KCTS

KCTS Seattle
Category: Television Stations
Neighborhood: Queen Anne
Update - 4/12/2009
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"When people are young, they want to live forever. But that's also the greatest fear of the elderly--many don't want to live forever.

"60% of those over 85 will enter a nursing home. If they stay there longer than 6 months the vast majority will stay there until the end of their lives.

...Some people will thrive there."

--from the Frontline series video "Living Old" on the http://kcts.org website. A spectacularly eye-opening, moving 2006 documentary.

http://www.pbs.org/wgb...

I do understand the haphazardness of their scheduling can make it difficult for viewers.

Many, many videos can be seen in their entirety there. So if you miss a program, at least try to see if it is there.

Though dismayed by the fact that public television in this country has become dependent on corporate support--the federal government deeming it not a priority to support--, I am amazed at the quality of the programming of public television.

In a society consumed by consumerism and other forms of escapism, I am extremely grateful to KCTS, our local public television station, PBS affiliate.

No, Google-ling for information on aging--for baby-boomers with parents whose health is on a rather downward decline--will not yield the kind of first-hand testimony and comprehensive coverage of topics like aging, the economy, arts, education.

I only wish children at a young age were exposed to and even "raised on" KCTS and PBS.

America the way it is, not the way it would like to see itself.
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1 Previous Review: Hide »
9/28/2007
There may be hundreds of cable televisions channels these days to choose from, but there's one local channel, Channel 9, that largely outshines all the others--and you don't even need to sign up with Comcast or Millenium cable. A pair of "rabbit ears" will do.

KCTS is an incredible boon to local television watchers simply by dint of being an affiliate of PBS. Just viewing the News Hours with Jim Lehrer in the past few days regarding the turbulent events in Myanmar, compared to the skimpy, condensed coverage on the major networks was astonishing.

Or the David Brooks/Mark Shields responses to the $35 billion program that will be passed soon by both Houses to expand health insurance for children in the U.S. that Bush, in a seventh-year-of-his term death conversion, promises to veto in the name of fiscal responsibility/balan cing the budget.

I'll have to admit that both the New York Times and http://salon.com are pretty good written-word complements to the nightly 6:00 pm news-of-the-day coverage here.

Intelligent, informative, challenging, balanced, relevant...and not ideological (not easily pigeon-holed as either "liberal" or "conservative").

I don't enjoy some of the programming on KCTS (love Wordsworth but am not found of Masterpiece Theater, while Suzie Orman and Wayne Dyer leave me cold), but compared to commercial television, despite the plethora of new cable stations, this is no contest whatsoever. This, despite, the increasing reliance on corporate sponsorship (relatively benign "advertising").

The programs on history (Ken Burns, etc.), American Playhouse, the Charlie Rose (with his almost always interesting guests) Show, Frontline, and the Rick Steves travelogues are very good.

The full-length movie shown on Friday evening--wtihout commercial interruption-is always an interesting choice. Recently, for instance, I happen to turn to channel 9 and catch David Lean's ca. 1942 film version of Dickens's "Great Expectations"--far from standard Hollywood fare that CBS, ABC, NBC show.

Part of my not watching KCTS often enough is, actually, due to my not having a TV Guide around handy! (You can get a weekly schedule ahead of time by getting yourself on their email list, go to http://www.kcts.org).

It is simply an attempt to reach as broad an audience as possible, vital in this day of cutbacks on federal funding of quality programming of any kind.

Puts to shame the Bush Administration's shameless funding of a now four-year-old war that has drained close to half a trillion dollars and caused nothing but destruction, death, and disorder halfway around the world.

If only more people would watch public television of any kind, abject stupidity on the scale of re-electing GWB in 2004 on the basis of "security" ("Did, or did not, Iraq have anything to do with 9/11?") would not been so generously displayed to the world .

As mentioned earlier, it doesn't depend of fancy technology...just basic skills of reasoning and being able to listen to more than just sound-bites...and maybe turning off your cell-phone for 30 minutes.

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