It’s KOCE decision time

Jenny Marder

Judgment day for Orange County’s only public television station is

rapidly approaching.

Final bidding for KOCE-TV closed Wednesday and board members are

expected to make a decision in one week’s time.

Faced with budget cuts, the Coast Community College District can

no longer afford to fork over $2 million a year to support the

station’s operating budget, KOCE spokeswoman Erin Cohn said.

The road for the struggling station has taken several twists and

turns over the past seven months, since the station was first placed

on the market.

Half of the original 10 bidders have dropped out, leaving the

station with five interested buyers, four of which are religious

broadcasters. The other is the KOCE Foundation, a nonprofit group

dedicated to keeping the station’s educational programming and local

news coverage on the air.

The KOCE Foundation pulled out of a joint bid with L.A.-based

KCET-TV last week, citing time constraints as its reason for the

failed partnership.

A group of business executives announced Wednesday that they will

provide needed funding to ensure that KOCE’s bid doesn’t drop, now

that the partnership has dissolved. The business leaders include

Dwight Decker, CEO of Conexant Systems, Inc., Matt Massengill, CEO of

Western Digital Corp., David E.I. Pyott, CEO of Allergan, Inc., Henry

Samueli, chief technical officer of Broadcom Corporation and John Tu,

CEO of Kingston Technology Company Inc.

“If KCET stayed in, they’d bring certain financial strengths and

coordination, and we’d be using their equipment and personnel and

that might save money,” Coast Community College district board member

Jerry Patterson said.

Dissolving that partnership, however, strengthened the

foundation’s bid, Patterson said.With overlapping coverage areas, the

chance for competition between the two networks could have easily

weakened their ability to function as a team.

Another bidder, Trinity Broadcasting Network, the nation’s largest

religious broadcasting conglomerate, announced its support for

keeping the station a PBS affiliate.A PBS station that runs

educational programming and local news would benefit the area more

than another Christian broadcasting channel, spokesman John Casoria

said. Trinity Broadcasting News already owns channel 40, which airs

in Orange County.

“We are very much attuned to what the people of Orange County see

as value,” Casoria said. “And clearly, the people of Orange County

see KOCE as being an institution which is worthy of support.”

The televangelist network remains a bidder and if the board of

trustees awards it KOCE’s license, Casoria said that it will

broadcast educational programming, religious broadcasting and some

local news.

“Community educational TV has run and continues to run educational

television stations across the country,” he said. “We do run them as

educational programming to benefit the needs of Orange County.”

Joel Slutzky, a board member for the KOCE Foundation said he was

surprised that TBN sensed the importance of KOCE.

“It became very obvious, very quick that they see themselves as

part of Orange County, that they’re putting the county first,”

Slutzky said.

Slutzky urged Orange County residents to attend the meeting

Wednesday and voice their thoughts on the potential sale. The meeting

will be held at 6:30 p.m. in Orange Coast College’s Robert B. Moore

Theatre.

“The bottom line on all of this is the station should be a

community owned and operated station,” he said. “It has such a strong

link to the educational system here. The only way that it’s going to

stay a community owned and operated station is if people go to the

meeting on the 15th and let the trustees hear how they feel about

it.”