Dateline: Los Angeles

Democracy Now 9:00 a.m. Morning-Time Show Replaced With Cartoons

by Ed Murray

KCET, a Los Angeles Public Television station has replaced the 9:00 a.m. broadcast of Democracy Now with cartoon shows, starting today, Monday October 5.  The show is still broadcast at the early 7:00 a.m. time-slot, but the second re-broadcast on the main KCET channel is gone.   KCET has shoved the program to its secondary station KCET-LInk at noon.  If you are watching over the air, you should be able to get KCET Link as 28-2 on your television set. The digital revolution in radio and television allows the station to divide its bandwidth into 4 station slots, 28-1 through 28-4.

Attempts to get a statement from KCET PR folks has been unsuccessful so far, maybe they are in meetings this morning trying to figure out which cartoons to show next week.

So instead of getting some real news, politics, and alternative views, its viewers will be able to improve their understanding of world affairs by watching “Wunderkind Little Amadius”,  “Bali”, and “Peep and the Big Wide World” cartoon shows.   KCET, which used to have a lot of relevant programming, continues to slide down the cultural mountain. When they blew off the PBS shows a couple years ago, the station took a big dip in viewers, according to former KCET President Al Jerome.  Now, its schedule has a lot of travel shows, cooking shows, and gardening shows, and almost nothing concerning what’s happening in the Los Angeles community other than mainstream pablum.  Their digital 28-4 has a lot of cultural shows about Japan, well-produced by professional Japanese news and documentary film makers.  But when it comes to the homeland, there must not be any homies here in L.A. who can make any culturally relevant documentaries for the main 28-1 station.  L.A. must be dead-land now. Or is it the station’s management and programmers who are brain-dead?

This might be a revealing moment, however.  The question that has to be asked is who is pouring money into KCET to keep the network sloshing out brain-deadening, mind-numbing drivel?  The executives working at the station aren’t working for free as far as known; they need donors to pump in enough money to keep the operation going.  Is the viewing audience of L.A. so dull-witted that they now would rather watch cartoons than something on world affairs?  Or is the money train only coming down the tracks from foundations and big corporate sponsors?  Or is there any large chunk of money at all coming in?   Maybe they’re living off the big bucks they got selling their great 300,000 sq. ft. studio in Hollywood to the Church of Scientology in 2011?

edmurray1955@aol.com

Click Here for DemocracyNow.org

Clict Here for KCET Shows regarding Democracy Now

Click Here for details of sale of KCET’s studio to Scientology