9, 1938, in Santa Monica, Calif., to John and Grace (Lloyd) Wellingham. Once you schedule a program, and once you promote it, then if nobody watches it, you’re wasting people’s money.”Ĭhloe Wellingham was born on Oct. “I think that’s an irresponsible attitude. “There are people in public television who think the numbers should never be mentioned,” she told The Associated Press in 1978. Aaron was conscious of ratings, which had not been a priority at PBS, since the service, with public financing, did not have to worry about impressing advertisers. Aaron implemented that system in 1979, and that October more than half of all television households in the United States watched at least some PBS programs, the service’s best showing ever to that point. In effect, the affiliates agreed to yield their prime evening hours and permit PBS to create a national network.” “It was a turning point for PBS, something that had never happened before. “She set about persuading the PBS affiliates, a fractious and independent group, to allow ‘common carriage’ four nights each week (Sunday to Wednesday) between 8 and 11 p.m.,” the newspaper wrote. Aaron brought uniformity to the prime-time hours, as The New York Times noted in 1981. When she arrived, the local affiliates that made up the Public Broadcasting Service were largely going their own way in programming Ms. She helped PBS establish a national identity. She made a particular mark with arts programming, starting, among other programs, “Live From the Metropolitan Opera” (also known as “The Metropolitan Opera Presents”). Aaron sought ways for the service to compete against the big three commercial networks that existed at the time, all the while fighting its perpetual budgetary woes. She was 81.Įmily Eliza Wall, her goddaughter, said the cause was cancer and related complications.ĭuring her four and a half years in the PBS post, Ms. Chloe Wellingham Aaron, who, when she became senior vice president for programming at PBS in 1976, was “believed to be the highest-ranking woman executive at the network level in the history of television,” as the announcement of her hiring put it, died on Feb.

Live from the metropolitan opera pbs