The ‘Secret’ Life of Public TV

Using public funds and air time, public television and radio bureaucrats have mounted an intensive campaign to put pressure on Congress to renew the subsidy exacted from all taxpayers to provide entertainment for a few. The campaign has received editorial support from The Times and a front-page analysis (“PBS: Behind the Sound and Fury,” Column One, Jan. 31).

Locally, the campaign is headed by William Kobin, KCET-TV president. In a recent broadcast appeal, he asserted that public TV is “free.” But nothing is free, least of all Mr. Kobin’s quarter-million-dollar salary and benefits, paid out of taxes and tax deductions.

Until recently, taxpayer-supported public TV and radio have not needed to appeal to the public to put pressure on Congress. Democratic-controlled Congresses have willingly granted public telecommunications ever-increasing appropriations, more than the White House has asked for and more than cost-of-living increases would justify. This was very likely in recognition of public TV and radio’s generally left-liberal slant.

Generally, public TV has appealed to the public only for contributions to supplement its federal grants. Its belated cultivation of the people as voters is to be contrasted with its longstanding secrecy and arrogance in the conduct of its affairs.

KCET-TV has what it calls “members” but they are only contributors; they have no voice in the station’s affairs. The only members are the board of 55 directors--a number that is a prescription for uselessness and domination by the station’s staff. The board is self-perpetuating; vacancies are filled by the remaining members in uncontested elections at which candidates chosen by a secret nominating committee are routinely adopted.

The federal law that authorizes public TV requires grantee stations to hold meetings of their governing boards and committees that, with limited exceptions, are announced in advance and open to the public. From 1978 when the law was adopted until 1991, KCET-TV did not comply with respect to committee meetings where, if ever, any important business was transacted. When some viewers complained, the station began purported but illusory compliance. Open meetings have generally been confined to ceremonial observances, with important business still reserved for meetings that are closed on one pretext or another.

The station’s nominating committee is the most secret of all. Its meetings are closed to the public, and the station has not responded to my requests for the identity of its members other than the chairman. The reason for the secrecy and its effect are manifested in the composition of the station’s ostensibly governing board and its abstention from meaningful activity. Many on the board are corporate executives, socialites, philanthropists and political figures. We believe that many directorships are in effect bargained and sold to persons who provide money, often money given by corporations or other institutions the directors can influence. The other qualification for directorship seems to be willingness to let staff run the station as they please. This, we believe, is accomplished by the secret selection process whereby the staff chooses directors.

Taxpayer-provided funds appropriated by Congress are distributed to stations by the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which could easily enforce compliance with the law, but does not do so. Instead of being a watchdog over public funds, it acts as a lap dog for grantee stations such as KCET-TV, which is typical.

When asked for money, Congress should make a thorough review of public telecommunications and the extent to which its funding can serve the public interest.

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