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Ball State considering selling WIPB

mvcg66b3r

mvcg66b3r

Ball State University could be paid up to $277 million at auction to relinquish the license of its Indianapolis PBS affiliate WIPB and take the station off the air. While $277 million is the opening bid price set by the FCC if Ball State participates in the auction — to free up frequency for wireless broadband companies — experts say it's unrealistic to expect the university to receive that much.
http://www.thestarpress.com/story/news/local/2015/11/13/fccs-initial-bid-wipb-277-million/75505166/
 
WIPB is licensed to Muncie, but the northeastern fringe of the Indy Metro Area can receive WIPB.
Indy's PBS station is WFYI.
Some of WIPB's coverage area overlaps WFWA's signal from Fort Wayne, but not very much. South of say, Hartford City, it's a crap shoot to pick up WFWA without a tall antenna.
 
Juan Bodley said:
WIPB is licensed to Muncie, but the northeastern fringe of the Indy Metro Area can receive WIPB.
Indy's PBS station is WFYI.
Some of WIPB's coverage area overlaps WFWA's signal from Fort Wayne, but not very much. South of say, Hartford City, it's a crap shoot to pick up WFWA without a tall antenna.
Click to expand...

Is WFYI available on Muncie-area cable and/or dishes? Are both it and WIPB carried in the surrounding cities (Anderson, Marion, Kokomo)? If all of that is true, which station gets the higher ratings?

If they were to shut down, they'd certainly be one of the oldest stations to throw in the sponge -- Channel 49 has been on the air since 1953 (as commercial WLBC-TV); as WIPB since 1971.
 
Well, I would guess WFYI probably gets higher ratings. This is a case for me, though, where WIPB is actually at a school with a decent Telecommunications program. (Doesn't hurt when you have a famous alum such as Letterman.) So I think there's genuine educational value from the station, which may not show up as dollars and cents. I could probably see them going VHF - because I would guess they rely more on must-carry on cable & satellite than they do on over the air viewing. If they do move, I hope the funds generated are put into a restricted endowment that provides permanent funding to WIPB going forward.
 
BSU won't take WIPB off the air

Ball State University will not relinquish the license of public television station WIPB-49, the university announced on Monday.

Since the fall of 2015, BSU has participated in the Federal Communications Commission’s voluntary spectrum auction, which was conducted nationally free up bandwidth for the increasing number of mobile devices.

Ball State could have earned millions of dollars to take WIPB off the air, to move to low VHF, or to move to high VHF.

“We have said all along that participation in the auction is only on the condition that it advance Ball State’s mission,” Phil Repp, a Ball State vice president and chief information officer “We determined that selling the spectrum at this time would not be in the best interest of the university.”

As a result of the auction, WIPB will continue to operate as it has been but will change its broadcast frequency. Repp said this is the second time the FCC will move WIPB from one frequency to another: The last time was in 2007, when WIPB moved from standard definition (SD) to high definition (HD). The change should not result in any notable changes in the station’s reach, he added. The station has up to 20 months to change its frequency.

The cost of the change is yet to be determined, but the FCC had set aside some money for stations that would be required to change frequencies, Repp said.
Click to expand...

http://www.thestarpress.com/story/news/local/2017/02/13/bsu-wont-take-wipb-off-air/97846082/
 
There will be one change to WIPB. The FCC is requiring it – like many stations across the country – to “repack.” This means changing its broadcast frequency. As university spokeswoman Joan Todd says, the station will move from channel 23 to channel 19.

But “broadcast frequency” is different from the channel you tune your television to to watch the station. For cable and satellite users, it’s up to their service provider to set the channel you tune to – and there will likely be no change. For those using rooftop or rabbit-ear antennas, there will be a change. But since the FCC is giving all “repacked” channels 20 months to make the change, stations like WIPB will have time to explain the change to viewers. And, the federal commission is paying for part or all of that “repacking” work.
Click to expand...

http://indianapublicradio.org/news/2017/02/ball-state-university-will-continue-to-broadcast-wipb/
 
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