KCTV is dropping 'Urban Affairs' show: Two other programs also ending as station shifts its priorities

A proud era in Kansas City television history is coming to an
end.
"Urban Affairs," the Sunday-morning program that has aired on
KCTV, Channel 5, for the last 29 years, has been canceled. The show's
creator, Chuck Moore, made the announcement during last Sunday's
broadcast of "Urban Affairs," of which he is co-host with Gary
O'Bannon.
Two other long-running public affairs programs - "K.C.'s
Spotlight" with host Mark Reza and "The Black Archives Presents"
with the director of the Black
Archives of Mid-America, Thabit Murarah, also were dropped from
the Channel 5 schedule. The three programs, which take turns
appearing in the 7:30 a.m. Sunday time slot, will broadcast their
final shows in March.
"I'm not bitter," Moore said this week. "A little sad. This
has been the longest-running public affairs television show in Kansas
City history. I knew (the end) was going to come some day."
It came as a result of shifting priorities at KCTV, which has
decided that its newscasts are a more effective vehicle for its
public-affairs programming, and at the Federal Communications
Commission, which now considers children's shows, not public affairs,
to be its highest priority.
In the 1960s the FCC began requiring stations to devote a certain
percentage of air time to public affairs, and out of that arose a
wave of community- and minority-based programs. "Black History,"
"Minority Matters," "Dimensions in Black" and "Go Tell It" were
among the shows to be found on TV dials in the Kansas City area.
Moore, a radio personality who started with KPRS-AM in 1953 and
later went on to manage KCXL-AM, became one of Channel 5's first
African-American on-air talents in 1966. In 1968 he developed an
entertainment program that later became "Minority Matters" and,
following a name change, "Urban Affairs."
But during the Reagan years the FCC eased up on regulations. And
as minority broadcasters found their way onto local stations, and
community groups took advantage of cable TV public-access channels,
the earlier generation of shows that included "Urban Affairs" no
longer seemed so important.
Edward Beasley, retired professor of history at Penn Valley
Community College and host of "Black History," which originated at
WDAF-TV, Channel 4, and was syndicated nationally from 1969 to 1974,
compared these shows to the math and science craze that followed the
launch of the Sputnik satellite in the late 1950s.
"When that died down, we forgot about the programs," Beasley
said. "If there's no real push to maintain these types of programs,
then they go off the air."
Under chairman Reed Hundt, the FCC today is considered
pro-regulation. But unlike the 1960s, the FCC is focusing strictly on
shows aimed at kids. Last August the commission mandated that local
stations carry a minimum of three hours per week of programming that
meets FCC guidelines for educational content for children.
Those regulations don't go into effect until the fall, but KCTV
program director Erv Parthe said he wanted to clear the 7 to 8 a.m.
Sunday time period to begin running the educational shows now, so
that they will build viewership among children during the summer
months.
In recent years local stations began filling up more of their
schedules with newscasts. They were discovering that viewers would
watch local news even at times, like Sunday mornings, that were once
considered "graveyard shifts."
News also became a way for a station to dispense its community
obligations in smaller doses. For instance, Channel 4, which once
aired "Focus on Minorities" on Saturday afternoons, no longer
carries any stand-alone public affairs shows, but incorporates
shorter community features into its 46-plus hours of weekly news
programming.
Likewise, KMBC, Channel 9, which continues to air "Dimensions"
- minus the "in Black" - at 9 a.m. Sundays, runs a two-minute
"Community Profile" 17 times a week during its newscasts, and
during the early-morning news block, the station's community affairs
director, Olivia Dorsey, is host of a five-minute public affairs show
at 5:25 a.m. weekdays.
While Dorsey conceded that "there's not a lot of vehicles that
exist for featuring issues to minority communities," she said
"Dimensions in Black" was too "exclusive" and needed broadening.
"Since there were not other programs that allowed for inclusion,
it made sense to have a vehicle that included Hispanic issues and
Asian issues and Native American issues as well as majority issues,"
she said.
News also carries with it higher ratings - and revenue -
potential than public affairs ever will. At Channel 5, Parthe noted
that the Sunday-morning slot occupied by "Urban Affairs" and
company currently averages only 6 percent of TVs in use at that hour
- an estimated 7,000 viewers in the entire Kansas City area.
By contrast, Channel 5's 9:30 a.m. Sunday newscast averages
82,000 viewers and an 18 percent share of the audience. Last Sunday's
"Urban Affairs" broadcast featured no advertising during its breaks
(public service announcements were used instead). But during the
break between "Urban Affairs" and "CBS Sunday Morning" at 8 a.m.,
the ads returned in full force.
KCTV currently airs 26 hours of local news programming each week,
and Parthe argued that public-affairs segments aired during newscasts
will reach far more viewers than the stand-alone shows. "If the
audience is that small, it's like preaching to the choir, you know?"
he said.
But others aren't so sure that KCTV's decision doesn't simply
reflect a widening gulf between the station and the city it once
served from studios on 31st Street.
"Channel 5, in my opinion, seems to have become more of a
suburban station and does not deal as much as its competitors with
the urban scene," said Alvin Brooks, who heads the Ad Hoc Group
Against Crime.
Channels 4, 9, and 41 are still based in Kansas City, but KCTV
relocated in the 1980s to Johnson County.