I'm surprised that one of the stations in the Rockford, IL DMA didn't try to do something similar on one of their subchannels. Air the national PBS feed similar to what's happening in Brownsville. Since Rockford has never, ever had a PBS station of its own. Traditionally relying on Wisconsin Public Television's WHA-21 Madison flagship, or on Comcast WTTW-11 Chicago. Some of the southwestern areas of the market may get fringe coverage from WQPT-Moline, IL or even WTVP-Peoria, or even Iowa Public Television.
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2026 prediction thread.
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
It might have more relevance to Rockford, if they were agreeable to it, to run WTTW instead.
True and we should find out with PBS affiliate takes in donations from Arkansas viewers by July 2026. We have not found a replacement yet but its rife with out of state PBS stations speculations taking donations from viewers in Arkansas.
I just checked and TVTV.info lists Cox cable in Fort Smith as carrying KOED Tulsa (surprised that political correctness hasn't forced them to change those call letters), which I assume they always have. KOET-3 Eufaula is available OTA in Fort Smith. Fort Smith proper is in reasonably good shape for PBS regardless of what happens with Arkansas TV.
But will the Arkansas stations leaving PBS continue to air "Lawrence Welk"? That might be the big question for some viewers.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
IIRC, those are from American Public Television, not PBS.
Youtube announces a deal with Colbert
Midterm elections for Congress, State Legislatures and Governors has to be the starting point where Gray, Nexstar, EW Scripps, Hearst and Sinclair would have to preempt network nightly news shows for their national newscasts and wall to wall coverage of the midterm elections. However the local TV stations have to watch out for Chairman carr over how he reacts to the midterm news coverage as demonstrated in the past year.
Would Google take the risk? Probably something they want to buy, with fed approval, in 3 years
Just to put a little more color on the situation, the Tri-Cities TN/VA market was always in a strange situation regarding PBS. They started out in 1967 with WSJK in Sneedville, broadcasting on channel 2, an allocation that had to be squeezed into the tightest possible space, to protect WSB, WDCN, WFMY, and possibly WLWD (not sure about the latter one). Sneedville and only Sneedville would fulfill this criterion. (One early proposal was for the public TV station on channel 2 to serve both Tennessee and neighboring Kentucky.)
The idea was that WSJK would serve both the Tri-Cities and Knoxville markets, but even with the lowest possible VHF channel (good propagation characteristics), this was a challenge in that kind of terrain. The station would be served from studios in both Knoxville and Johnson City (Hancock County is actually in the Knoxville market, not sure to what extent markets, then called ADIs, were delineated back in those days, nor where Hancock County would have fallen in 1967). In actual practice, reception in Knoxville was dodgy, so in 1990 a second station, WKOP, was created to serve Knoxville on channel 15, with the two stations simulcasting.
And then there was WSVN on channel 47 in Norton VA, a satellite of WBRA Roanoke (which has a massive signal of its own on OTA channel 3 from Poor Mountain, a catbird seat if there ever were one). WSVN (which later became WSBN when WCKT Miami wanted those call letters in 1983) went on the air in 1971, followed by WMSY in Marion in 1981. WSVN could be received even throughout a large portion of eastern Kentucky and was carried on cable as far north as Irvine. Much of the Tri-Cities market was able to receive one or both of these stations, but they were closed down in 2013 due to budget cuts (there is nothing new under the sun).
To this day, OTA PBS service in the Tri-Cities market isn't what it could be. PBS Appalachia Virginia really needs an OTA presence. I've even wondered if WLFG Grundy might be able to spare one of its subchannels, though as a religious nonprofit, any tax advantages (possible deduction due to PBS Appalachia Virginia being a public broadcaster, I'm just guessing) would be of far more use to WCYB.
How about this one more stories about segments and reports being spiked due to the 2026 mid-term elections on the state level and political interference in the same way we saw the 60 Minutes segment get hit with interference. Yes there are two groups to blame for why stories get spiked one is management like the Ellisons and Bari Weiss or in some cases The White House plus Chairman Carr of the FCC going after local TV and radio stations licenses over stuff they don't want aired but this time it focuses on gubernatorial candidates wanting to do the same thing we saw with the "Pentagon Press Restrictions" and controlling the press pool. Yes the defunding of CPB that funds local affiliates of PBS and NPR were hit first but there will be news outlets like the "The States Newsroom" that cover news from the state capitals around the country will get hit in some parts of the country in the same way we seen AP and Reuters get hit with the same stuff we saw in the White House over press access and First Amendment issues.
statesnewsroom.com
About • States Newsroom
About Us States Newsroom is the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization, with reporting from every capital. We shine a light on policy and politics in all 50 states and we provide that coverage for free; no pop-ups, paywalls or ads. In an era of rampant disinformation and...
statesnewsroom.com
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Maybe if it were analog, but I've heard that station has had nothing but trouble with interference.
I remember RCA Television Factbook listing all the Roanoke stations' towers on Poor Mountain. WDBJ 7 was so clear where I lived in the early 70s but WSLS 10 wasn't that good. WLVA I could hear, which made "The Partridge Family" interesting. WGHP finally aired the reruns and I could see what I had missed.
Don’t forget WETA-TV Washington DC given that it’s the flagship affiliate of PBS Newshour and KQED-TV San Francisco role as “The West Coast contributor to PBS Frontline and Newshour” and yes KOCE Los Angeles is actually the main PBS affiliate in the Southland. We mentioned this earlier about these stations having to consider getting “a superstation status” to provide parts of the country losing their PBS affiliation and no local replacement because of the decision of management like Arkansas TV decided to remove their affiliation with PBS. We also mentioned that the Arkansas TV affiliation situation is not like NJ PBS losing their affiliation because New Jersey is covered by WNET New York and WHYY-TV Philadelphia.
WGBH ch. 2 covers both MA and RI (and southern NH) that a secondary PBS affiliate isn't really needed (WGBX 44, WSBE 36 and NH PBS 11 WENH).
It's not, but in the case of the latter two, you presumably have these mandates to cover the whole state with in-state public TV.
But there are exceptions. When WOSU in Columbus shut down satellite WPBO in Portsmouth, that left Scioto and Lawrence counties without OTA PBS (Adams County would be on the fringes of WCET), but they said these areas had adequate PBS coverage from KET and West Virginia Public TV. There is no statewide public TV network in Ohio.
(duplicate post)