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Licensee of WSRE ends PBS affiliation for the Pensacola TV market.

Let's see...Governor Ron DeSantos vetoes a state public radio funding bill...Congress passes the CPB recission act requested by U.S. President Trump...Zachary Smith, one of the college Board members overseeing the PBS affiliate, also works for the Heritage Foundation...Yup! That's the ticket!

I guess I should be thankful that the same college does not hold the license of WUWF-FM, Pensacola's NPR outlet.
 
It sounds like the foundation thinks it can run the station without university support.

The station lost $1.5 million in funding this year following cuts at the state and federal level. Meadows says the cost is too much for the university to absorb. The foundation board says they are confident they can raise the dollars needed.
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Why not give them a chance to do it? If the goal is to wean public broadcasting off the government teat, then let the foundation raise the money.
 
Y2kTheNewOldies said:
Woah I was thinking at first that New Jersey has to have at least some counties split between the Philadelphia and New York TV markets but its not the case in this map for TV Markets.
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No, there are no split counties, the divide takes place more or less along the traditional "North Jersey-South Jersey" line.

As a practical matter, many viewers in between the two markets, if they're not too far away, probably watch stations from both interchangeably, if they watch OTA. If they subscribe to an MVPD, it would depend upon whether their provider furnishes stations from both markets. (A/B switches are a PITA.)
 
TheBigA said:
It sounds like the foundation thinks it can run the station without university support.



Why not give them a chance to do it? If the goal is to wean public broadcasting off the government teat, then let the foundation raise the money.
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Because that other institution Zachary Smith works for, the Heritage Foundation, wants NPR and its ilk gone, like yesterday.
 
ted chittenden said:
Let's see...Governor Ron DeSantos vetoes a state public radio funding bill...Congress passes the CPB recission act requested by U.S. President Trump...Zachary Smith, one of the college Board members overseeing the PBS affiliate, also works for the Heritage Foundation...Yup! That's the ticket!

I guess I should be thankful that the same college does not hold the license of WUWF-FM, Pensacola's NPR outlet.
Click to expand...
Take a look a recent political moves at the University of West Florida. If the board of trustees can shut down NPR on WUWF, I expect they will.
It’s a mess.
 
If these colleges think they can seamlessly replace programming for 10% of the cost, let them try, and see how their fundraising goes. These college boards of directors don't live in the world of ratings and revenue. They think they can put anything on these stations and nothing will change. They should do some research on KCET and how a once-popular TV station blew itself up because it wanted to save money on PBS.

Or better yet: ASK THE MEMBERS. Ask the people who've contributed to the station why they listen.
 
On the agenda for the Pensacola State College board of trustees meeting tomorrow is exploring the possibility of affiliating WSRE with ECHO TV.

Google isn’t helping me find information on ECHO TV.
 
Poledo said:
On the agenda for the Pensacola State College board of trustees meeting tomorrow is exploring the possibility of affiliating WSRE with ECHO TV.

Google isn’t helping me find information on ECHO TV.
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Of course they are. Echo-TV is a religious channel that specializes in far right politics, based in Hungary.

Echo TV - Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia

Echo TV is a conservative Hungarian television channel owned and operated by Echo Hungria TV Zrt, and founded in 2005 to cover business news. Now focusing on news broadcasting and public affairs, Echo TV has received controversial attention for its association with farright politics in Hungary. Ec
alchetron.com alchetron.com
 
TheBigA said:
Of course they are. Echo-TV is a religious channel that specializes in far right politics, based in Hungary.

Echo TV - Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia

Echo TV is a conservative Hungarian television channel owned and operated by Echo Hungria TV Zrt, and founded in 2005 to cover business news. Now focusing on news broadcasting and public affairs, Echo TV has received controversial attention for its association with farright politics in Hungary. Ec
alchetron.com alchetron.com
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That doesn’t make any sense. I did some more googling and found this.

Blue Ridge Echo TV

Maybe?
 
Technically, WPAN is a brokered station, so Blab TV is buying their airtime and basically providing them an air-ready signal.
TCT is doing the same with 53.2 for relaying WFBD 48.1 to a part of the market that can't get WFBD since it's literally on the edge of the market.
Even WBQP bought time to secure 53.4 to relay WBQP 12.1 for a while. And Get TV on 53.5 is a service that pays stations to run their programming.

So it is entirely possible that the WSRE foundation could shack up on a subchannel of WPAN as a brokered feed. Non-commercial stations can easily be broadcast on commercial ones.

WNED in Buffalo was a longtime case of this because it was an old NBC O&O that failed in the 50s and they kept the commerical license It wasn't an issue until they launched WNEQ as a secondary non-commercial station that didn't meet expectations, and tried to sell it to a commercial broadcaster. The FCC had to get involved in a lenghty process to swap the licenses of WNED and WNEQ so WNEQ could become WNLO uner Lina as a UPN affiliate.
 
current.org

WSRE Foundation files lawsuit against college licensee for control of donor funds

The lawsuit may determine not only control of foundation money but also whether PBS programming will continue on the station beyond 2026.
current.org current.org

Here is more on the lawsuit related to WSRE.

The foundation for WSRE in Pensacola, Fla., filed a federal lawsuit Thursday to prevent the station’s license holder, Pensacola State College, from taking control of foundation funds that support the station.

The lawsuit, which invokes First Amendment rights of free speech and association, comes after PSC’s board of trustees voted 3-1 Sept. 16 to end WSRE’s affiliation with PBS next year. The college’s leadership sent a letter Sept. 25 ending its direct support organization agreement with the foundation. PSC President Ed Meadows and the board described the decision as necessary following losses in both state and federal funding.

A PSC spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
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I can’t find anything online.. but YouTube TV dropped WSRE today. Leaving Pensacola and Fort Walton with Alabama Public Television for PBS.
 
txchipk said:
Re: NJ PBS, I guess it depends on the news source as it seems as other outlets say it will wind down: After harsh budget cuts, NJ PBS announces it will cease operations next summer.

Obviously plans can change between now and year later for most of these outlets. Realistically, the NJ PBS stations largely overlap with WNET and WHYY. Those two also pretty much cover the state via cable and satellite as well since most of the state belongs to either the NYC or Philly TV markets. With no state and now no federal funding, it seems unlikely they would find a working funding model to keep alive stations that essentially largely duplicate PBS programming available on WNET and WHYY with a few NJ public affairs shows in the mix.
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Agree -- and there are smaller markets that have access to up to four duplicative PBS affiliates. Just as one example, Cincinnati has easy OTA access to WCET/Cincinnati, WCVN/Covington (Ky.), WPTD/Dayton, and WPTO/Oxford. :oops: And Dayton has easy OTA access to three of those stations. So, with all due respect to the staffs of duplicative stations, some pruning of this overbuilt situation was in order, regardless.
 
Gravel Switch said:
Agree -- and there are smaller markets that have access to up to four duplicative PBS affiliates. Just as one example, Cincinnati has easy OTA access to WCET/Cincinnati, WCVN/Covington (Ky.), WPTD/Dayton, and WPTO/Oxford. :oops: And Dayton has easy OTA access to three of those stations. So, with all due respect to the staffs of duplicative stations, some pruning of this overbuilt situation was in order, regardless.
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Just to fill in some gaps. First, Channel 3 WPSU, the Penn State University PBS station, will become a full time simulcast of WHYY 12 Philadelphia. So North Central PA will continue to see PBS shows. WHYY also has a simulcast in Delaware.

And yes, NJ PBS will shut down. But it really is not just a secondary PBS service, it's a tertiary service. In NYC, it's WNET 13 first, WLIW 21 second and NJ PBS third. In Philly, it's WHYY 12 first, WLVT 39 second and NJ PBS third. When the FCC was handing out giant checks to stations to get off their UHF channel, NJ PBS, which had four transmitters covering nearly all the state, gave up two of its transmitters. So the Camden 23 and Trenton 52 stations are on the same tower near Camden, airing identical programming. And the Montclair 50 and New Brunswick 58 stations are also on one tower, near New Brunswick, airing the same programming. Yes, really silly. But the state made hundreds of millions of dollars by doing it. I live in NJ and almost never tune in NJ PBS.

PBS is a great source of intelligent television. So many quality children's programs, Nature, Nova, well-crafted British imports. But these conservative states that want to make liberals cry, don't like the PBS news shows. They either control the state public television service or they control the state university system that set up the state public television service. I'm not opposed to PBS stations no longer getting government money. But it's more than just the money, it's the message too.
 
Gravel Switch said:
Agree -- and there are smaller markets that have access to up to four duplicative PBS affiliates. Just as one example, Cincinnati has easy OTA access to WCET/Cincinnati, WCVN/Covington (Ky.), WPTD/Dayton, and WPTO/Oxford. :oops: And Dayton has easy OTA access to three of those stations. So, with all due respect to the staffs of duplicative stations, some pruning of this overbuilt situation was in order, regardless.
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Situations such as this often arise due to mandates or support from local entities such as colleges. WPTO was the old WMUB that was associated with Miami University, and WPTD was a simulcast of it (they later adopted separate schedules). WCVN is one of the KET stations, all of which relay WKLE Lexington, with the exception of WKMJ Louisville that has a different subchannel mix. Indeed, WKMJ is a holdover from when Louisville had its own PBS station, WKPC, which before going with KET was under the aegis first of the Louisville public library, then Jefferson County Schools, and later, a free-standing corporation. Yet another example of how multiple PBS stations arose locally and in many cases created redundancies.

You had much the same situation in the Huntington WV tri-state area, where at one time there was WMUL/WPBY/WVPB from Huntington (now moved to Charleston), WKAS Ashland (KET), and WPBO Portsmouth (satellite of WOSU), with WOUB Athens (Ohio University) available in the northern part of the market. WOSU sold WPBO's spectrum and closed it down, but the other three stations remain to this day.
 


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