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When San Bernardino's public television station KVCR-TV goes digital in 2003, a lot
more than outmoded analog technology will head out the door with it.
The tiny station is engaged in a race against time to raise the $32 million needed to relocate to high tech headquarters, that haven't yet been built, and to buy the equipment that will put KVCR in compliance with a Federal Communications Commission mandate to convert to digital broadcasting format by 2003.
"We're just starting the [fundraising] process," said KVCR General Manager Lew Warren from his office in the San Bernardino Valley College basement, that currently houses the 37-year-old public television station, the first to be licensed in Southern California and the first in the nation licensed to a community college district.
Construction costs on the new budding alone are expected to run $17 million. Because it will be primarily an educational facility, the structure must conform to the Field Act, a state law that mandates stringent construction requirements for any school building. Adhering to those requirements will make it "twice as expensive" to build, according to Warren.
He plans to complete a survey of community education needs in the Inland Empire by the first week of January. Based on the information compiled, he will begin the lengthy grant application process directed at federal and state entities and various private foundations. "I'm also working with a number of businesses," said Warren. "Response has been positive."
Despite Warren's sanguine outlook, the outcome is by no means a certainty. In neighboring Orange County, executives at KOCE-TV in Huntington Beach, have suggested selling the broadcast license. The suggestion was made over the objections of trustees of the Orange Coast Community College District, who recently spurned offers from Cal Poly Pomona and Chapman...