Broader Casting for Profits : Marketing: Public TV, radio stations link up with program-related retailers, such as one in South Coast Plaza, for a new source of funds.
Public broadcasting stations that go head-to-head vying for viewers and donations now are knocking heads in another arena: shopping malls.
The competition is especially hot in Southern California, where two privately held retail chains with strong ties to public broadcasters are opening stores in Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties.
The unusual blend of retailing and broadcasting is resulting in glitzy stores that use interactive computers, big-screen televisions, hands-on displays and highly trained sales personnel to make sales.
Store shelves are filled with thousands of instructional, inspirational and simply entertaining products--as well as public broadcasting’s requisite tote bags, coffee mugs and educational videos.
The stores appear to be a hit with consumers. One of those is Rebecca Sultan, who has been ordering hard-to-find educational material through the mail from Learningsmith Inc., a Boston-based retail chain partly owned by that city’s leading public TV station, WGBH.
Sultan is now shopping at Learningsmith’s 17th location, which opened last weekend at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. “I rely upon (Learningsmith) for everything I need to teach my children,” said Sultan, who is educating her two children in her Laguna Hills home. “I’m so glad they opened in Orange County. It’s just an incredible store.”
Learningsmith, which opened in Beverly Center in April, plans to add a San Diego location in October. The Beverly Center and South Coast Plaza stores are affiliated with KUSC (91.5 FM), a public radio station owned by USC. The San Diego store will not be affiliated with a local station.
Learningsmith, co-owned by WGBH-TV and a venture capital firm, opened its first store in 1992 in Boston. The company also operates stores with WNET-TV in New York, WETA-TV in Washington, D.C., and WCNY-TV in Syracuse, N.Y.
Learningsmith’s major competitor in the fledgling market is Store of Knowledge, a Carson-based company partly owned by KCET-TV (Channel 28). KCET’s partners are the Riordan, Lewis and Haden venture capital firm that counts Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan as a principal; and Lakeshore Learning Inc., a Carson-based retailer that generated $90 million in 1993 revenue through its six stores and a catalogue business.
Store of Knowledge opened its first location in Glendale Galleria in November. Its second is slated to open in October at Fashion Island in Newport Beach, and additional stores are planned in Santa Monica, San Diego and the Inland Empire. Store of Knowledge says it hopes eventually to have as many as 100 stores nationwide.
Broadcasters say they are entering the retail arena for two reasons. At the core, they say, is their mission to foster lifelong learning. They can do that more effectively, they say, by helping to make educational books, videos, games and toys available.
Just as important, broadcasters are counting on the stores to generate profits that will help to make up for flagging corporate donations and dwindling government funding.
Though Learningsmith executives would not discuss their royalty agreements with KUSC and other affiliated stations, the company’s marketing director, Ken Zuckerman, said that “the money can be significant. . . . In some cases, the payments can be in excess of six figures annually.”
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Unlike KUSC, which accepts royalty payments in return for its Learningsmith affiliation, KCET has taken an equity stake in Store Of Knowledge. KCET’s managers say that the station’s for-profit partners put up the cash to open stores and that the deal will not expose the station to undue financial risk.
Retailers are betting that their new-found partners will give them an edge with viewers and listeners typically better educated and more affluent than the general public. “We look at the affiliation as sort of a ‘Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval,’ ” Zuckerman said.
But critics question whether such alliances cross the carefully drawn line that separates nonprofit and commercial broadcast stations.
“If they’re engaging in blatant advertising for consumer goods, they’re cashing in on their credibility and their non-commercial status,” said Karen Brown, research director for the Washington-based Center for Study of Commercialism. “We see it as part of a disturbing trend: the privatization and commercialization of private broadcasting.”
Proponents counter that retail stores and mail-order catalogues are natural alternatives for cash-strapped station managers who are scrambling to cover shortfalls created by a dwindling number of corporate program sponsors and a dearth of government funds.
“The world is changing, and (public broadcasting is) changing with it,” said Maria Eitel, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is urging affiliated stations to explore stores, catalogues and other ways to augment funding shortfalls.
As broadcasters and detractors argue, consumers are flocking to stores that were designed to keep pace with some of the most successful retailers. Learningsmith’s South Coast Plaza store, for example, was drawing bigger crowds this week than the Disney Store next door.
Learningsmith describes its outlets as “general stores for the curious mind” where “learning specialists” invite customers to test-drive computer programs and leaf through books.
Store of Knowledge boasts that it has “culled the best of the best from bookstores, computer stores, video stores and toy stores,” said Laura Wynne, Store of Knowledge’s chief operating officer. “It’s almost an emotional experience when you enter our store.”
