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Show I TV TATTLE I I Public TV'i high ratings Public television broke some of its own records recently. For the first time in the history his-tory of the network, a majority majori-ty of American viewers 52.2 percent tuned in to public television during a sample week, according to the Nielsen ratings. This is an 18 percent increase from December 1979, and an 84 percent increase from December 1974, the earliest year for which there are records. And public television's audience audi-ence isn't all comprised of professors and literary scholars. schol-ars. The Nielson figures indicate indi-cate that 73.2 percent of public pub-lic television's audience are households with children under 6 years of age, and 47.5 percent are persons who are not in the labor force at all. New western Patty Duke Astin goes western west-ern in a new, as yet unnamed, series that will be produced next fall by that old western hand, Michael Landon, of "Little House on the Prairie" and "Bonanza" fame. Merlin Olsen, also a veteran of "Little House on the Prairie," will star as the owner of an 1870s ranch that is a home for orphaned children chil-dren between the ages of 2 and 12. Miss Astin will star as a teacher at that ranch, who doesn't see eye to eye with the owner. Landon created the series for NBC and will occasionally write and direct segments, while he continues his duties at "Little House" as well. Sometimes it pays for actors to research their roles and really know what they are doing. Daryl Andeison, who plays photographer Animal on the weekly ' Lou Grant" newspaper newspa-per drama, recently had a chance to shoot some real film. While filming an episode for future "Lou Grant," the cast members were witness to a fire breaking out on the roof of the nine-story Pacific Telephone Tele-phone building in downtown Los Angeles. Anderson, who always keeps his "Lou Grant" camera loaded, started snapping away and photographed the first 17 fire companies that fought the fire. He gave his film to the Associated Press, which transmitted several of his pictures pic-tures to newspapers. |