A Message from KOCE-TV President, Mel Rogers

Dear Friend of KOCE-TV: Happy New Year! As we begin 2008, it is my privilege to provide you with this Annual Report to Members sharing with you the many outstanding accomplishments of the past 12 months.

Thanks to you, KOCE-TV is now the 6th most-watched PBS station out of 347 in the nation, reaching almost 6 million viewers in the southern California market each year! This is particularly significant given the higher-than-ever level of competition in the marketplace, which has resulted in a loss of audience share for some PBS stations around the country. We are pleased that so many of you watch KOCE-TV regularly!

2007 marked the 10th anniversary year for our nightly local newscast, Real Orange. Well-known broadcaster Huell Howser visited the station and produced a 30-minute special on this important occasion. Real Orange continues as the only nightly newscast in Orange County, providing important news and perspectives on the local people, events and issues shaping our lives in this community. In addition to Real Orange, our focus on local programs includes Inside OC, Bookmark with Maria Hall Brown, Conversations with Doti & Dodge along with several news and public affairs specials during the year.

In October we debuted the OC Channel, a new channel focused exclusively on Orange County! Created in partnership with Chapman University, the OC Channel is designed to meet the news and information needs of our Orange County viewers. The OC Channel joins KOCE-TV and KOCE-HD in providing three channels of simultaneous, high-quality television. All of this happens very efficiently, with fewer that 45 full-time staff! The OC Channel can be seen on Cox Cable channel 810, and will be seen soon on Time Warner Cable.

KOCE-TV continues as a leader in education. The KOCE Classroom reached the 400,000-enrollment mark this past school year! Students and teachers throughout the county are able to watch instructional programs or download program segments and various enrichment materials via computer. The KOCE Classroom is an important life-long learning tool and a key community service provided by KOCE-TV.

We were honored to have visits from PBS stars like Norm Abram, host of New Yankee Workshop; Rick Steves, who came to the station in December and Gwen Wright, one of the hosts of the popular History Detectives series who came to KOCE-TV in July.
KOCE-TV has expanded its partnerships with organizations that make this community a better place to live. We aggressively sought partnerships with many local non-profit organizations and events, giving increased publicity to many worthy institutions and causes. These groups include the Pacific Symphony, South Coast Repertory, Utah Shakespearean Festival, and the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, to name but a few.

It was November 1972 — 35 years ago — that KOCE-TV signed on and began serving our community. I doubt the station’s founders could have ever imagined the station’s growth, the dizzying advances in technology or the reach the station has today. While the marketplace has changed exponentially and the way we transmit our signal takes on new and different forms one thing has not changed. And that is the high quality of our programs and services, and the way KOCE-TV consistently seeks new and better ways to serve you. We can all take justifiable pride in the important role that KOCE-TV fills in our community and the incredible potential it has for the future.

Thank you for your attention to this Annual Report to Members. Thank you for your continued support of your public television station, and please accept my best wishes for a prosperous New Year.

Mel Rogers
President & CEO