HD means more Catholic programming for Valley's public broadcaster

HARLINGEN - The digital revolution coming to TV in February will increase KMBH's broadcasting power from one channel to four and two streams of radio in the HD format.

According to the diocese's Web site (www.cdob.org/kmbh/) plans for KMBH-DT38 call for up to four standard digital television channels to be designated as follows:

n 38.1 PBS all day

n 38.2 Catholic programming all day

n 38.3 Instructional television all day

n 38.4 Community affairs all day.

Plans for KMBH-FM on HD-Radio include two different streams on the same frequency:

n NPR and the public radio format as it is now

n Second stream - Catholic radio.

The diocese is currently holding a fund-raising drive called 100 Days of Blessings. In a Sept. 26 column in the The Monitor, Bishop Raymundo Peña said one of the drive's goals was to expand Catholic TV and radio programming in the Rio Grande Valley.

These plans seemed to hit a snag earlier this year when the Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced a change in criteria to receive funding from CPB through PBS.

During a board meeting this summer, Msgr. Pedro Briseño, the president and CEO of KMBH, told the station's board of directors that this change might mean that stations would not receive funding if they broadcast any non-PBS programs.

Briseño told the board this could be interpreted to mean KMBH could no longer broadcast Catholic shows and still get money from PBS.

The board's secretary, Msgr. Robert Maher, said the board received a clarification from CPB that said the stations must have a substantial majority of its programming in the public interest and not reflecting a particular ideological view either of a political or religious nature.

"Because of the multi-casting possibilities that we'll have with the digital transition, the diocese does plan to increase Catholic broadcasting," Maher said.

Even today, with only one TV broadcasting outlet, KMBH-TV has less than 10 hours of Catholic broadcasting per week.

February and the beginning of a new federal budget could have meant dark days for KMBH.

As in recent years, PBS remained a target of conservatives in plans for the 2009 federal budget.

Efforts earlier this year by President George W. Bush to cut PBS funding by almost 25 percent failed once again.

According to Jan McNamara, publicist with PBS, there are no plans in the proposed federal budget to reduce funding to PBS.

"Big Bird has support on both sides of the aisle," McNamara said.

>> RGV Educational Broadcasting Inc. is a nonprofit corporation, founded on Sept. 19, 1983, in Brownsville under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brownsville.

>> RGV Educational Broadcasting Inc. operates KMBH-TV 60, KMBH-FM 88.9, KHID-FM 88.1 as noncommercial entities supplying public broadcasting to the Rio Grande Valley.