Televangelists Offer Top Cash Bids for KOCE

Two religious broadcasters have each offered to buy Orange County’s only public television station for $25 million cash, 2 1/2 times the amount offered by a combined bid from the station’s boosters and the Los Angeles PBS affiliate, according to a bid summary released Wednesday.

The five trustees of the Coast Community College District, which owns KOCE Channel 50, are now faced with the decision of whether to sell for the highest price or to sell at a discount to a group that would continue Public Broadcasting Service programming, along with local shows.

A decision on the sale could be made as soon as Oct. 1. The board told Elliot Evers, managing partner of Media Venture Partners, the San Francisco firm hired to broker the sale, to return on that date with completed contracts from the five prospective buyers.

Evers said in an interview that bidders could increase their prices during negotiations.

The district released the bid summary Wednesday night during a board meeting to discuss the sale. The meeting attracted about 200 people, nearly all of whom appeared to oppose selling the station to televangelists.

The two trustees who made up a committee to investigate the sale were split. George Brown said the district couldn’t continue to take money “intended for the education of students to make up for KOCE’s financial losses.”

Jerry Patterson said a sale to the highest bidder would be “a breach of public trust.”

Opponents presented a broad range of heavy hitters to make their case, including representatives for Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) and Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona, UC Irvine Chancellor Ralph Cicerone and Stan Oftelie, executive director of the Orange County Business Council.

A letter of support for the KOCE-KCET proposal signed by the chief executives of Orange County-based companies, including Henry Samueli of Broadcom and Dwight Decker of Conexant Systems, was turned over to the trustees.

Russ Leatherby, former chairman of the KOCE Foundation, whose family has donated $750,000 to the station, said he would consider the sale to the religious broadcasters “tantamount to misappropriation of funds” and threatened to sue.

John Lawson, president of the Assn. of Public Television Stations, who flew in from Washington, D.C., for the meeting, said sale of KOCE’s license for a profit could be tied up in litigation for years.

He pointed to the $22 million of federal money KOCE has received from the Corp. for Public Broadcasting. “I’m pretty sure the federal government is going to have a keen interest in getting some of that money back,” he said.

The highest cash offers came from Trinity Broadcasting Network of Costa Mesa, the world’s largest Christian broadcaster, and Daystar Television of Dallas, which bills itself as the second-largest Christian broadcaster.

Trinity’s bid specified the offer would be $1 million more than the next-highest offer, with a cap of $25 million.

KCET-TV Channel 28 of Los Angeles and the KOCE-TV Foundation offered $10 million, with $1 million to be paid when the deal closes and the remainder to be paid over time.

The highest bid actually might have come from another Christian group, LeSEA Broadcasting Corp., which offered $10 million cash, $15 million to be paid over time, plus 20% of yearly cash flow.

Almavision Hispanic Network, a Christian Spanish-language broadcaster, offered $15 million to $25 million cash, according to the district’s summary. Media Venture Partners’ Evans said the company did not specify what would trigger the higher price.

Each prospective buyer agreed to allow the community college district to continue broadcasting telecourses for eight years and to allow at least one member of the board to serve at least two years on the station’s board.

The Federal Communications Commission would have to approve the buyer of KOCE’s noncommercial, educational license.

Three other bidders withdrew. Far and away the highest bidder among them was Westminster developer Frank Jao, who offered $21.75 million to be paid over time.

TBN has 27 stations and assets of more than $500 million. It is no stranger to controversy. Last year, the network wanted to produce the Easter sunrise service at the Hollywood Bowl, but strong public opposition forced it to back down. The nonprofit network, founded and operated by televangelists Paul and Jan Crouch, owns KTBN-TV Channel 40 in Santa Ana.

Daystar, according to its Web site, is part of a ministry founded by Marcus and Toni Lamb.

The TV network operates stations in 29 cities, including Philadelphia, Boston and San Francisco.

LeSEA, the Lester Sumrall Evangelistic Assn., of South Bend, Ind., owns at least six stations in the U.S., according to its Web site.

The community college district pays about $1.8 million of the station’s yearly $8-million operating budget, but some board members said their portion could jump to $3 million in the next few years.

The station also is looking at a bill of about $8.5 million to meet the FCC mandate to convert to digital technology, most of that for updating studios. The station has spent more than $1 million to build a tower on Mt. Wilson that broadcasts a digital signal, which some people think meets the FCC requirement.

About $3.5 million total has been raised, mainly by the KOCE-TV Foundation.