In Battle for SoCal PBS Station, Religious Group Offers “Compromise”
Filed under: PBS
We’ve been following the story of Southern California PBS station KOCE, which was forced to put itself on the market in order to continue its slate of educational programming. KOCE board members wanted to sell the station to a community foundation that would uphold the station’s mission. However, a judge overturned that sale and awarded the station to the actual highest bidder — religious broadcasting company Daystar. (More background here and here.)
KOCE appealed, and the court has agreed to revisit the case. The station’s future is up in the air.
Meantime, Daystar has made what it considers a viable, peace-making compromise offer. (This bit of news is buried near the bottom of an article about KOCE’s founder.)
In all its Christian generosity, Daystar has offered to devote a whopping 20% of its air-time to the educational programming that KOCE viewers have come to appreciate. The other 80% would be dedicated to Daystar’s traditional fare, like Joni Lamb’s show.
Joni seems to be an evangelical combination of Oprah and Regis Philbin. (But without the black. Or the penis.) Her show offers spiritual guidance and musical relief. She also offers for sale a wide variety of Christian paraphernalia, such as Healing Scriptures books-on-tape (narrated by Joni herself) and the entire catalog of albums by Joni and the Daystar Singers.
Joni also offers tips on how to dress fashionably — but modestly.
And let’s not forget “Joni” magazine, an unabashed take-off on Oprah’s. One feature of the April issue: “3 Girls Get Joni-Tized!” (Sorry, but to me that sounds like an incredibly un-Christian process. But anyway.)
Ah, Daystar. You seem to be the perfect antidote to PBS. Southern California shall be saved after all!
Is 80% Joni, 20% education a fair offer? You be the judge.
There is no law that a company needs to sell to the highest bidder.
And it isn’t illegal religious discrimination to choose a buyer for a tv station based on the content they will show (as opposed to based on the private religious belefs of the potential buyers.)
This judge’s decision stinks. He should have told the religious company that just because they’d like to buy a station doesn’t give them a right to it.
Comment by Eric Jaffa 08.05.05 @ 10:35 amLine and paragraph breaks are automatic. Your e-mail address is never displayed. Basic HTML is allowed. Including more than one link makes you look like a spammer and will cause your comment to be held in moderation.