Pbs Catalog Offers Best Shows On Video

Mon., July 3, 1995

Martie Zad The Washington Post

A catalog heralding high-quality programming is now available for viewers who would like to have PBSstyle fare on their video shelves.

The 64-page, full-color PBS catalog was mailed to selected households and is available by calling 1-800-645-4PBS. It contains about 200 titles, most of them sets of memorable PBS shows. Some of them have also been sold by A&E Home Video, The Discovery Channel, Learning Channel, Nova and Museum City Video.

PBS is making these program listings available in one catalog as it launches a drive for stronger fundraising and making “our programming more available to the people,” said Eric L. Sass, senior vice president, PBS Learning Media. “Almost every show has appeared on PBS, but not all. The others are public television-like. We’re doing some testing. We want to see what the consumer wants.

“The PBS Home Video catalog is another great way to provide the widest distribution of its high-quality programs, enabling our stations to offer public television programs directly to their members, while helping to generate revenue for the stations.”

A sampling of videos available from the catalog (with number of cassettes in the set and the list price):

Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns (9, $179.98)

Trials of Life (12, $199.98)

FDR (4, $69.95)

Churchill (4, $59.95)

The Windsors (4, $79.98)

American Revolution (6, $99.50)

World War II: The War Chronicles (7, $99.95)

Civil War Journal II (6, $119.95)

The Six Wives of Henry VIII (6, $129.98)

Shakespeare, English Theatre Co. (6, $124.95)

Winds of War (7, $139.95)

America’s Historic Steam Railroads (3, $39.95)

Smithsonian’s Great Civil War Battles (7, $209.95)

How The West Was Lost (3, $79.95)

House of Eliott (6, $129.95)

Upstairs Downstairs (7, $149.95)

The Beatles Collection (4, $79.98)

There are also single cassettes ($14.95 to $29.95) including “Julie Andrews in Concert,” “Moonshot,” “Ice-Skating Showcase,” “Amazing Grace with Bill Moyers,” “In Search of Angels,” “The Internet Show” and “The Creation of the Universe.”