KOCE to Keep Its Edge

Orange County public television station KOCE Channel 50 has long relied on providing its audience with a programming alternative to its bigger neighbor to the north, Los Angeles public station KCET.

That strategy has included scheduling such popular programs as “Nova” and “Masterpiece Theater” at different times from KCET, and offering other programs not on the Los Angeles station’s schedule--the British series “EastEnders,” for example.

But while the strategy would seem to be endangered by a PBS move toward a coordinated prime-time schedule in the 1991-92 season, officials at the Huntington Beach-based station remain optimistic.

The proposed PBS policy would require stations to run programs on specific nights, not at specific times, according to KOCE director of programming Roberta Smith. And, she said, it would apply only to particular programs, leaving individual stations some programming flexibility in the prime-time schedule.

PBS officials are “very sensitive to the needs of the overlapping stations, and will listen and make allowances for that problem,” Smith said. “We’re behind what they’re doing, but we still intend to offer alternatives.”

KOCE also intends to continue producing its own local public affairs programs, Smith added.