It didn't truly hit me

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It didn't truly hit me until yesterday the degree to which public broadcasting TV affiliates (like L.A.'s KCET) are operated like medieval feifdoms, totally local and unto themselves with no regard for providing viewers with shared information about options to re-view or purchase popular shows. I'm saying this as a way of explaining that I was bizarrely misinformed yesterday by both a KCET spokesperson and a WGBH media relations executive named Lucy Sholley when I called about wanting to see a re-broadcast of Ric Burns' Eugene O'Neill, a highly praised two-hour documentary that aired on PBS stations Monday night. Neither the KCET guy nor Sholley thought it was pertinent to mention that a DVD of Burns' doc has been available for sale for over a week on various DVD-purchase websites like DVD Empire. (Oddly, the Amazon.com page says the O'Neill DVD won't be available until "January 1, 2010.") DVD Newsletter's Doug Pratt tells me copies of the show are sitting now at Best Buy, and I just spoke to a clerk at West L.A.'s Lazer Blazer who told me the PBS Home Video DVD was buyable at the store as of a week ago last Tuesday (i.e., 3.21), or six days before the doc's nationwide airings. And yet I just spoke to another Johnny-on-the-spot bureaucrat at KCET and he didn't even know about the DVD's availability. Am I being pointed enough? The ignorance at these local stations is absolutely radiant. And so to reiterate again and to correct yesterday's posting, you're not out of luck if you missed Monday's showing...all you have to do is go down to your video store and buy the damn DVD. And if you ever have a question about anything to do with repeat airings and/or DVDs of PBS original programming, it's probably not a good idea to ask a rep from a local PBS station for help.