What's Wrong with Channel 9?

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was first published Nov. 6, 1996, in sister publication Eastsideweek, which later merged with Seattle Weekly. Mark D. Fefer today is Seattle Weekly's arts and culture editor.

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If you turned on your television last Tuesday eveningelection nightyou saw plenty of local election coverage on commercial TV, from KOMO, KING, KSTW, as well as KIRO. One place you did not find any local coverage of the election was on our community-funded public television station, KCTS. While in the past Channel 9 has broadcast a panel of local pundits discussing the outcome of local races, this year the station simply picked up the national PBS feed, adding only a voiceless, graphical display of local results to the bottom of the TV screen.

Its a small point, perhaps not even an important one. But to some station observers, the lack of any election coverage points to a larger question: To what degree is KCTS living up to the Community Television that is a part of its name? In the eyes of many people who are close to the station, KCTS is forsaking its mandate of providing locally oriented, public service programs, in favor of a much grander quest for big-time productions that can be sold to cable TV networks and foreign distributors. These KCTS critics, who include a number of long-time employees, feel the station has lost its core values and has become more concerned with selling videotapes and chasing cutting-edge technology than in providing worthwhile, community-based programming. And its of no small significance that KCTS is, as a matter of fact, planning to change its name.

Whether or not KCTS is indeed slighting local shows, there is little doubt the station is headed in new directions, some of which make station loyalists uncomfortable. Channel 9 is preparing itself for a new broadcast world in which the expanding range of media choices makes the stations claim to viewership more tenuous. At the same time, KCTS executives believe that the communications revolution will open up many more potential outlets for what they have to offer. Once a slow and preachy pedagogue, now Channel 9, not unlike Microsoft, looks to become a universal supplier of content for the emerging digital age. The station is trying to be forward-thinking on the hardware side as well: it made an early embrace of high-definition TV and is now racing to test out digital broadcast capability. But these lustrous ambitions have caused resentment as well as foreboding among some people affiliated with the station, who are uncertain just where KCTS is heading and concerned about managements ability to get them there.

The turmoil at KCTS is not unique, but reflects stresses and shifts being felt everywhere in public television today. PBS faces competitive changes that could render it irrelevant. The ascent of cable, for one, has fractured the television audience and given rise to new commercial networks like A&E and the History channel, which offer educational and cultural fare similar to whats on PBS. The future development of digital television may cause yet more proliferation of stations, perhaps even enabling the Three Tenors to have a network all their own. (No more having to share the spotlight with John Tesh.) At the same time, the Internet, as it evolves, also threatens to steal away viewers, especially those who are looking for distance learning or childrens educational fare. In the meantime, corporate donors have been cutting back their support of public television, while Congress has, at times, been downright hostile. This gathering of forces has caused many stations in the PBS system to start looking for new ways to define themselves, new ways to market their product, and, most importantly, new ways to bring in cash. And KCTS is scrambling as hard as any of them.

Theres reason to scramble. According to numbers released last month, KCTS ended its fiscal year in June with a deficit of more than $1 million. That means over the course of the year, the station spent $1 million more than it brought ina big no-no in the nonprofit world. Grants and other production underwriting from corporations and foundations were off by 22 percent from 1995. Subscriber income was up by only 1.4 percent.

In a quest for fresh sources of revenue KCTS has drawn on such predictable devices as the Channel 9 store in Seattles Rainier Square, as well as more innovative strategies such as a joint venture with Australian commercial television and the creation of two documentaries for the Discovery Channel. The station has also hatched a lucrative line of aerial photography videos, known as the Over seriesOver Washington, Over California, Over St. Louis, etc. etc. Theres even an Over Philadelphia (and how better to see it?). These lush, touristy travelogsshot by helicopter and accompanied by maximal stirring music, with minimal intellectual complexityhave been an attractive investment for corporate underwriters, as well as for public TV stations around the country, which broadcast the shows at pledge time and use the videotape versions as a premium.

But critics of the station are concerned that as KCTS chases these more glamorous, and potentially profitable, opportunities, it is neglecting serious local productions that might better serve Channel 9s immediate community. The flash point for some observers was the fate of Friday, a weekly public affairs show hosted by Barry Mitzman. KCTS executives are always quick to mention the show as an example of their commitment to local issues. But this fall the station chopped the hour-long program down by half. Friday was stripped of its prepared tape pieces and now is limited to a 30-minute in-studio roundtable between Mitzman and some guest journalists (who come cheap!). The shows producer, Lisa Smith, who is also Mitzmans wife, has since quit the station.