KCET Goes Outside Fold to Snag Chief

KCET-TV Channel 28, reaching outside the field of public television, on Tuesday selected Al Jerome, a longtime commercial broadcaster and former NBC executive, as president of Southern California’s flagship PBS station.

Jerome, 52, will succeed William H. Kobin, who will turn 67 in February and is retiring Jan. 31 after 13 years and one month heading KCET. Jerome takes over Feb. 1.

A resident of Agoura Hills, Jerome most recently served as president of SpectraVision from 1991-1994, a provider of interactive information and entertainment services to the hotel industry. From 1982 to 1991, he was president of NBC’s TV station group, which includes KNBC-TV Channel 4.

“Al brings tremendous knowledge of the television industry, enthusiasm for the values of public broadcasting and a track record in new communications businesses that will benefit KCET in many ways,” said the station’s board chairman, Richard D. Farman, president of Pacific Enterprises.

“I am very excited about the challenges and opportunities that await me at KCET,” Jerome said in a prepared statement. “The challenge of continuing to deliver quality programming in an environment in which traditional sources of funding are waning is enormous. But there are numerous opportunities to create new ventures with other broadcasting and corporate partners that I believe represent entirely new sources of revenue and potential for KCET.”

He said he also looked forward “to moving KCET into the world of digital transmission and maximizing the opportunities that new technologies bring.”

The choice of a commercial broadcaster to head a public-TV station is not unprecedented. Both William F. Baker, president of WNET-TV New York City, and Van Gordon Sauter, president of KVIE-TV in Sacramento, had prominent positions outside the public system--Sauter as president of CBS News, Baker as president of Group W Television, the station group owned by Westinghouse.

In an interview, Farman pointed to Jerome’s “breath of experience, strategic visioning and managerial capabilities,” indicating that with the decline in private funding, the need for technological changes and competition from cable, the times called for going to someone outside public television.

Although Jerome’s name appeared to come out of the blue, both Farman and Louise Henry Bryson, a senior vice president at fX Network and first vice chair of KCET’s board, who headed up the search committee, said Jerome’s name was on the list very early in the search process, which began last July.

That he comes as a surprise--Kobin himself did not learn of his choice until last weekend--is tribute to the committee’s ability to play its selection process close to the vest. As late as Tuesday morning, PBS officials were phoning KCET to find out who the new president would be.

Farman, a member of the search committee, and Bryson said they settled on Jerome about 10 days ago after narrowing down a list of about a dozen serious candidates--a “balance” between public-TV candidates and others--to three or four candidates about a month ago. They declined to identify the finalists, saying it would not be fair to them.

A key contender was Donald G. Youpa, 58, an 18-year KCET veteran and second in command as executive vice president and chief operating officer.

Farman said that he has asked Youpa to stay on at KCET.

A native of New York, Jerome graduated from Cornell University in 1964 with a major in history and from the New York University Graduate School of Business Administration in 1966. He and his wife, Michele, have a 13-year-old son.