Yet another potential casualty of the Great Recession is Los Angeles’ stalwart public television station, KCET. Struggling, but holding on, the station is facing a lack of underwriters and a splintered audience and is considering several options to stay afloat – selling their historic Sunset Boulevard studios, banding together with other regional public TV stations or maybe even leaving the PBS network and becoming an independent station. KCET pays a yearly $6.8 million to remain a PBS affiliate and does not have exclusivity to top tier PBS programs such as “Nova” and “Frontline.” But critics of these measures feel that that additional belt-tightening at KCET is in order. Do you think that KCET should remain in the PBS network? Can they survive without “Sesame Street” in their programming?
Guest:
James Rainey, Los Angeles Times staff. He writes the “On the Media” column and wrote today’s article on the future of KCET.
