The changing face of public television The changing face of public television (August 12, 2005)

A talk with Brian Szabo, KMVT's new executive director

By Jon Wiener

Brian Szabo joined KMVT as the public access station's new executive director in June, taking the reins amidst a financial crisis and period of upheaval at the Mountain View nonprofit. Earlier this year, with the station facing massive cuts to its funding, several senior staff received pink slips or tendered their resignations.

Szabo, 60, is charged with implementing a restructuring plan designed to respond to the crisis. A native of Hungary, Szabo escaped to the U.S. with his family in 1956 during a Soviet crackdown. He moved to Pasadena, later attending UC Berkeley as an undergraduate and studying film at Stanford and UCLA. He has spent the last 25 years as a software executive.

On Friday, Szabo sat down with Voice reporter Jon Wiener to discuss how the station is coping with financial difficulties, new and old shows, and the meaning of public access television.
Q: The city recently took away over $200,000 of your funding. Is the solution to find corporate sponsors to replace that funding, or are there other ways you're going to go about meeting the challenge?
A: As it is right now, maybe a third of our budget is from the cities that we have contracts with. And as we grow, that amount's going to stay the same, so the percentage is actually going to decrease. We're looking to bring in revenue through corporate sponsorships. All of the staff-produced shows that I'll be bringing back will be on a sponsorship basis. We're also looking to take advantage of our state-of-the-art facility and our state-of-the-art talent. We are promoting our capability as a creative agency in video production.
Q: What kind of response have you had from the market to that new strategy? Do you find yourself competing with private companies who specialize in that?
A: I think in principle we may be competing, because a lot of private companies provide those services. We have a unique situation here; it's a unique opportunity for both us and our potential partners, because we are public television. On the sponsorship side we are basically broadcasting to a focused local audience. Smaller companies who want to focus on this audience have an opportunity to do that at about a tenth of the cost.

For larger corporations it's an opportunity to allocate a very small portion of their budget to support a local forum for communication. We talk about thinking globally and acting locally -- it's an opportunity for them to speak locally.

A lot of nonprofits and government agencies have a need to produce various kinds of media material. I'm hoping that if the quality's comparable and the cost is less, they would go with the nonprofit as opposed to the for-profit at least some of the time.
Q: Is KMVT a nonprofit private company that happens to contract with local governments, or is it a public trust, or is it somewhere in between?
A: That's a very good question, and in some ways that's what we should start with. When I came aboard that was the fundamental question that we asked ourselves. The answer's a resounding "yes."

As a public community organization, we offer a number of services. In particular, we can provide public service announcements for nonprofits, and we provide a forum for any citizen of the three cities to walk in here and speak their mind. And we offer community access for residents and non-residents of the neighboring areas to come in and produce shows. Q: Some time last summer, KMVT removed the word "television" from the mission statement. What does that mean for services that KMVT provides?
A: Television is central to what we do. It's basically what gives us the platform and the forum to communicate and for citizens to come in. It is "KMVT television." That is the foundation.

That's going to be central; we do other things but it's still related to the mission of communicating and providing access to the community, whether it's on the Internet or on television.
Q: You said you were going to be bringing back some shows. What sorts of things are viewers going to see in the future that they haven't seen before?
A: We've got a number of shows that are in the planning stages and we're talking to a number of corporate sponsors. One of them is a show tentatively titled "Local Neighborhoods," which is going to be a magazine-style show every other week year-round.

The segments will focus on community neighborhoods, human interest, and some educational real estate. You know, how does a young couple get into a new home in this pricey area? Things of that nature.

Another show is our unique technology show, which is technology for the non-techie, if you will. We're planning "Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley," focusing on some young companies and what are the challenges of those folks. These are all shows that we're actively working with companies for sponsorships.

The other big difference viewers are going to see on these staff-produced shows is that we're going to get away from what has mostly been talking-heads type shows, where's it's in the studio with an interview type thing. I'm very big on the production value of going out in the community with cameras and live action and interesting editing.

We look forward to bringing back some shows that were canceled, like "Before the Council," a news magazine type show. Those are really important to cover interesting local and controversial issues. That's one of the ways that we provide a forum that you won't get anywhere else.
Q: You had mentioned that you were looking for underwriters for high school sports, which is one of the more popular parts of the programming that you do. Have you found sponsors that are willing to chip in there?
A: For the previous season we had two sponsors. The sports programming, that's one of the few staff-produced shows that has continued unabated. As you know, Laz [sports producer Lazaros Sarigiannides] does a great job. He's been here a number of years, over a decade.

We'll continue that, we'll continue full coverage, including some of the so-called lesser or minor sports, like water polo.
Q: What if nobody out there with enough money wants to watch tennis? Does that mean that there's no tennis? Does that have ramifications for the rest of the programming?
A: We have not and don't intend to impact what we cover based on who our sponsors are. Companies that sponsor community or public television understand that wall.

We cover baseball, basketball and football because that's where a majority of the viewership is. Viewership does drive what we cover, sponsorship does not.
Q: Is there anything that we've seen in the past on KMVT that we're not going to see in the future?
A: I think the one thing that was decided before I came on board and is sort of gone was an absolute free participation for community access producers. Folks that come in and take our courses and produce shows have some fees to pay now, some of which were free before. That's probably the biggest difference from the past to now.

We'll also have more training programs. We just launched the first youth video camp for middle school kids. Twelve- to 15-year-olds are old enough to do things with the current technology and typically don't have a voice.

"Speak Out" is sticking around. Once a week anybody can walk in here. That's going to continue.
Q: Do you have a favorite show?
A: I've looked at a number of the shows, and there's some fascinating stuff that I've seen. I'll probably get in trouble for naming some of them if I don't name all of them. But I'm actually quite surprised at the quality of many of the local shows.
Q: Doug Broomfield [KMVT's previous executive director] told me that working at KMVT is analogous to making horse-drawn carriages 100 years ago. If those people thought they were in the horse-and-buggy business, they were doomed to become obsolete -- they had to realize they were in the transportation business. The implication being that KMVT is not in the television business per se, it's in the communications business. How do you feel about that, and also how is KMVT going to change in the future to adapt to such dynamic technology?
A: I think Doug is absolutely right. I haven't met Doug or spoken to him, and that's the first time I've heard that quote, but it's right on the money in terms of the fact that we are in the communication business. Right now the primary method of communication for us and the market that we're serving is television. But other channels of communication, like the Internet, and the other services that we provide, are clearly very important.

The value that we have here is as a forum and in facilities and talent and knowledge. We are looking to have an Internet presence, with real-time and archival video streaming. People who want to find out what the council decided or what the debate was when they made a decision three months ago, they don't have to sit through five hours.

Will television maybe go away totally? Of course, anything can happen. We have to be flexible. Changing the name and so on, I don't know about [the significance of] that.
Q: AT&T has kept their name and they don't do telegraphs anymore. A: Exactly.
Q: We talked about what KMVT means to the community as a whole. What do you think it means to the viewers?
A: I think it's probably one of those things where if you weren't here you'd be missed, and when you are here you're sort of taken for granted.
Q: When you turn to Fox News, you know what you're getting. When you turn to ESPN, you know what you're getting. What about when you turn to KMVT?
A: My hope is that what folks see is something that's real and immediate. And they're seeing either a program about or produced by folks who are their neighbors, that they either recognize someone or recognize the issue that's being discussed, or they're attracted by the subject matter which they realize is local. That's our focus and that's our differentiation.

People do flip around. There are a lot of shows and we know we're not going to be No. 1 beating Fox or PBS, but we're an important part of that very focused environment where both community members and community leaders have a chance to communicate and tell their story.
KMVT is available on channel 15 to all basic-cable subscribers living in Mountain View.

E-mail Jon Wiener at jwiener@mv-voice.com

E-mail a friend a link to this story.