Multiethnic TV Station Comes of Age

It has been a great year for KSCI-TV (Channel 18), though not for the best of reasons. Located on Olympic Boulevard in West Los Angeles, KSCI is Southern California’s most international station, carrying programs in 18 languages.

During the riots in Los Angeles last spring, KSCI became a vital resource for the city’s non-English-speaking residents. The station preempted regular programming to carry live reports on the riots in Mandarin, Korean and Farsi.

“I think that KSCI has really come of age this year because of the attention the riots have gotten,” said Rosemary Danon, station general manager. “People realize we’re a pluralistic society.”

During the riots, Danon said, “We took calls from people who just wanted to talk and others who wanted to know what to do with their children who were in school in afflicted parts of the city. We realized we were the key lifeline for these people.”

KSCI is an affiliate of International Channel Network, which is to the non-English-speaking population of Southern California what CNN is to English-speaking news junkies. The station can be received over the air in Los Angeles on UHF Channel 18, and is also available on cable in many parts of Southern California.

The station functions as a basic social and political connector for Southern California’s multiethnic population, with programming in the Mandarin dialect of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Tagalog, Hindi, Arabic, Armenian, Farsi, Hebrew, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Russian and, on occasion, English.

The station’s primary audience, however, is the region’s Asians and Pacific Islanders, whose numbers exceeded 1.5 million in the 1990 Census, and the majority of its programming is geared to these groups.

Zoe Tan, director of research for KSCI International Channel Network, said, “Over the last 10 years, the Asian population more than doubled in the nation. . . . They account for 10% of L.A. County’s population.”

Palo Alto’s Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy concluded that more than 150,000 Asians immigrated to the state annually during the ‘80s.

Station manager Danon, who also is executive vice president of the International Channel Network, said the Asian market has largely been ignored by conventional media but is viable, hungry and profitable. Despite the recession, she said, KSCI’s advertising revenue is up 54% this year from 1991.

But Danon said the station is concerned with more than profits. She believes it is the station’s mission to inform and entertain the international community, and facilitate the process of assimilation. Accordingly, the station carries interviews with immigration attorneys and consumer protection experts, documentaries and docudramas dealing with such topics as domestic violence and, this year, interpretations of election debates.

Last month, the station broadcast the debates between U.S. Senate candidates Democrat Dianne Feinstein and Republican John Seymour, with simultaneous interpretation into Korean and a tape-delayed version in Mandarin.

In April, the station teamed up with the California League of Women Voters to air a bilingual forum in Mandarin and English with eight of the nine City Council candidates in Monterey Park, where Chinese constitute a majority of the population. KSCI also broadcast Gov. Pete Wilson’s State of the State address with simultaneous interpretation in Mandarin.

“We felt that bringing as much political information to them uneditorialized was really important,” Danon said. “There was a lot of positive feedback.”

But the station offers more than political programming for its non-English-speaking audience. One of the new programs produced at KSCI, launched largely through Danon’s efforts, is called “Pei-Pei’s Time,” an Oprah Winfrey-style talk show in Mandarin hosted by former actress Cheng Pei-Pei. Pei-Pei, a 10-year Pasadena resident, focuses on topical and controversial subjects during the 30-minute program, such as interracial marriage, homosexuality among Chinese, Hollywood’s portrayal of Asian women in film and the westernization of Asian women’s features through plastic surgery--all taboo subjects in mainstream Chinese media.

“One of the most wonderful things about America is our ability to talk about anything,” Pei-Pei said. “Chinese are culturally inhibited about speaking about personal subjects. ‘Pei-Pei’s Time’ has helped open up a dialogue on topics that cry out for better understanding. And not just here, but all Asia.”

Not all programming deals with adjusting to American life.

Thomas Kao, 42, is a former Chinese newscaster who co-hosts and co-produces a program in Mandarin called “Tea Time.” The 30-minute variety show includes news and simple lessons in English, but its specialty is its humorous treatments of Chinese experiences with culture shock. Although it only began airing earlier this month, it is very popular with local Chinese-Americans and has been sold to the AsiaSat distribution network and will be televised throughout Asia.

“The audience response was tremendous,” said Kao, a Pasadena resident. “People love the show because most of the Mandarin Chinese shows are serious and this one is really funny. We do this segment of practical English lessons where we put one simple word on the screen, like ‘deli,’ or slang like ‘happy camper,’ and then make jokes about it.

“We put hot dog on the screen because we know Chinese eat dog meat and we made jokes about going out to a hot dog stand eating a hot dog and saying: ‘This is a part of the dog that I have never eaten before. Maybe it’s the tail.’ But we try to be sensitive and subtle.”

A regular feature of the show, which airs at 3 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays, is a segment called “Shock U.S.A.,” in which a viewer recounts a humorous experience of culture shock.

Kao said one of the funniest segments told the story of an immigrant who was stopped at a traffic light in Los Angeles when a prostitute jumped in and propositioned him. The man, who spoke little English, asked her to get out of the car, but she refused.

When the light turned green and his car didn’t move, a police officer stopped to investigate. The immigrant tried to explain, but the officer couldn’t understand him. It took the man hours to explain his way out of the mess.

“Sometimes you feel so sorry for them,” said Kao. “But they are always laughing about it afterwards.”