• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

APT closing Montgomery bureau

For how many years now, we have been a nation of growth, growth, growth. Yes there have been short recessions and periods of adjustment, but all of my life our economy has grown and grown and grown. I think most of us assume we will get past this downturn also, and the growth cycle will resume.

But what if the economy has reached a peak, or is now in a long, long plateau? What are the logical cuts to make in public broadcasting? I am an outsider looking in with no knowledge of APT operations and programming. Looking at the website, they have been a robust operation in Alabama. Is cutting back on staff and operations at the state capitol the way to go? The text book answer might be "NO. We need good coverage of what is happening in Montgomery." But the practical answer may be "YES. For APT to maintain an image with legislators and lobbyists, if cuts have to be made, make them very visible at the location where legislators function." APT cannot afford to make it look like there is no pain in their operation due to the budget reductions, the funding reductions. Put the pain in Montgomery and make the pain very obvious. When the economy turns around APT needs to be thought of as the good child, the good steward when it comes time to divide up improvements in the state income.
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
For how many years now, we have been a nation of growth, growth, growth. Yes there have been short recessions and periods of adjustment, but all of my life our economy has grown and grown and grown. I think most of us assume we will get past this downturn also, and the growth cycle will resume.
Click to expand...

There is one option to save the economy: go out and Have Babies! We need to catch up with China. The USA has all this land... wasted on timber, cotton, peanuts, tobacco, marijuana, tomatoes, and collard greens... mmm... collards. More babes = more demand for goods = more production = more taxable spending = success! The USA must outgrow China, then we can turn all broadcasting over to the government. They'll handle everything just the way we need it.
Elect politicians that can take care of us better than our parents raised us. The Government has made so much money that they can obviously run the world better than we can. Let them do their jobs! ... and go have more babies!

Damn Libertarians!
 
Without going so political, the funding cuts you see to public broadcasting outlets in every state (Florida, Alabama, everywhere there seems to be a GOP governor) provide hilariously superficial money savings at best. The non-cost of running/funding wouldn't provide any real purse relief to government nor its citizens.

Though if I can give our leaders some credit: Governor Bentley and company don't seem to be so inspired by the New Jersey governor's actions to announce a selloff of properties to Georgia Public Broadcasting.
 
And yet many believe the selloff of NJN to two out of state broadcasters may actually be beneficial. The northern half of the state is basically NYC West and the southern half is Philly East. With NYC controlling the northern stations and Philly controlling the southern stations each area may get more relevant news instead of the weak sauce that NJN provided everywhere.

So the locals say.

I would hate to see the breakup of the nation's first public television network but Alabama is sort of in the same boat. Rather than the entire state being one uniform type of culture, it varies a lot from the Tennessee Valley to Birmingham, then again around Montgomery, the Wiregrass and then Darwin's Waiting Room a/k/a Mobile.

Then again Mississippi varies a lot from top to bottom but they have both a statewide TV AND radio network for public broadcasting and both seem to do well. So I dunno. The main mission of APT being a state network originally was for broadcasting teaching and educational tools to rural schools, wasn't it? As long as they keep doing that, everything else is subject to being cut I guess.
 
I'd like to see APTV stations taken over by colleges... and run like the Florida PBS stations.
Troy seems to successfully run their 3 NPR station cluster "southeastern public radio", perhaps they could handle taking over WDIQ and WGIQ.
Aubun could take on WAIQ and perhaps WCIQ.
UoA is already in the television business, so I assume they could easily handle WBIQ and perhaps simulcast on WIIQ and/or WFIQ while continuing to produce content to sell to other Alabama PBS stations.
I don't know enough about Huntsville to suggest a new programmer/owner for WHIQ. A local college, UoA, or perhaps even the PBS station out of Nashville?

Springhill College in Mobile just failed with their NPR station... If WEIQ were offered for sale I'd love to see WYES from New Orleans purchase it for a simulcast. A second option that comes to mind would be Pensacola's WSRE obtaining it somehow and using it to program a secondary, non-PBS, public television station. The best, most profitable, option I can see for Mobile's WEIQ would require some horse trading with a religious broadcaster (perhaps WMPV). Since all Mobile DMA religious TV stations have commercial licenses... one of them could move to channel 42 and free up a commercial license for sale (perhaps WKRG/CBS would like to create a duopoly?). The Mobile DMA would still have WSRE, a full market PBS station (with a far better signal in Alabama than WEIQ has) that could add Mobile programming to it's schedule which is currently focused only on Florida affairs.

Ah, I need to take up fantasy football. This will never happen. I just wasted my time typing this. Should I hit post or delete? I should go back to work.
 
poledo you may be the one that told me this, but with Florida's budget cuts to public broadcasting, WSRE won't be doing much of anything except contracting and dropping shows.

Huntsville's APT station could be taken over by one of the schools up there. UAH would probably be a decent steward of a TV channel.
 
Forget my idea of WSRE buying WEIQ!  I wasn't thinking outside the box.

APTV should do some horse trading with WMPV.  Resulting in WMPV moving to non-commercial channel 42 and getting a little cash or goodwill or something.  APTV then gets the commercial license for channel 21 and sells it (perhaps to WKRG/Media General).

The funds from the sale of Mobile's APTV station go to fund the rest of the APTV network.  APTV pipes their main (WBIQ DT-1) signal to Alabama cable and satellite customers in the Mobile DMA and lets WSRE have the sole OTA PBS affiliation for the entire Mobile-Pensacola DMA.  No other changes to the APTV network.  APTV has cash in hand.  WSRE gets a new crop of contributors from south-west Alabama.  WSRE improves.  APTV sells the broadcast rights to the better programs they produce to WSRE or one of the Mobile commercial stations.  More cash in APTV's pocket.  No PBS dues for APTV in the Mobile DMA.

It'll never happen.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom