KCTS9 a Look at the Role of a Local PBS Station in Its Community

8/14/2019 KCTS9 a Look at the Role of a Local PBS Station in Its Community

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When KCTS 9 first went on the air in 1954 it was broadcasting from the University of

Washington campus andprimarily supplied classroom instructional programs used in

Washington State's K12 schools, plus National Educational Television programs(KCTS,

2012). Up until 1970, when National Educational Television was absorbed by the Public

Broadcasting Service, KCTS 9s contact with the general public was limited (KCTS, 2012).

After the merge, KCTS 9 began to expand its programming, reaching out to the community it

state-of-the-art Technicolor. It was this merge that signaled the beginning of KCTS 9 Public

Television as we know it today. It was also the start of the stations development into one of the

largest PBS stations in the country. By the early 1980s, it was apparent that the University of

Washington campus studios were no longer sufficient to house the local public television station;

so in 1986 KCTS moved to its current location in Seattle Center (KCTS, 2012). By the timeBill

Nye the Science Guywent into production at the KCTS 9 studios in early 1993 (Wikipedia,

2012), the station had grown to be one of the largest PBS stations in the country in terms of

viewership and operations budget (KCTS, 1994). But despite five successful seasons of one of

the most profitable PBS shows in history (KCTS, 2001), KCTS 9 fell victim to a series of bad

leadership, financial mismanagement, and production deficits that left the station $7 million in

the red according, to their 2005 annual report.

It has been almost seven years since that report was released. In that seven years, the

station has gone through two phases of organization wide restructuring, several changes in

senior management and leadership, an FCC mandated digital conversion, the birth of online

streaming, the loss of The Lawrence Welk Show, a marketing rebrand, and the creation of

Downton Abbey.At the end of Fiscal Year 2012 (June 30th, 2012), KCTS 9 was $1.8 million in

the black over projections, and at the beginning of what has been referred to around the station


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as our renaissance. When we discuss our role and our responsibilities, we now talk about our

three pillars of content: on air, in the community, and online. It is through these three mediums

that KCTS 9 is rebuilding our place in the community and quickly becoming Seattles great

unrealized opportunity (Morris, 2012).

When asked about what makes KCTS 9 different from cable and network stations,

Daphne Adair, the Executive Director of Marketing and Communications, said that at PBS we

balance between education and entertainment, where commercial stations seem to be grooming

children for the consumer pipeline (2012). Some of the on air content PBS is most well known

for is our childrens programing like Sesame Streetand Curious George.Unlike commercial

childrens stations like Disney, Nickelodeon, or even Discovery Kids (Adair, 2012), PBS shows

are developed with K-12 educators to follow the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and

mathematics) educational program or to encompass the building blocks for social and problem

solving skills (PBS Teachers, 2012). That is not to say that cable television show do not involve

educators at all, but instead of having the educators come in simple as consultants, PBS has

educators involved in every step of the development process for childrens programing (Adair,

2012). It is because of this high level of involvement that PBS Kids programming has been

proven to increase the reading scores of preschool aged children by an average of 7.5 letters

(Education Development Center, 2009). In addition to helping to support early childhood

development, KCTS 9 carries our blend of education and entertainment forward to our adult

audience as well.

Unlike standard local news that has to decide at noon what their breaking news will be

on the 5 oclock broadcast (Morris, 2012), as a local PBS station KCTS 9 has the opportunity to

research and really explore all sides of an issue. It the last year the station has released 4 original


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documentaries ranging for prescription drug abuse in Washington State, to the undamming of the

Elwha River on Washingtons Olympic Peninsula. As the stations Executive Producer of Public

Affairs Ethan Morris (2012) put it:

[when a cable news station] covers a car accident, they are always looking at the

sensationalized aspect of it. 12 people are dead! Traffic is backed up for miles! Lets

go live to the scene! and then the next day in the news room, no one would say, well,

lets look more into this. Was there a problem with the breaks, it there something about

the manufacturing of the car? No! It [is] always on to the next thing... but when KCTS

works on an issue, we have the luxury of time since we dont do a daily newscast and

we time, the producers here, to say, what are we going to do? How can we be more

thoughtful? How can we be more in depth? We have time to actually produce a program,

and we can find an hour in our schedule when we can really vet an issue and present it to

the public... so they have a chance to see that these issues are complex. So our viewersget more than just a 90 second spot, they get a chance to really be informed.

Along with serving our community in the Pacific Northwest, KCTS 9 also broadcasts

into over 825,000 Canadian homes through Bell TV and Shaw Cable (KCTS, 2012). When

asked about what KCTS 9 represents to our Canadian donors, Daphne Adair echoed Ethan

Morris sentiments, stating that we provide our viewers across the border with an independent

and unbiased look into American politics through shows likePBS Newshour and Washington

Week(Adair, 2012). Historically, this was the extent of our relationship with our Canadian

viewers, but with our ever increasing web content we have been able to touch on local issues and

put a face to our friends up north (Gomez, 2012).

Traditionally, PBS audiences have been comprised of an older generation, and there are

some large gaps in our demographics. A joke that you will often hear around almost any PBS

station when talking about the audience is you tend to lose most of your viewers between 8 and

80. People below the age of 40 by and large do not watch television in the traditional sense

anymore (Morris,2012); and with American children spending a minimum of seven hours in


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contact with some form of media every day (Gomez, 2012) KCTS 9 had to start offering people

content in a medium that they would use, in order to stay relevant in the community. In 2007,

KCTS 9 added streaming video to its website. In 2010, it added the Cove system, increasing the

amount of content available for viewers to stream (Ellingwood, 2012). By doing this, the station

positioned itself to become more accessible to younger generations, who are increasingly getting

their media content from online sources. In addition to developing content to support on-air

programing, KCTS 9 has been working to use its website to give viewers a voice in their

community. With the increasing popularity of camera phones, KCTS 9 has found a great way to

get people to document their everyday lives by providing a platform for community members to

post videos related to a given topic. This content style was first really utilized by the station with

the release of When Seattle Invented the Future: The 1962 Worlds Fair. With the project, KCTS

9 has truly set itself apart from other PBS stations in terms of online content and capabilities.

When the station debuted the documentary about one of the citys finest moments,

people were captivated not only by the nostalgia of that retro era, but also by the memory of

Americas optimistic vision of the future (Alben, 2012). Yet is was the supporting web content

and classroom curriculum that was met with national acclaim, and won the 2012 Akcho Heritage

Education Award (KCTS, 2012). The Worlds Fair project not only greatly benefited our city,

but it also showed PBS stations across the country what is possible when using online content to

compliment on air productions. This project also beautifully highlighted one of the fundamental

principles and values that is overarching among all PBS stations; unlike commercial stations,

public media generates content and thinks of ways to interact and engage the community in a

way that is non promotional (Gomez, 2012).

Two years ago the board of directors and the senior leadership team took on the task of


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developing a five year strategic plan and rewriting our mission statement. When I first began

my research for this paper, I decided to take a tip from Peter Brinckerhoff (2009) and start with

this reimagined mission statement. I went to the organizations website, but I discovered that the

mission statement that drives the entire organization was to be found. I emailed our Interactive

Director about this and was told The last KCTS 9 website refresh coincided with the completion

of a new five-year strategic plan at the end of which Interactive was led to expect rewritten

Mission, Vision and Values statements to replace the outdated ones that are displayed in the

conference rooms. We have, as yet, not received it (Ellingwood, 2012).

After years of critical and financial success, KCTS 9 is still in the process of redefining

itself and its role in the community. At this point the employees and content contributors of

the station are continuing on despite the fact that a fundamental piece of the organization is

missing. I dont think it a coincidence that at the same time our station is trying to navigating

through the digital era that our mission statement is still in flux. In my interview with Ethan

Morris, he said, If you go and ask [our Community Engagement team] about the stuff that

theyve done since the beginning of the year, the list would be a mile long. But we dont

advertise it in the community! Not even really around the station. We need to... be a little more

forthcoming about this is what we do for the community, and this is why we are important

as an organization. If KCTS were to go away tomorrow, the community would lose a lot more

thanDownton Abbeyand a handful of documentaries. We are out [in the community] in so manyways that no one else is doing... KCTS is this great, unrealized opportunity, especially at the

local level. Here we are in a studio in Seattle, with talented people and equipment to go out and

really bring some meaningful TV to people.


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References

Alben, AlexWhen Seattle Invented The FutureThe Seattle Times

March 21, 2012Brinckerhoff, PeterMission Based Management2009KCTS Television2000 Annual ReportMay 30, 2001KCTS Television

2003 Annual ReportJune 17, 2004Education Development CenterSummative Evaluation of the Ready to Learn Initiative

2009

KCTS 9History pagehttp://kcts9.org/about2012PBS Teachershttp://www.pbs.org/teachers/stem/2012Wikipedia- Bill Nye the Science Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guy2012Adair, DaphneInterviewJune 29, 2012Ellingwood, BrookPersonal CommunicationJuly 2, 2012
http://kcts9.org/abouthttp://www.pbs.org/teachers/stem/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye_the_Science_Guyhttp://www.pbs.org/teachers/stem/http://www.pbs.org/teachers/stem/http://www.pbs.org/teachers/stem/http://www.pbs.org/teachers/stem/http://www.pbs.org/teachers/stem/http://www.pbs.org/teachers/stem/http://www.pbs.org/teachers/stem/http://www.pbs.org/teachers/stem/http://www.pbs.org/teachers/stem/http://www.pbs.org/teachers/stem/http://www.pbs.org/teachers/stem/http://www.pbs.org/teachers/stem/http://kcts9.org/abouthttp://kcts9.org/abouthttp://kcts9.org/abouthttp://kcts9.org/abouthttp://kcts9.org/abouthttp://kcts9.org/abouthttp://kcts9.org/about


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Gomez, TonyInterviewJuly 2, 2012Morris, Ethan

InterviewJuly 2, 2012

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KCTS9 a Look at the Role of a Local PBS Station in Its Community