the wgbh 'Nova' science unit. "These are terrific programs, but they're not the kind of television people will naturally watch. In a series like this you do what you can, short of putting dirty pictures in it, to try to extend it to a larger audience."

Though Apsell's comments ring true for serious science programs in general, she is referring specifically to Rx for Survival - A Global Health Challenge, a 6 x 1-hour coproduction with Seattle-based Vulcan Productions that looks at the most critical health threats facing the world today and the possible solutions already within reach. "The exploration that supports the whole series is: we have the resources, why don't we have the will?" says Richard Hutton, VP of media development at Vulcan.

To make sure the question is heard in today's crowded marketplace, the project has evolved into a multimedia event that kicks off when a special edition of Time magazine entirely devoted to the issue of global health hits newsstands on October 31st. The TV series premieres on PBS November 1 to 3 from 9 P.M. to 11 P.M., and a radio series will run that same week on National Public Radio (NPR) in the U.S. Produced by npr's science desk, about six to 10 segments will air on such signature series as 'Morning Edition' and 'All Things Considered.' A companion book published by The Penguin Press and penned by veteran New York Times science and health reporter Philip Hilts will also flag the TV series. Titled Rx for Survival: Why We Must Rise to the Global Health Challenge, it hits shelves October 24th. Further still, the program will initiate an 18-month-long initiative by PBS on health, and will also include outreach campaigns, an extensive website and a summit organized by Time.

Back in spring 2001, the series had humbler beginnings. Hutton, who was then an executive producer at WGBH, had just wrapped Evolution - another WGBH/Vulcan collaboration - when Vulcan founder Paul Allen (who also co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1976) expressed an interest in coproducing another project. "At that point, he pulled out a bunch of topics he cared about - things like energy, education, issues of the developing world, and the environment. On that list was the issue of global health," recalls Hutton.

Apsell immediately jumped at the idea. Coincidentally, the first doc she made for 'Nova' back in 1976, called Death of a Disease, looked at the eradication of smallpox. "That's how I got my start," she says. "I was very inspired by that experience, so I've always been interested in public health."

Given Vulcan's track record with multimedia projects such as Evolution and The Blues, Hutton says Rx for Survival was immediately considered as more than a TV program. But Apsell pinpoints the series' current scope to a US$6 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "They were interested in changing more than attitudes, they wanted to 'move the meter,'" says Apsell. "That meant it had to be a bigger project. It had to have a social impact campaign component, and we needed to extend it beyond public television." Additional funding was also provided by The Merck Company Foundation, a private charitable foundation funded by Merck & Co., a global pharmaceutical company.