Your chance to get a word in about KOCE

Today’s column is being brought to you by the letter “U.”

As in you have the opportunity to have your voice heard regarding

the impending sale of KOCE.

OK, I stole the popular line from Sesame Street, which is no

longer broadcast on KOCE, but is on other Public Broadcast Stations

such as KCET -- one of the bidders being considered.

The Coast Community College District will consider the sale of its

KOCE license at its meeting tonight at 6:30 p.m. in the Robert B.

Moore Theatre at Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa

Mesa.

If you don’t know where that is, just look for the dozens of

people protesting outside of the venue, with homemade picket signs

and banners designed to persuade the cash-strapped board of directors

to keep the station.

Coast Community College District holds the license for the

station, giving it ultimate responsibility to fund the station,

although it only provides 25% of the budget. In these financially

uncertain times, trustees are looking at ways to cut district

expenses. The KOCE Foundation, a group dedicated to raising funds,

gives about $6 million of the station’s $8-million budget, leaving

the district with about $2 million to cover.

Because of the budget shortfall, the district is looking to

improve its own financial standing by selling the 30-year-old

station. Not only will the district save $2 million a year, it will

also receive a one-time lump sum of anywhere from $10 to $25 million

-- money that is badly needed.

And buyers, especially those connected to lucrative televangelist

networks, are willing to shell out some big bucks. Of the 10 bids to

buy KOCE, four are connected to religious networks.

Gordon Smith, a systems engineer at KOCE who has created a Web

site designed to save the station from falling into the hands of

religious broadcast companies, has linked one of the potential buyers

to a powerhouse religious network, rapidly expanding its broadcast

holdings. His opinions are not representative of KOCE as a whole but

have been formed through years of broadcast experience in Southern

California, he said.

Take the recent $20-million sale of a Texas-based PBS station,

KDTN, to Daystar Television Network, as part of the religious

network’s aggressive campaign to increase national exposure. Daystar

executives capitalized on the financial constraints of the public

station and acquired yet another outlet to spread the good word.

“Daystar is growing rapidly and is always adding new television

stations in the United States,” the networks official Web site

states.

KOCE is another station Daystar -- better known on the KOCE roster

of bidders as Community Television Educators of Orange County -- is

looking to purchase, Smith said.

How can they take control of a station that is licensed for public

broadcasting? The Federal Communications Commission allows the sale

of public broadcasting stations to religious entities, as long as the

stations remain non-commercial and is dedicated to an educational

purpose.

In the case of DayStar, the educational mission is to continue

spreading the word of the Lord, as owners Marcus and Joni Lamb set

out to do in 1984 “under God’s specific guidance,” the Web site

reads.

Since then, the Daystar Television Network has emerged as

America’s second largest and fastest growing Christian television

network, operating 29 television stations across the nation with the

potential to reach more than 120-million people.

Add another 11.7 million if they gain control of KOCE.

The college board of directors, a group of five men who have taken

a lot of heat in this fiasco, have been put in charge of an entity

that has transformed greatly from its initial goal to create an

alternative venue for college courses more than 30 years ago. KOCE

was originally established to broadcast telecourses to students in

Orange County. Since then, students have chosen other avenues and

less than 30% of telecourse students get their schooling from KOCE,

district officials said.

Furthermore, KOCE has moved beyond its home-grown status and is

now broadcast in five counties, with more than 50% of the pledges

coming from outside the county. The popular station has outgrown the

modest financing available from a community college district facing

its own financial crisis.

A sale is inevitable, seeing as how the KOCE Foundation was the

only bidder until the board hired consultants to find others, with

deeper offering plates.

But it may not be all bad.

The KOCE Foundation is expected to combine its bid with Los

Angeles-based KCET to keep the local station from divine acquisition.

The other PBS bidder, run from the San Diego State University campus,

has withdrawn.

The good news: KCET officials have said their goal is to keep the

KOCE name and continue to focus coverage on Orange County. The bad

news: It may not have the financial resources to outshine the devout

proposals of televangelist networks.

Those who would like to see the station remain controlled by

secular, public organizations -- or those who want another

televangelist channel -- should make their opinions known. It all

comes down to U, er, you.