‘Charlie Rose’ Talk Show to Go Nationwide in January on PBS

NEW YORK — The “Charlie Rose” talk show is going national. The nightly interview show, produced by WNET-TV here, will begin airing five nights a week on PBS, starting Jan. 4.

The one-hour program, which is intended for an 11 p.m. time slot, will give PBS its first nightly talk show in years.

“The premise of this show has been a simple one--that there are a lot of interesting people out there with whom you can have engaging conversation, (and) that you don’t need a fancy set or a band or a sidekick to have an interesting TV show,” said Rose, who began hosting the WNET-TV program one year ago. “The show will remain essentially the same, but going national will enable us to cast an even wider net in terms of (booking) guests.”

Since it began as a local show on WNET, the PBS station here, “Charlie Rose” has featured a wide range of guests, including politicians, philosophers, filmmakers, baseball players, writers and cabaret singers. The program got national distribution for a while on cable’s Learning Channel, but that deal ended earlier this year.

Rose, who was the anchor for CBS’ “Nightwatch” series from 1984 to 1990, said that he plans to take the PBS show on the road from time to time, originating from local PBS stations, as he did from the Houston public-television station during the Republican National Convention. He said that he also plans to give occasional air time to reports from journalists at local PBS stations.