It’s the New Sound of Viewer Outreach

When public television stations need money, they often look to the past. It’s common during pledge drives for PBS stations to lean heavily on nostalgic music specials featuring familiar ‘50s and ‘60s rock and pop performers who appeal to older viewers with cash to donate.

Starting Saturday, Huntington Beach-based KOCE-TV will try the opposite approach in an effort to bring in something they and other public stations need as much as money: new audiences.

Rather than reacquaint viewers with old favorites, the public station will unveil “Sound Affects,” a weekly half-hour series introducing performers the station expects will be new to many viewers.

“The president of PBS, Pat Mitchell, visited the station recently and talked about how PBS needs new shows that will bring in younger audiences,” says Allison Badger, producer and host of “Sound Affects,” a show she’s been developing for two years.

“My idea is to take up-and-coming musicians and introduce them to older audiences,” she says, defining “older” as the 25-49 group, relatively young for PBS in general and in particular for KOCE, which historically has had its greatest success during pledge drives by showcasing old episodes of “The Lawrence Welk Show.”

“We’re not going after the punk-rock crowd,” Badger adds. “We’ll let MTV handle that. We’re after the audience that used to watch VH1, since [that channel is] skewing younger now too.”

The focus, at least in the beginning, will be on Southland musicians, but Badger hopes to broaden the scope if “Sound Affects” catches on.

Acts profiled in the inaugural season’s 13 episodes include several from Southern California, among them folk-rock singer-songwriter Kerry Getz, blues band Blue Daddy, smooth-jazz keyboardist Keiko Matsui and pop-rock band Nice, all chosen by Badger after combing through recordings and then checking them out live. A stylistic gamut that also covers Hawaiian slack-key guitarists George Kahumoku and Daniel Ho, cabaret singer Ann Hampton Callaway and Juilliard-trained violinist Drew Tretrick makes “Sound Affects” all the more unusual in a world of niche-driven music shows.

“I like everything,” Badger, 24, says. “The great example to me is [the National Public Radio program] ‘Morning Becomes Eclectic.’ After listening to that for two years, I’ve discovered all sorts of great new music. The idea is, like, ‘We’re going to introduce you to something new, and you have to listen.’ Even if people don’t like everything, if they tune in each time they’re sure to find someone they will like.”

The show’s 11 p.m. time slot on Saturdays is Badger’s way of catching people who are home watching TV, probably waiting for “Saturday Night Live” and looking for something different.

The series gets a one-hour kickoff with back-to-back episodes profiling Blue Daddy and Getz.

The first season is being created on a bare-bones budget, with all production services donated by KOCE. Badger, whose regular duties as associate producer of the station’s “Real Orange” nightly news show include writing, reporting and editing, is volunteering her time “because I believe so strongly in the project.”

She’s lining up sponsors to share a budget of $105,000 for a second season, which will allow her to get out of the studios and shoot episodes in local clubs or other sites. Badger also wants to line up national distribution for the show in time for the second season, slated for the fall.

“There have been other music shows, like ‘Austin City Limits’ and ‘Sessions at West 54th,’ but none of them have come from the West Coast,” Badger says. “This being the entertainment capital of the world, we need to have a music show based here.”

*

“Sound Affects” premieres Saturday with two episodes at 11 and 11:30 p.m. on KOCE. It continues Saturdays at 11 p.m. In February, new episodes airing at 11 p.m. will be followed at 11:30 p.m. by reruns of previous shows.