KSCI TO CANCEL ITS SPANISH PROGRAMMING

In less than a month, Los Angeles’ first multilingual television broadcaster has gone from proclaiming the creation of a new Spanish-language broadcast network to dropping all its Spanish-language programming. Friday will mark the last Spanish broadcast for KSCI (Channel 18).

The cancellation reflects the station’s desire to cut its in-house production costs, which had increased with the creation of original Spanish-language programming, according to Michael Draznin, KSCI media relations director. The station will now concentrate on serving the 14 other ethnic and linguistic groups and leave Spanish programming to its competitors, KMEX-TV and KVEA-TV.

“There was a lot of interest in the (Spanish-language) programs, but that was not the only consideration,” Draznin said. “Linea Abierta” (Open Line), a series of live, call-in shows that KSCI began producing in May when the station expanded its Spanish programming to 32 hours a week, was not bringing in enough revenue to pay its production costs, he said.

KSCI, which currently broadcasts in 15 languages, including Spanish, will plug in several English-language shows as a short-term replacement for the canceled Spanish programming but will remain committed to its multilingual philosophy, Draznin said.

Most of KSCI’s programming time is rented to groups that pay their own production costs, Draznin added. “There have been considerable requests from the different ethnic communities asking us to increase their programming time,” he said.

‘I don’t know if we are stopping in midstream,” he said of the station’s sudden programming cancellation. “Considering what we had put in, what we were getting back, plus the response from the community, it was decided that it was in the best interests of the community to reconfirm our stance as an international station.

“It’s unfortunate that the Spanish advertising community wasn’t willing to put their support behind a new and innovative idea,” Draznin added. “Linea Abierta,” he explained, sought to provide informational service to the Latino community by allowing viewers to get answers on the air from professionals in the medical and legal fields.

Ratings, Draznin said, were not the reason KSCI canceled its Spanish-language programming. Although the station’s Spanish programming did not register any ratings during Arbitron’s July sweep, he said, the station’s own telephone surveys showed strong viewer interest, with “Linea Abierta” receiving an average of 15,000 viewer calls a week.

The station also announced Monday that its current general manager, Thomas Headely, and outside investor Ray L. Beindorf, who is leaving his post as president of KIHS-TV in Ontario, will become KSCI’s new owners pending Federal Communications Commission approval of their $40.5-million leveraged buyout offer for the UHF outlet.

The World Plan Executive Council, a nonprofit educational organization that currently owns and administers the station, also directs other projects, including the Transcendental Meditation program founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1959.

The World Plan Executive Council “feels it’s more effective for reaching its goal, which is to establish world peace, by taking another direction outside of the TV industry,” Draznin said. Termination of KSCI’s Spanish-language programming is not related in any way to the sale of the station, he added.

But cancellation of KSCI’s Spanish-language programming automatically kills this month’s planned start-up of the Hispanic Broadcast Network (HBN), a small-scale program network that would have sold such shows as “Linea Abierta.” Earlier this month, station officials reported that 18 stations had agreed to become HBN affiliates.

“We just felt that the direction of our station was more beneficial to focus on the local (international) market,” Draznin said. “They’re already two big players in that area (Spanish-language programming), and we have another turf we have already developed.”

Programs are broadcast over KSCI in Korean, Mandarin, Arabic, Cantonese, among other languages.