Advocate Swanson Pulls Plug on VQT

LOS ANGELES (AP) â€” Anyone who appreciates how good television can be when it's at its best owes a thank you to Dorothy Collins Swanson. And now is the time to say it. <br><br>Since 1984, as the founder

Tuesday, January 2nd 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

LOS ANGELES (AP) â€” Anyone who appreciates how good television can be when it's at its best owes a thank you to Dorothy Collins Swanson. And now is the time to say it.

Since 1984, as the founder and head of the grassroots group Viewers for Quality Television, Swanson has pushed and prodded networks to value the medium and viewers by offering worthwhile series.

She and her dedicated band of VQT members have focused attention on outstanding creative fare â€” from ``Designing Women'' to ``China Beach'' to this season's ``Gilmore Girls'' â€” and demanded more of the same.

They left it to politicians and others to debate the appropriate level of violence or sex or profanity on television. For VQT, the picture tube was half-full, offering enough absorbing dramas and comedies to prove that intelligent work could be done in Hollywood.

Now, 16 years after Swanson's lobbying efforts for the cop drama ``Cagney & Lacey'' led to the creation of VQT, she's pulling the plug. Her Fairfax, Va.-based nonprofit group is being dissolved; its December newsletter highlighting the best of the current TV season was its last.

The decision was tough but inevitable, Swanson said, and the timing is bittersweet. Her book, ``The Story of Viewers for Quality Television: From Grassroots to Prime Time,'' is just out from Syracuse University Press in New York.

Swanson, who was a 44-year-old Michigan homemaker when she stumbled into her role of advocate for TV excellence, hasn't tired of the battle. But the money and membership levels she needs to keep VQT alive just aren't there anymore.

VQT has dropped from its peak of about 5,000 participants to fewer than 1,000, making it impossible to stage such costly activities as the annual awards dinner and convention in Los Angeles.

``Rather than let the organization become a shadow of its former self, whether under my direction or somebody else's, we thought it was better to stop now and be remembered with the credibility that we worked so hard for the organization to have,'' Swanson said in a telephone interview.

Much has been accomplished, she said. She recalled the 1992-93 season when VQT efforts helped extend the life of (if not save) several outstanding series, including ``I'll Fly Away,'' ``Brooklyn Bridge'' and ``Homefront.''

And VQT helped make viewers, traditionally seen as passive couch potatoes, understand the power of letters and phone calls to networks and producers in support of a series.

``I felt we had accomplished our goal in that viewers knew how to make their voices heard,'' Swanson said.

She may have done more than that, suggested Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. Thompson, who encouraged Swanson to document VQT's history, said the group blossomed at a time when television was entering a golden age and helped define it.

``They announced that the television drama was emerging into a new era of respectability and that the old stereotypes and old saws of 'boob tube' and 'idiot box' were beginning to collapse in some areas,'' he said.

``What they wanted â€” to make television an environment with many more good shows, to protect those shows, to make television better, to somehow give viewers a role in that â€” has basically been accomplished,'' he said.

Trying to keep VQT on a growth track was always difficult. Participation would swell when a cult favorite such as ``Beauty and the Beast'' or ``Quantum Leap'' faced cancellation, and then ebb when the danger or the show ended.

More recently, technology became a foe. Viewers who care more about one series than about TV in general can easily find a fan Web site that allows them to bond and to vent. Their effectiveness is questionable, Swanson said.

``There was a time when campaigning for a show had meaning, but because it can now be done with a click of a mouse it really has lost its specialness,'' Swanson said. ``Someone actually got press notice for her campaign to save 'The Nanny.' I said, 'Well, it's come to that.'''

Swanson and VQT established ties with a number of Hollywood players who seemed to respect their dedication. Their conventions drew network executives, stars such as Helen Hunt and Jerry Seinfeld, and heavyweight producers like David E. Kelley (``Ally McBeal'').

Although clearly dazzled by the attention, Swanson was far from a groupie. In her book, she details a falling-out with Sharon Gless and producer Barney Rosenzweig after VQT criticism of their series ``Rosie O'Neil'' followed Swanson's ardent support of their ``Cagney & Lacey.''

``They didn't expect that from me,'' Swanson said. ``As (VQT associate) Pat Murphy said, just because we cheered once they thought we'd cheer always.''

VQT members offered thoughtful criticism along with praise.

Under the category ``Best New Comedy,'' the current newsletter has only this representative comment from Sue Chapman of Lakeland, Fla.: ``There is absolutely nothing worth mentioning.''

With VQT and its leader bowing out, could another, similarly valuable watchdog emerge? Swanson, a onetime teacher who toiled for a small VQT salary and no benefits, is doubtful.

``If I felt that it was still viable, I would have kept doing it myself. It's not that I am tired of it. This grieves me.''

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On the Net:

http://www.vqt.org