The 'Q' Quest': SU alumni hosts morning show on gay, lesbian startup cable network
Thursday, November 03, 2005
By William LaRue
Staff writer
tudying at Syracuse University in the early 1990s, Scott Withers didn't have any dreams of running a TV channel appealing to gay and lesbian viewers.
Withers says he was totally set on being a broadcast journalist. Besides, he was still "extremely in the closet" back then about his homosexuality.
"At the time, I was all about hard news, daily news, local broadcast news. . . . And if you asked me then if I thought I'd be running a gay cable network, I would have thought you insane," Withers says.
Right now, though, he says everything about Q fits him to a T.
He's not only executive vice president of Q Television Network, a subscription channel for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered (GLBT) community. He's also co-host of its live daily show, "Brunch." The program is televised noon to 1:30 p.m. weekdays.
Q, which also features documentaries, news, sports and other programming, premiered Oct. 1 in Central and Northern New York on Time Warner Cable's Channel 380. A subscription is $7.95 a month.
After graduation in 1995 from SU's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, the Michigan-born Withers worked for several years at CNN. He then became a TV reporter in Tennessee before being hired as an executive for a public relations company. He quit to go to work at Q in October 2004.
Withers is planning to return to Syracuse for a public appearance Nov. 12 at Rain nightclub in Syracuse in an event co-sponsored by Time Warner and Q.
In a telephone interview from his Los Angeles office, Withers spoke about his time as a closeted gay student at SU, his show on Q, and his excitement about the fledgling network.
Q. Did you know you were gay when you were at SU?
Q. Did you know you were gay when you were at SU?
A. Absolutely. I was totally self-conscious of my sexuality at the time. I was not "out,"
because in the early 1990s, while the gay and lesbian community was gaining momentum and gaining visibility, it was still not as widely open as it is today.
It was funny that all of my friends at the time were also closeted. We hung out all the time together, but we didn't know (each other was gay). We never talked about it to each other. We all came out to each other after graduation.
Q. Does the network say what "Q" in Q Television Network stands for?
A. We don't say Queer Television, but it stands for "queer," which represents the GLBT community. . . . I don't want to say we're taking back the term, but we have absolutely no problem with it. We're all proud to be queer.
Q. What is your morning show like?
A. I host that with Honey Labrador, who was on "Queer Eye for the Straight Girl." She's been a runway supermodel for decades. The show airs live from Hollywood at 9 a.m., or on the East Coast (from noon to 1:30 p.m.) That's why we came up with the creative title "Brunch."
Q. How is "Brunch" different from other morning shows?
A. It's an unscripted sitcom. We don't bring our guests out and sit them in a chair next to us and have the normal interview. Our set is two apartments. She lives in one apartment. I live across the hall. We're friends, but we don't always agree and get along.
Q. Are all your guests celebrities?
A. We have a mixture. We have people on representing various charities or different groups. We have lawyers come on talking about same-sex domestic issues and personal finance, which is completely different for our community than the heterosexual community because of different laws in different states.
Q. What about other shows on Q?
A. Our big focus is on live shows every single day - live, live, live television. Our nighttime block kicks off (at 7 p.m.) with "QTN WorldNews," which is a half-hour live news program all about GLBT news. Then we have (at 7:30 p.m.) "On Q Live," which is our nightly variety show.
Then we cap off our night (at 9 p.m.) with "Queer Edge." Our host is Jack E. Jett. . . . One of his guests was a rock band made up of people of smaller stature. Then he's also had male strippers on pogo sticks. So his show is a lot of fun and way, way out there.
Q. What is the difference between you and Logo (another gay cable channel, which hasn't yet been added locally by Time Warner Cable)?
A. They're great . . . But because they (Logo) are on basic digital cable, anybody can tune it in. So they have to be very careful with their programming, about what they say, the topics they cover. They have to hedge the programming because they might be in homes where parents may not be as open to the gay and lesbian community.
On the other hand, we're a premium cable service. People subscribe to us. So we push the envelope.
I want to make it really clear: We don't do porn. But we can push the edge of a topic. We can talk in frank terms about sexually transmitted diseases. We can talk about violence in the (gay) community. We can take it to the next two or three levels in the content.
AI
