PBS president Pat Mitchell refuses to pledge allegiance to pledge drives.

"Every time I meet someone, they say, 'Why do you guys do all that pledge stuff?' We're turning off loyal viewers. They find it irritating. There's got to be a way that's not so intrusive."

Mitchell - in town the other day for a courtesy call to the Pew Charitable Trusts, a major PBS donor - acknowledges that shifting the long history of alms talks will require a seismic shift in the culture of public television.

"There hasn't been enough of a sense of urgency at PBS," she says. Staffers "felt we'd kind of go along with what we were doing. Now we're finally looking at the face of a 10-year decline in membership revenues."

Mitchell is determined to create a new business model for PBS, whose 349 member stations raise varying percentages of their operating budgets through maddeningly interruptive pledge breaks.

The programming that the breaks interrupt must change, too, Mitchell says.

A cheesy info-tainment show such as Nicholas Perricone's anti-wrinkle cream might be a pledge cash cow, but it hardly shares the PBS pedigree of Masterpiece Theatre, Frontline and Nova.

"I prefer that we find something that looks a lot more like PBS," says Mitchell, 59. "I'm not going to join WHYY, because it's offering me the best wrinkle cream or the best financial advice."

Not that there's anything wrong with wrinkle cream, she adds. "I'm not making a judgment about him [Perricone]. I just don't think it should be on PBS."

Better tell PBS. Healthy Aging With Dr. Nicholas Perricone and Wayne Dyer's There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem are scheduled to run a combined five times during WHYY's next pledge drive, Dec. 7-15.

Channel 12 will devote 39 days this year to "show me the money"-thons, with three major drives. They contribute about 11 percent of the station's income.

As an experiment, PBS packaged a two-minute pledge pitch at the end of each of five episodes of Ken Burns' The Civil War on his "American Stories" Sept. 22-26.

As for Mitchell, she says she plans to re-up after her three-year contract expires in March. That's a 180 from her feelings a few months ago.

"I didn't know if I could do what needed to be done. At one point, I considered running for political office... . I don't accept defeat easily. I lose energy when I don't get results.

"Now I feel like I'm grappling with it. It's a bit like dancing with an elephant, but I feel like we're at least starting to dance."

"Hardball" to Penn. MSNBC's Hardball, anchored by homeboy Chris Matthews, will be taped at Penn's Zellerbach Theatre tomorrow afternoon and shown at 9 p.m. Wednesday as part of the show's weekly college tour.

Matthews' guest, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, will answer questions from the audience of students and faculty.

After the taping, a Penn student selected by the school will sit in the "Hardball Hotseat" for a rapid-fire quiz by Matthews.

The top 10 students from the tour will compete in a tournament in the spring. Top prize is a $10,000 scholarship plus a $5,000 grant for the winner's school.

Is it Orr? Buzz at WCAU is that weekend meteorologist Kathy Orr, just back from maternity leave, will get the 6 and 11 p.m. weather slot to be vacated by 12-year veteran John Bolaris on Nov. 28.

No decision yet, says news boss Chris Blackman. Channel 10's weather roster also includes Glenn "Hurricane" Schwartz and Bill Henley.

Short stuff. KYW will run a short tribute to anchor Siani Lee today on the 5:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. news. She died at 39 exactly one year ago in a car accident in Chester County... . CBS MarketWatch's Susan McGinnis has been named anchor of the 4:30 a.m. CBS Morning News and a business contributor to the revamped Early Show, which launches today. She succeeds Julie Chen, one of Early's four cohosts.