KOCE-TV

KOCE-TV (channel 50) is a PBS member television station licensed to Huntington Beach, California, United States, serving the Los Angeles area. It is owned by the Public Media Group of Southern California alongside the market's secondary PBS member, KCET (channel 28). The two stations share studios at The Pointe (on West Alameda Avenue and Bob Hope Drive, between The Burbank Studios and Walt Disney Studios complexes) in Burbank; KOCE-TV maintains a secondary studio at the South Coast Corporate Center (in the South Coast Metro area) in Costa Mesa and shares transmitter facilities with KSCI (channel 18) atop Mount Wilson. Since 2011, the station has been branded as PBS SoCal.

KOCE-TV and KCET are two of four PBS member stations serving Greater Los Angeles (the others being San Bernardino–based KVCR-DT [channel 24], which mainly serves the Inland Empire, and the Los Angeles Unified School District–run KLCS [channel 58]).

The station first signed on the air on November 20, 1972, as the first television station licensed to Orange County, initially airing four hours of programming per day. It broadcast its first telecourse in 1973. It was originally owned by the Coast Community College District. The station was originally based from studios at Golden West College in Huntington Beach. For most of its history, KOCE-TV was a "beta" or secondary PBS station, airing only 25 percent of the national PBS schedule.

In 2002, the Coast Community College District offered KOCE for sale to raise revenue for other programs. A bidding war ensued between the religious broadcaster Daystar Television Network and members of the community who wanted to continue membership with PBS. In 2004, the station was sold to the KOCE-TV Foundation, an organization made up of civic and business leaders who wanted to keep KOCE-TV as an educational station, for $25.5 million, reduced from an initial bid of $32 million (with $8 million paid up front and the rest paid in 25 equal installments without interest beginning in 2009). The foundation outbid Daystar by $500,000; the religious broadcaster placed a bid of $25 million, which it intended to compensate in an all-cash payment.

Daystar sued in state court, stating that under the terms of the auction, its all-cash bid should have been accepted. A lower court ruled in favor of the college district and the foundation; but on June 23, 2005, the California Court of Appeals ruled that the sale of KOCE-TV was illegal, since the offer was modified after the end of bidding and because the value of the bid was not expressed in net present value terms. Both sides appealed this decision. On November 22, 2005, a state appeals panel reheard arguments in the case following a petition from KOCE, the KOCE Foundation, the Coast Community College District, and Daystar. On May 25, 2006, the appeals court reaffirmed its decision, again ruling the sale illegal.

At the same time, Daystar also filed a federal lawsuit, alleging religious discrimination, civil rights violations, and racketeering. On May 1, 2006, the District Court dismissed the racketeering claim, but not the civil rights portion of the lawsuit.

In June 2006, a state assembly bill that had previously been approved was changed to allow the Coast Community College District to sell KOCE below fair market value to keep it a PBS station. The new bill was passed by the assembly, but Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it, citing concerns about serving the public interest in the sale of public property and the unresolved legal challenges to the type of sale that the bill would have authorized.

In June 2007, an agreement was reached in which the KOCE-TV Foundation would keep the station, provided that Daystar would be allowed to broadcast over one of KOCE's digital subchannels. As a result, KOCE-DT3 is reserved to broadcast Daystar's national schedule without any local deviation.