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Channel 13 Asks City for $8 Million Pledge

We don’t hear those phones ringing
By D Magazine |

KERA-TV’s last minute re-quest for an $8.7-million slice of the city’s upcoming $211-million bond program wasn’t exactly greeted with open arms by the City Council or the city’s arts community. In fact, the request – that Channel 13 be included in bonding monies for the city’s proposed arts complex – elicited bewilderment and hostility from both quarters. One city councilman labeled it “ludicrous”; a Dallas Museum of Fine Arts board member called it “absurd.”

KERA station manager Ed Pfister put his best foot forward – and then directly into his mouth – by announcing that the request was justified because “… we consider ourselves the foremost arts institution in the city.” What? gasped supporters of opera, ballet, symphony, the museum and the theater. A television station? Said Councilman Steve Bartlett dryly: “I think someone over at 13 has misinterpreted Marshall McLuhan.”

Pfister outlined the proposal in a letter to the council: The station wants from $3.4 to $8.7 million in bond money for expanded facilities, either at the station’s present site or in the vicinity of the proposed arts cluster near Woodall Rodgers Freeway. Council members and arts patrons, in response, have had to ask a few questions:

● Is Channel 13 an arts institution? The station certainly thinks so, claiming it “brings more people to the arts and the arts to more people than any other institution in the city of Dallas.” The request to the city includes an impressive nine-page list of cultural programs aired on the station since the early Seventies. Unfortunately, only 10 of the programs were produced locally: the remaining 50 or so came from the network or other affiliate stations. Critics ask: Should the city dole out $8.7 million to support a mere antenna?

● Assuming Channel 13 is anarts institution, are its servicesso vital that it requires citysubsidy? The art museum,theater, ballet, opera and symphony are legitimate objectsof municipal concern; theydeserve a share of the city’slargesse. The DMFA. forexample, will use bond revenues to build a larger andmore attractive facility, onewhich could draw exhibits ofnational note. Can Channel 13offer any such returns? Besides, the station built morestudio space just two yearsago, using its own money.Have the benefits been significant enough for the city to underwrite further expansion?

● Assuming Channel 13 isan arts institution and its needsare pressing, why did the station wait until the eleventhhour to ask for eight milliondollars? Critics are quick topoint out that other arts organizations have been working on their bond requests for at least two years. Starting with the Can-Lynch Report – the master plan for the proposed city arts complex – these groups have assiduously lobbied the city concerning their needs. Channel 13 wasn’t included in the Carr-Lynch report – “I read it twice and I didn’t see Channel 13 in there either time,” says one councilman – and made no lobbying effort until Pfister’s bombshell letter. “When you’ve only got $211 million to play with,” says Councilman Bill Nicol, “the groups that have been working at it the longest are going to get the best hearing.”

The Council’s final briefing on the bond package is March 27; beginning April 3, it will start trimming and modifying the various proposals. Channel 13’s proposal will probably get at least a minimal hearing, but as one councilman said, “It might be that no one will ever bring it up again. All in all. I’d say the council’s response to the idea was one great big yawn.”

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