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It appears the nation's tight economy and border’s peso devaluation will take another victim.Public television made its debut in the Valley less than one year ago, and if money doesn’t come throughfast it will be history.KZLN-TV. Channel 60, with offices in San Benito, got its FCC license to operate last April and carries programs from the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). Unlike commercial networks, public television stations get all of their revenues from donations.Anyone who has seen KZLN programming has obviously seen the spots the station gives itself promoting public television in the Valley. You the public make public television possible, the house commercials said. 'Send your donations to P.O. Box 1010. San Benito, Texas 78586 .Apparently, not enough peoplehave watched the station or the ones who do watch don’t have resources to keep the station going.It takes a lot of money to keep a television station going and the station just hasn’t gotten the bucks to do that. So the credit bureau and others are getting impatient.Don’t bother calling the station. Ma Bell has already pulled the plug on KZLN because the bill hasn’t been paid “We re sorry, you have reached a number that has beendisconnected or is no longer in service, a recording will say.Central Power and Light has given the station an ultimatum: Pay the bill for the past three months by Thursday or we'll pull the plug on you, too, like Ma Bell.The electric bill for the past three months: $20,000. That amount is needed in CPL’s hands by Thursdav or the electricity will be cut. And without electricity, the station can’twoperate.The station will keep plugging its own commercials for a few more davs, but they will be a little bit more serious this time. KZLN has even got some time on Valley commercial stations making a pitch for donations.The station management is not to blame The last time personnel got paid was the end of January. Some of them aren't bothering to go to work everv dav. Many live in them V VMcAllen area and are car-pooling to work to save on expenses.The station obviously isn’t thatwpopular among viewers if a poll were taken But should the station go bankrupt, many of its best programs would be missed.The most popular program is Sesame Street, the show the revolutionized children's programming. Big Bird, Ernie and the Cookie Monster would later be copied by shows such as The Muppets with Kernnt the Frog and Miss Piggy and now by Fraggle Hock withGobo, Motley and others.Sesame Street is an instructional show unlike the others and will be shown for years and years.Other popular programs include the science program Nova and The McNeil Lehrer Keport, of which local merchant Sam Pateappeared on a tew months ago.If the station were to go under, those of us without the services of Heritage Cablevisiort would rmss PBS entirely Those with cable would eventually get PBS againwhen Heritage reconnects with the Corpus (Tiristi PBS affiliate like in pre-KZLN days Times are tight for everybody. If employees of KZLN had to get on their hands and knees to ask for monev, thev would And it wouldn’t be just to keep their jobs, but to keep public television in the Valley.
Newspaper Details
Brownsville Herald
Brownsville, Texas, US
Sun, Feb 20, 1983
Page 42
Full Page
Clipped by
Sammi B.
NA 09 Feb 2020
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