TV & VIDEO - Sept. 22, 1988

The 5-year-old Worldnet project, a 133-country overseas television network operated by the United States Information Agency, has only 250,000 viewers for its flagship hour news program, the agency reported to Congress on Wednesday. The low number of viewers, coupled with less than ecstatic audience surveys, could doom USIA director Charles Wick’s pet project that consumes most of the agency’s $38.3-million television budget. Congressional critics, charging that the network is an expensive boondoggle, wrote into law that Worldnet must have attracted 2 million viewers in Europe or face an elimination of funding on Oct. 1. Faced with the survey results, Wick launched a drive to save the network, Congressional sources told Newsday. The House has waived the deadline, but the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which initiated the effort to close the network, has yet to take up the matter.