KCET Increases Budget to $42.7 Million : Television: President and CEO William H. Kobin attributes the public broadcaster’s brighter fiscal outlook to ‘a decade of ongoing strategic planning.’

Signaling a modest uptick in its economic fortunes, Los Angeles public television station KCET Channel 28 on Tuesday adopted a projected budget of $42.7 million for fiscal 1995 beginning July 1. For the first time in recent years, the station has not had to struggle to stay in the black.

William H. Kobin, president and CEO, said that “as the station celebrates its 30 years of service during 1994, it is well positioned for the future, as a result of a decade of ongoing strategic planning.”

The budget, approved by the station’s board of directors, is $2.4 million more than last year’s projections. In fiscal 1992-93, KCET had been forced to lay off 19 employees to balance the budget.

The current projected budget of $40.3 million will likely turn out to be at least $46 million because of unanticipated income. Some $4 million flowed in from PBS for the airing of 39 episodes of the acclaimed NBC drama “I’ll Fly Away,” plus the new two-hour opening episode updating the lives of the white lawyer and black housekeeper in the 1960s civil rights saga. Another unexpected $2 million came in for the KCET and NHK/Japan co-production of “Long Shadows,” a 90-minute drama about the life of Japanese-born Haru Reischauer, the wife of former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin Reischauer, which will air on PBS’ “American Playhouse” Aug. 24.

While production dollars for next season appear less--$12.2 million vs. $18.6 million--the difference is also because much of the new “Puzzleworks” children’s puppet series was taped last season. Children’s programming, including 20 new episodes of “Storytime,” is at $5 million, the largest item in the station’s production budget.

KCET’s public-affairs signature series, “Life & Times,” which will enter its fourth season, is budgeted at $1.7 million, same as this year, for airing 22 documentaries and 166 studio shows. The series is the major piece in the $3-million public affairs programming slot. Much of the rest will go toward “The Great War,” an eight-hour series about World War I that is expected to air on PBS in 1996, being produced by Blaine Baggett (“The Astronomers”), KCET’s director of public affairs and feature documentaries.

In the new budget, subscriptions and contributions are taking a bit of a seesaw track--projected at $17.4 million for 1995, up from about $16.5 million this season, while fiscal ’93 money was $17.2 million.

Richard D. Farman, CEO of Southern California Gas Co., was elected to a two-year term as board chairman, succeeding E. Eric Johnson, chairman of TBG Financial Corp. Louise Henry Bryson, senior vice president for affiliate sales and marketing at Fox’s fX cable division, is the new first vice chairman.

As the board prepared to meet, the Coalition vs. PBS Censorship picketed the station for not broadcasting three independently produced documentaries “about our community”--”The Fire This Time,” about the 1992 riots; “State of Emergency: Inside the LAPD,” and “Por La Vida,” about the plight of Latino street vendors.

Denying the censorship charge, Kobin said that “the coalition is capriciously using the word censorship as a weapon to force” broadcast. “KCET must regularly make editorial decisions on a day-to-day basis,” he said in a statement. “That is both our right and our obligation.”

Barbara Goen, KCET’s vice president of public information, said that “Por La Vida” has been accepted for broadcast and will air shortly; “The Fire This Time” was turned down because the station felt the subject was thoroughly treated, and “State of Emergency” is still under consideration.