KCET "has a chance to redefine" local broadcast media, analysts say

Two high-profile public media analysts are enthusiastically in KCET's corner after its decision to depart PBS membership. "KCET now has the chance to redefine what it means to be a local broadcast station in a digitally networked world," they write in the Los Angeles Daily News today (Oct. 19). They continue: "The old hub-and-spoke, national-to-local distribution model is outdated. Digital networks create new possibilities for production and content sharing from local-to-national and even local-to-local. Wildly diverse communities also create new needs that a national program service can't hope to meet, especially in markets like L.A.'s, which trends more multiethnic and younger." 

But how? "Public policy makers will need to translate old commitments to public broadcasting infrastructure to new commitments to broadband infrastructure and distributed public media funding. If this happens, KCET's experiment will herald a new beginning."