35 years of KOCE-TV

NEWPORT BEACH — Mel Rogers sometimes thinks of the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” when he looks back on the history of KOCE-TV.

Not because the Frank Capra classic is a regular feature on KOCE, but because the film’s story — about a man who gets a glimpse of what his community would be like if he never existed — reminds Rogers of the impact KOCE has had on Orange County.

Sometimes, he told the crowd Saturday at the PBS station’s 35th anniversary gala, he tries to imagine what the county would be like without its public television station, and he can never quite picture it.

“It’s a tough thing to explain,” said Rogers, the president and chief executive of KOCE since 1997.

At the gala Saturday evening at the Island Hotel in Newport Beach, KOCE celebrated its history of service to Orange County and also kept an eye on the future — or kept a hand out, rather, as the station hosted a live and silent auction that raised thousands of dollars for the station’s programs.

“When you bid tonight, you are really making an investment in your community and yourself,” Ann Pulice, the co-host of the “Real Orange” news program, told the crowd of several hundred before the auction.

The event, which also included dinner and live music, came at the end of a particularly watershed year for KOCE.

In June 2007, the KOCE-TV Foundation reached a confidential agreement with the Daystar Television Network after a lengthy court battle over ownership of the station. The agreement left the station in the hands of the foundation, which bought KOCE in 2004 in a bidding process that the Christian network disputed.

Last fall, the station debuted the OC Channel, a 24-hour digital channel based entirely around Orange County-themed coverage. KOCE observed a more somber milestone in February when Norman Watson, the former Coast Community College District chancellor who founded the station in 1972, died at the age of 92.

At the gala, KOCE officials showed a montage of the station’s formative years, starting with a segment from the first broadcast and including footage of Watson and others who shaped programming in the years to come.

Later, the station honored three partners in the community — the Orange County Register, former Disneyland President Jack Lindquist and the Orangewood Children’s Foundation — for their years of service.

Lindquist, a former KOCE-TV Foundation board member, said he was proud of his longtime relationship with the station.

“I think KOCE is well on its way to being what we always wanted: the voice of Orange County, right here in our community,” he said.

TIMELINE

1972: Station debuts at 4 p.m. on Nov. 20, with four hours of air time per day.

1973: First telecourse production airs.

1977: “NewsCheck,” a biweekly Orange County news program, debuts.

1978: KOCE-TV Foundation created by local civic and business leaders to raise money for station.

1979: KOCE wins first Los Angeles Area Emmy Award.

1997: “Real Orange” daily news program debuts.

2004: Coast Community College District sells station to KOCE-TV Foundation in bidding process; Daystar Television Network, claiming its bid was higher, sues.

2007: Foundation reaches confidential agreement with Daystar and keeps station.

2008: Norman Watson, founder of KOCE, dies at age 92.

MICHAEL MILLER may be reached at (714) 966-4617 or at michael.miller@latimes.com.