19 going on 40; KCPT celebrates anniversary with new digs and new mission to promote local programming

Bill Reed is showing a guest around KCPT's newly renovated 31st Street studios and offices. You'd think he was trying to sell the place. "This is so neat," says Reed, looking around his station's spacious and sunny new lobby. The president of Kansas City's public television station is eagerly pointing out one architectural detail after another and generally bragging on the $6 million makeover that has transformed this stretch of aging brick buildings into a paragon of urban redesign. "I love everything about it," Reed declares. What better way to mark the 40th anniversary of Channel 19? With four decades of solid community-service broadcasting under its belt, KCPT is embracing a future in which Reed believes local programming - including news - will become more important than ever. The new lobby, which is several times the size of the old one, features a "community room" that can be reserved by nonprofit groups. The lobby expresses what Reed believes KCPT should be doing: expanding its outreach to the community, finding new ways to serve it both on and off the air. Though it is always fund-raising season at large noncommercial television stations, the current KCPT campaign is unprecedented for the station, both in size and significance. The goal is $14.5 million, and it would pay not only for the renovation but also for an equally costly equipment upgrade to meet the government's mandate for digital television. It also would create a new $2 million fund to pay for local programming on KCPT. The fund is named for the late John Masterman, the veteran Kansas City journalist who directed public affairs programming during his 19 years at the station. Since arriving in Kansas City nine years ago, Reed has pushed for KCPT to broaden its local programming beyond public affairs. Under Masterman, Channel 19 had established a reputation for strong local coverage. At one point, his signature program, "Kansas City Illustrated," aired weekly and employed six reporters. But the show was expensive, and Reed thought there was a need for programs that were more than talking heads. He courted Kansas City Star columnist Charles Gusewelle, who's become a fixture on the station, and funded the popular, award-winning folk-art travelogue "Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations." As a PBS executive in the 1980s, Reed developed the PBS Video line, so he knew that specials like these could make money in their afterlife. Home-video sales of KCPT programs helped underwrite the cost of making them, and a cottage industry was born. As general manager of the public TV station in Redding, Calif., in the 1960s, Reed remembered the excitement of seeing the first images of "Sesame Street." But many PBS mainstays - British mysteries and dramas, nature programs, documentaries - have since been copied in profusion by cable TV. The PBS prime-time lineup now consists of warhorses that have been on the air for two or three decades. But cable can't copy local programs. The combination of PBS resources and local content would seem a natural, yet it's rarely happened. Unlike National Public Radio's "All Things Considered," which offers time for local news, no such accommodation has ever been made by PBS' "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." That may change with the arrival of a new PBS president, Pat Mitchell. Mitchell, a former top executive in Ted Turner's cable empire, has been trotting around the country to visit stations and explore collaborative projects between the stations and PBS. She will attend KCPT's 40th anniversary celebration, a Saturday concert with Jim Brickman at Starlight Theatre. "We are very supportive of the plan Pat Mitchell has laid out," Reed says. Key parts of the plan: A Friday night series called "Public Square," which will begin in January and feature segments supplied by PBS affiliates. "Public Square" will air two hours a week with a broad purview that includes the arts, politics, economics, music, history, science and popular culture. Also in January, the children's program "Zoom" will allot time to local stations each Friday. KCPT will use its segment to spotlight area kids who do volunteer work, says Cynthia Smith, Channel 19's vice president of content and community affairs. Meanwhile, KCPT will expand its lineup of public affairs programs with a single-issue news program, "East 31st Street," which will air every other month beginning Oct. 10. Former KCTV reporter Stan Carmack will reappear on local television - minus his familiar toupee - along with former CNN and Fox news reporter Joan Westcarr. The first program, with KCPT's Nick Haines as host, will compare the school districts of Kansas City and Kansas City, Kan. Once the Masterman fund is fully endowed, more new programs will follow. What excites Smith about the Masterman fund is the potential to finance "something hard-hitting" that may be stuck on the drawing board because an underwriter can't be found. And then there is "KC REACHE," probably the least-watched yet most influential show in town. "KC REACHE" is "distance learning" for adults who can't take time off to attend college. KCPT airs a video curriculum in the middle of the night five days a week; students tape them and watch them at their convenience, or take on-line courses. "KC REACHE" started in 1999 with five area colleges. Now 10 schools offer courses, including the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and more than 6,700 area adults are enrolled. Reed envisions using the new digital-TV technology for a separate channel that would air distance learning all day. Another channel could be devoted to KCPT productions like "Uniquely Kansas City" and "East 31st Street," while a third channel might show PBS programs. KCPT is not alone in broadening its horizons. Across the country, Reed says, public television stations are taking a hard look at their futures and realizing that they can't subsist on PBS and a weekly roundtable show. It's a challenge trying to fill time with local programs, but Reed thinks KCPT - and most other public stations - have no choice. "A new localism is coming to the fore in public television," Reed says, adding, "Finally." To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com. KCPT AT 40 Kansas City's public TV station is celebrating its "40th anniversary" this weekend, but actually it's had those call letters only since 1972. 1961: KCSD-TV signs on as alow-power station at Channel 19. 1969: "Sesame Street" premiere. 1971: "Masterpiece Theatre"premiere. 1972: Community ServiceBroadcasting buys KCSD, changes call letters to KCPT, boosts power and begins color broadcasts. 1973: First KCPT auction. 1974: "Nova" premiere. 1980: "Mystery!" premiere. 1983: "Kansas City Illustrated," weekly newsmagazine anchored by John Masterman, premiere. 1983: "Frontline" premiere. 1988: "The American Experience" premiere. 1989: Public outcry over KCPTinterview with serial killer Robert Berdella; telecast is the highest-rated in station history. 1990: Begins broadcasting in stereo. 1997: "Antiques Roadshow"premiere. @ART CAPTION:Sesame Street; Uniquely Kansas City; Nova @ART:Photos (3, color)