PBS, JAPANESE LAUNCH JOINT PROJECT

NEW YORK —  A new public television programming venture has been launched to create and acquire programs about Japan and will be funded in large part by Japanese corporations.

“The Japan Project” will be based here at WNET-TV and supervised by a committee of officials representing the New York station and four other public television stations, the Public Broadcasting Service and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The stations are KCET Channel 28 in Los Angeles, KCTS in Seattle, WQED in Pittsburgh and WGBH in Boston.

The project’s initial funding has come from a $200,000 grant from the U.S.-Japan Foundation, a New York-based philanthropic organization. Money for programming will be sought principally from Japanese corporations.

WNET President John Jay Iselin, who spearheaded the new venture, said that “The Japan Project” represents the first effort by public-television stations in this country to tap the production resources of NHK, the Japanese public-television network.

Programs produced under the new venture will be made available to all public television stations in this country, Iselin said.

The committee of public-TV officials overseeing the project will be charged with insuring that the programming has not been influenced by the Japanese underwriters, he said.