The "People's Voice" partnership of The Globe, WABU-TV and public radio WBUR-FM used the citizens to help guide reporting of campaign issues.

Producers at WHCH-TV (NBC) worked with the panelists to insure that their questions weren't repetitive and that they were at ease before the camera. According to the station's Special Events Executive Producer Kate Shaplan, the new combination of citizen's questions and a race that was heating up to a boil made for something new and exciting.

"What was especially exciting," she says, "is that questions asked by citizens rather than reporters seemed to hold the candidates more accountable in their answers."

Adding to the excitement, viewership in the 7 to 8 p.m. Tuesday night time slot soared from the previous program's 570,000 people to 754,000.

Coverage kicked off with programs reporting on the results of a statewide poll asking the people their concerns. Then, citizen panels in Wisconsin's 2nd, 3rd and 8th Congressional districts quizzed their Republican and Democrat candidates for Congress in separate town hall programs. Segments from these programs were then pulled together by Wisconsin Public Television to make a two-hour show.

Ratings shot up for all the programs, but in Madison, WISC-TV (CBS) and Wisconsin Public Television racked up a combined 10 rating, 26 share in the prime time 7 to 8 p.m. Friday time slot. That amounts to 60,500 viewers, and equals the leading network programming for that time slot.

Collectively, more than 100,000 viewers tuned in on one night to watch the "Talk of the House" programs.

Dave Iverson, of Wisconsin Public Television, calls the project "a terrific example of how different media partners in different markets helped to give an entire state a look at who their next Congressmen will be."

Partners The Seattle Times, KCTS and public radio stations KPLU-FM and KUOW-FM launched the project with a program based on a statewide issues survey that revealed people were concerned about ethics and morals. Then came the two forums, the only statewide gubernatorial forums in prime time. The citizens panel asked questions, then gave way to questions from the audience.

Community response was "overwhelming," according to Lisa Smith, who was KCTS senior producer for public affairs. "The middle school gymnasium from which we broadcast was packed with hundreds of people, and our ratings were more than twice what they usually are in that time slot," she says. "I was surprised at the quality of questions from the citizens and at the thoughtful and direct answers they elicited from the candidates."

"I started the project as a skeptic of citizen panels," Smith says. "Now I'm at least a partial believer."

She's not alone. While all those involved caution against leaping to cause-and-effect relationships between citizen panels and viewer interest, they're almost jumping for joy over the audiences they attracted.

As Wisconsin Public Television's director of programming James Steinbach put it: "These numbers show that citizens will watch a political forum if they believe it reflects issues, values and concerns of their fellow citizens."