Lively Debate

The faces may change, but KCPT Channel 19 President Bill Reed promises that Ruckus will return to Kansas City public television within the next year. “If it’s the last thing I do, we’re going to bring Ruckus back,” Reed says.

Reed canceled the talk show amid a budget crisis that puts KCPT at a $1 million deficit. Now he’s peeved at moderator Mike Shanin and panelist Steve Rose for criticizing him to the Kansas City Star‘s professional busybody, Hearne Christopher Jr.

Shanin, who earned $150 an episode, questioned the notion that Ruckus cost KCPT $100,000 a year. The remaining panelists — Rose, portly conservative wonk Rich Nadler, KKFI 90.1 radio personality Trudie Hall and hirsute Star columnist Yael Abouhalkah — got $50 each for their weekly yammering, which was broadcast each Thursday night and Sunday morning.

Last week, Rose told reporters that a “major philanthropist” had offered to underwrite the program, but KCPT had shrugged. “It was pretty clear that there wasn’t a lot of enthusiasm there,” Rose told the Pitch.

Reed calls that a lie. He says he encouraged Rose to pursue the offer but never heard back from the Sun Publications Chairman. Before Ruckus was canceled, 26 KCPT staffers and two other local programs were cut. “We have supported Ruckus for seven years now,” Reed says. “We know it has local viewers and local support. Why in God’s name would we do something like that unless we had to?”

But Reed hints that Kansas Citians may never again witness superjowled Nadler consulting his clipboard of evil, Rose cheerleading ideas chalked in Fantasyland (Science City?), Abouhalkah hectoring fellow panelists as though they were talking chipmunks or Hall stating the obvious as if she were a talking chipmunk.

“Ruckus will come back,” Reed says. “It may or may not be with the same people, but hell, there are lots and lots of people who would love to be on Ruckus, and they’re all very good.”