KOCE is Orange County’s television station. As you know, the Los Angeles stations largely ignore the county unless a police chase happens to stray to the south. Orange County has a population equal to that of Kansas City. Kansas City has seven or eight television stations covering its issues and events and providing a unifying influence in bringing people of that city together. KOCE can provide that same unifying influence in Orange County. And we can do it better than the commercial stations because our motivations don’t drive us toward achieving huge audience numbers.
I want to talk about local news in LA for a moment. I’m not ashamed to publicly say I think the TV news here is terrible. It’s the worst I’ve seen anywhere in the country. I have a degree in journalism, and used to work as a broadcast news reporter and news anchor, so I think I know a little bit about this subject.
I know the reason why news has changed in the past decade. The reason is a nefarious ratings device called a people meter. It’s a box that resides in the homes of those chosen to be Nielsen survey families. This box keeps track of all television use, minute by minute. That enables television stations and networks to know exactly the programs and news stories that are attracting viewers and those that are losing viewers, minute by minute.
The net result is that local news has been reduced to police chases, celebrity sightings, pet stories, imported video of any building implosion anywhere in the world and video of the water-skiing dogs behind a boat driven by a chimpanzee.
It pains me to say it, but the term “broadcast journalist” is becoming an oxymoron.
At KOCE, we are trying to be different. We make shows and schedule interview guests not based on the number of people who will watch, but on the importance of the information and the impact it can make on those who do watch. And, for the money, we are doing a pretty good job. But with greater resources we could do so much more.
We could give Orange County the level of local television it deserves. We could be out in the county broadcasting live, important local events. We could be producing and disseminating science and math courses so needed in the schools. We could be creating and televising workforce training courses that would better prepare college students and others to enter the high tech workplace.
We could be producing for national broadcast Orange County concerts and plays. We could produce the definitive documentary on the history of this region for national public television distribution. We could create a master teacher digital channel in cooperation with local, county and state education institutions. We could be the means for helping all worthy nonprofits communicate with their constituents and potential donors. And we could deliver these services on multiple platforms including the Internet.
Each week, nearly 3 million different individuals watch KOCE-TV. Forty thousand people per evening watch Real Orange. Four hundred thousand students use our in-school courses. Ten thousand students enroll in our Coastline telecourses. We are making an impact. But we must do more.
But why us? Why KOCE? Why not leave it to some other broadcast, cable or Internet company? The answer is because there are really only two truly distinct categories of media. These categories have nothing to do with whether the information is delivered via TV or radio or magazine.
The categories are commercial media and non-commercial media Both are relevant, worthy parts of the media landscape. But before we allow the non-commercial media to disappear amid the cacophony of cable and satellite channels, please keep in mind the following:
n Twenty-four of the 25 top-rated cable programs are professional wrestling.
n NBC has announced it is bringing wrestling to its Saturday night line-up.
n The target audience for commercial television is under 30 years of age.
n There may be more channels, but they are owned by fewer and fewer mega-corporations who do not care about local community needs. (It’s not their fault. In attempting to be responsible to their shareholders, they haven’t got the luxury of being responsible to society.)
n Even Discovery, A & E; and The Learning Channel throw together documentaries using library footage and comparatively little research. (They even do shows about alien abductions.)
Now, for those of you who think it’s an online world and broadcasting is pass & #233;, take note: According to USA Today, 26 million people use the Internet in a day. That is 10 million fewer than watch one episode of that Regis Philbin millionaire show.
Thomas Jefferson said, “I know of no safe repository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take control from them, but to inform their discretion.”
Increasingly, pressures for profits force commercial media to be sensational and outrageous, making it impossible for them to adequately and fully inform us. And increasingly that burden will fall on non-commercial media.
Orange County’s non-commercial voice is KOCE. Education, culture and citizenship are our goals, but the end result of our success will be that we have been a unifying element in this county bringing many communities and cultures together, and then reflecting this terrific county to the 52% of our audience that watches us from their homes in Los Angeles.
Rogers is president of KOCE. This article is adapted from his speech at the station’s Aristeia Awards dinner in May. This paper’s executive editor, Rick Reiff, is a regular guest on KOCE’s “Real Orange.”
