KCET: finding solutions for real problems.

Discussions are under way to make the funding and underwriting of public television programs more effective for corporations, reported William H. Kobin, president and CEO of KCET in Los Angeles.

"It's true, the conventional sources are flattening out or declining, and we are constantly on the lookout for new financing, and yet I am more optimistic for public TV today than I was years ago," Kobin said. "I think our projected competition from cable is exaggerated. We will continue, and grow, as long as public television remains unique and worries more about excellence than numbers of eyeballs."

Kobin said that the Public Television guidelines when it comes to on-air sponsor identification "will have to be loosened in terms of how that identification can be more efficiently achieved. Our revenues from corporate underwriters have gone down," he noted. "The way we do it now, we can't get sufficient funds from them because they feel they don't get enough positive identification out of the messages."

Kobin added that studies have shown that public resentment, if there is any, is focussed on possible program interruptions with sponsor messages rather than more specific or intensive commercials.

KCET currently has 330,000 members, which is below past high levels. Kobin blamed this on the Southern California recession as well as the array of natural disasters -- fires, riots and earthquakes. "We've really been hit hard," he said, "and the first thing people do is to cancel expenditures which aren't absolutely necessary."

Broadcasting from the heart of the movie capital provides KCET with special opportunities. "Obviously, we work closely with the Hollywood community but we have found that we don't have sufficient funds to operate here as we would like," Kobin commented. "Artists generally charge us less, but it is still very expensive."

KCET is deep into production. It used to generate dramas for American Playhouse, and it turned out a Hollywood TV Theater show. The station is also into co-production.

Kobin was looking forward to Ken Burns' new History Of Baseball series in the fall, and he was excited about a new pre-school series made under his aegis -- a show called The Puzzle Works, which features large puppets and whose main aim is to instill a sense of tolerance in young children. It's due to bow in January of 1995.

KCET productions have won 41 local Emmys over the past six years.

Public television of the future is likely to operate on more than one channel, Kobin feels, pointing to the over 50 channels available on the new PBS satellite. "It will allow us to put increased emphasis on schools and education," he said, underscoring the new Math Line program, which premieres this fall on 19 stations and is aimed at re-training middle-grade math teachers. The program will not be broadcast over the air.