I am shocked, shocked
One of KCTS laid off staff commented “If (management) can’t spin it ….create the impression of more public affairs coverage, who will give them money?” The formerly UW sponsored Seattle public TV station KCTS-9 is laying off a lot of its staff. (Report by Joel Connelly at The PI)
Management has explained the layoff as part of a plan to move to digital media. Apparently media that is streamed does not need production by employees who have spent 30-plus years with the station,
Associated Press
KCTS CEO Rob Dunlop’s news release says: “This strategy allows us to reach more people more often with more content than every before. 
…. KCTS 9 (announces) a comprehensive new initiative to increase local content about the remarkable people, places, events and issues that make the Pacific Northwest region special ….. We have been and always will be a source of exceptional public television program. We believe the terms ‘public’ and ‘media’ mean much more in today’s multi-platform world.” One of the laid-off staff commented, “If (management) can’t spin it ….create the impression of more public affairs coverage, who will give them money?”
Anyone who clicks by KCTS on their way to more interesting content, knows that Duncan is living in a gauzy dream world. the TV station’s program schedule is archaic. PBS News Hour is good .. but that is now streamed and has potent rivals like Al Jazeera, not to mention CNN, MSNBC and FOX. The same is true for the station’s borrowed (or rented) broadcasts of the BBC’s upstairs-downstairs TV products.
Then there are travelogues and cooking shows. ( At least the travelogues are local products by Rick Steves!) As we all move to streaming and HBO, NETFLIX, and COMEDY CENTRAL are offering great programing … may KCTS be irrelevant?
Joel Connelly of the Seattle PI claims that it is a donor issue, “(the KCTS) audience … includes old faithful contributors. Its pledge weeks have grown geriatric with tributes to 1950′s pianist-comedian Victor Borge, retrospectives on 1960′s folksinger John Sebastian, long-ago Peter Paul & Mary Concerts, dead tenors and British drawing room comedies.”
Connelly is confused about why getting rid of LOCAL staff has anything to do with creating local content to replace Lawrence Welk. The PI columnist quotes one of the laid-off staff, John de Graaf, a documentary maker with 30 years at KCTS, as saying that the Thursday layoffs represented “slash and burn management. They got rid of almost the entire production department.”