The station manager sees a “fit” between the locally produced performances and its other entertainment shows.
That used to be what UHF was for.
Hey, if that’s what the people in that area want, why not?
If people wanted it, the other stations would carry it. PBS is for things people don’t want to watch 
Really, though, I’d like PBS to stay a little highbrow. You can’t get much more tacky than pro wrestling.
I don’t DIsagree with you On this one, but it feels like a Cable channel might be a moRe Appropriate venue to CarrY this kind of programming.
Trump: Hold my beer.
Highbrow is nice as an aspiration but whatever gets eyeballs and donations to the local public television station, especially after the end of federal support for public broadcasting. Googling, federal funding was one-third of the budget for KMOS.
I feel like “DIOCRACY” is meant to be some sort of secret message in that post? What’s that mean?
Oh, wait, the I at the start of the sentence was part of it, too.
And – the most important thing … of all things … characters for Discourse.
ETA: mostly on topic…
No town can host a Trump rally and a ‘professional wrestling’ match on the same day. Too much competition for the same demographic.
[I don’t think that’s an objective fact, but who knows?]
Lucky you. We’ve been blessed with televised girls highschool softball. For weeks. How many games are there, seriously?
I love PBS and there are many programs I follow. Nationally aired.
Looks like Arkansas found the PBS funding so the local crap maybe lessened for awhile.
Can’t be sure of the future. 
Let’s remember that they’re going to air eight episodes of a one-hour program at 9pm on Saturdays on “KMOS Emerge, a digital channel that features documentaries, mysteries and lifestyle shows.” It’s not as if KMOS is going all wrestling, all the time.
I wonder if the wrestling promotion is goofy character-based like Golden Era WWF, or old-school like the NWA.
I remember when PBS ran an ad campaign consisting of fake ads for trashy programming on ersatz “highbrow” TV networks (“This week on Arts & Culture: OUTRAGEOUS MAKEOVER, BACHELORETTE EDITION!”) with a tagline along the lines of “We’re still true to our mission.”
It was done in 1988, albeit with an orchestra.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnNSE6MROgE
And they’ve dabbled in boxing
Kornbluth was a prophet.
I was quite surprised when one of the “American…” series, I think it was American Masters, did a 2-hour program about Pearl Jam , almost as surprised as when I saw, in the mid 1990s, a cable-guide entry labeled “Hootie and the Blowfish.” It was not VH-1, or MTV, which still played music at the time, but the Golf Channel! When I saw that, I thought, “Whatever one must think of their music, I don’t think we’re ever going to pick up a newspaper and read that one of the guys in Hootie and the Blowfish was found dead with a needle in his arm.”
If the wrestlers just sport English accents, PBS viewers won’t care how dumb it is.
I’m a big fan of indy wrestling and airing it on PBS seems like a good way to get some eyes on a small promotion. Indy wrestling has been in a boom period for the last ten years or so, between people getting dissatisfied with the corporate slop and subpar booking WWE has been churning out and the existence of legitimate alternatives like AEW/ROH, TNA, CMLL, NJPW, and the like meaning there’s a demand for young talented wrestlers who’ve learned the game outside of the WWE pipeline.
These kind of indy promotions fill the same kind of role that the NWA territories and their “outlaw mudshow” competitors did back in the day. They’re a training ground for the next generation of big stars. For $20, you can buy a ticket for a show in an old ballroom or a middle school gym or a National Guard armory and see a fun, family-friendly show featuring the guys who you might be seeing on a major promotion’s pay-per-view five or ten years from now. In 2017, I saw Darby Allin job to an Iron Sheik imitator in an old ballroom in Seattle’s Vietnamese neighborhood. Two months ago, I saw him win the AEW World Championship in a sold-out arena a few miles away.
Anything that gets people’s eyes on the next generation and reminds people that wrestling exists outside of TKO’s and the McMahon-Levesque family’s walled garden is alright with me. It’s unpolished, it’s raw, it’s not gonna have the kind of compelling story arcs that you’d find in a major promotion, there’s gonna be botches because these guys aren’t pros yet, but for an evening of live entertainment you could do a lot worse.
All of this.
With the death of the CPB, and the elimination of federal funding for public broadcasting, stations and state networks are fighting for their survival, and being forced to consider programming and other strategies that they wouldn’t have touched eighteen months ago.
It’s on a secondary digital channel, and if they’re lucky, they’ll attract some viewers that they didn’t have before, and some of them might pledge support to the station.
My local PBS station (WTTW, Chicago) airs special programming during their pledge periods, to draw eyeballs; some of it isn’t too off-brand (mostly rock concerts and “oldies/doo-wop” concerts), but some of it is a little skeevy – mostly motivational speakers and doctors who seem to be on the borderline of woo/non-mainstream thought on health issues.
interesting that you made this post, Kent–were you around when “wrestling at the chase” was shown on Wednesday nights as I remember