A Voice at Risk
VIEWPOINT
by Bob Brown
What would you do if our Orange County’s quality of life were threatened? What if our homeland security were jeopardized by the elimination of real-time news and emergency information? What if there was a reduction in educational tools for Orange County’s K-12 students and less teacher training? What if there was no access to timely information about local business, government, arts and nonprofit causes? What if we no longer could see the faces of local officials and hear them discuss issues? What if Orange County’s very identity and its distinction as a place different from Los Angeles were damaged?
Tragically, all of that is at stake. Amid the politics of state budget deficits and economic crises one tragic outcome could be the loss of Orange County’s PBS station, KOCE-TV. The station’s owner, the Coast Community College District, has put the station up for sale after more than three decades of service to Southern California. The highest bids have been tendered by large religious broadcasters.
The outcome could be devastating. KOCE is the county’s only television voice. It is the only station that, although also viewed in Los Angeles, focuses on Orange County. It regularly provides education services for K-12 classrooms and higher educational for-credit courses utilized by many thousands of students and teachers. On 9-11, LA TV news reporters did not venture into Orange County. Only KOCE told us the impact of events on our schools, airport and freeways and gave a voice to the local American Muslim community, helping maintain an even keel.
KOCE, through its production of “Real Orange,” local election specials, “Bookmark,” “Help Me Grow,” Sound Effects,” Mendez v. Westminster and its broadcast of other locally produced shows such as “Boy Monk” and the Little Saigon Lunar New Year Festival, has helped provide a voice and an identity for Orange County.
As a result, KOCE’s audience has been growing and its operating budget has increased. Yet despite this, the expensive but federally mandated requirement that all stations convert to digital television has placed KOCE in debt, something the Coast District can’t afford during these difficult fiscal times.
The KOCE Foundation, a private nonprofit corporation, has for many years helped sustain and support the station through various fundraising activities. Its efforts have been focused on helping to fund the digital conversion and sustain its annual fund. It is limited in its ability to place a sizeable bid before the Coast District Trustees.
The solution is twofold.
First, local citizens must remind the Coast District Trustees that, as holders of a broadcast license, their responsibility extends throughout the station’s viewing area. The Trustees must be encouraged to consider the impact of their decision on Orange County business, education, the arts and homeland security. To abandon all that in deference to the highest bidder seems less than responsible.
Secondly, any place with the public and private wealth that exists in Orange County should be able to rise and help insure the station’s long-term existence here. The people and businesses of Orange County must do what they can to assist those bidders who would sustain the station’s local public-service mission. If you can help, please contact the KOCE Foundation.
Presently, we have merged our bid with KCET to form a new venture to better compete with the offers by religious broadcasters. We see this as a positive solution because it assures that both KOCE and KCET will be public television stations charged with serving their respective communities. This partnership would maintain KOCE’s focus on education and Orange County news and information. It also offers many collaborative operation efficiencies.
We believe our continued success, our quality of life and our identity as a populace distinct from Los Angeles depends on saving KOCE-TV.
Brown is retired president of Toshiba Electronic America and chairman of the KOCE Foundation in Huntington Beach. This article was also signed by the other foundation members: Dee Balle, Marian Bergeson, Clarence Brown, Peggy Goldwater Clay, John Crean, Jerry Cwertnia, Dwight Decker, Father James Everman, Samuel Goldstein, Todd E. Hollander, Carol Jones, Martha Fluor, Russ Leatherby, Jack Lindquist, Mary Lyons, Betty Mower, Michael Ray, Ardelle St. George, Jaqueline Schaar, Joel Slutzky, Jeff Stroud and Dan Werbin.
