Biggest Market that waited longest to get a PBS Station?

[Markxxx]

As a companion thread to the commercial station thread. What is the biggest market that had to wait the longest to get a PBS station?

This doesn't count markets like Rockford that don't have one. So they are still waiting.

 

[w9wi]

As a companion thread to the commercial station thread. What is the biggest market that had to wait the longest to get a PBS station?

This doesn't count markets like Rockford that don't have one. So they are still waiting.

Casper, Wyoming, whose KPTW channel 6 just filed for a license-to-cover last week?

(though the station had already been operating at half-power as a translator of KCWC Lander)

 

[KML0224]

How has that happened in Rockford anyway? I know of no other big or mid-sized markets that don't have a PBS affiliate.

 

[w9wi]

As a companion thread to the commercial station thread. What is the biggest market that had to wait the longest to get a PBS station?

This doesn't count markets like Rockford that don't have one. So they are still waiting.

I will admit market ranks below are 10 years old...

Last three Top 10 markets to get a non-commercial educational station:
- #2 Los Angeles (KCET-28 9/28/1964, though KVCR-24 had been operating for two years in San Bernardino, and a non-commercial station is said to have operated from UCLA on channel 28 in the early 1950s)
- #4 Philadelphia (WHYY-12 9/12/1963, after leaving commercial service. However, WUHY-35 may have operated before WHYY became a non-commercial station.)
- #1 New York (WNET-13 9/16/1962, after leaving commercial service.)

Last three Top 30 markets:
- #25 Indianapolis (WFYI-20 10/4/1970, though WTIU-30 had been on for about 18 months from nearby Bloomington)
- #23 Baltimore (WMPB-67 10/5/1969)
- #26 San Diego (KPBS-15 6/25/1967)

Last three Top 100 markets:
- #60 Knoxville (WKOP-15 8/15/1990, though WETP-2 was arguably the PBS station for both Knoxville and the Tri-Cities. It signed on 3/15/1967.)
- #83 Fort Myers (WSFP-30 8/15/1983)
- #44 West Palm (WXEL-42 7/8/82)
(and if you consider WETP Knoxville's PBS station then 3rd place would be
- #63 Austin, Tex. (KLRU-18 5/3/1979)

Three markets larger than Rockford that don't have PBS stations:
#132 Bakersfield, Cal.
#115 Santa Barbara-San Luis Obispo-Santa Maria, Cal.
#108 Tyler-Longview, Tex.

Beaumont, Tex. is just a slot or two smaller than Rockford (probably not anymore!) and has no PBS station.

For what it's worth, the *first* Top 10 markets to get a non-commercial educational station:
- #5 San Francisco (KQED-9 4/2/1954)
- #6 Boston (WGBH-2 5/2/1955)
- #3 Chicago (WTTW-11 9/5/1955)

The first Top 30 markets:
- #11 Houston (KUHT-8 5/12/1953, the first non-commercial educational station and the only one until 1954)
- #19 Pittsburgh (WQED-13 3/19/1954)
- #30 Cincinnati (WCET-48 7/26/1954)

The first Top 100 markets:
- #84 Madison (WHA-21 5/3/1954)
- #51 Birmingham (WBIQ-10 4/28/1955)
- #82 Champaign (WILL-12 8/1/1955)

 

[kirkiefan]

Dayton, Ohio may not be the biggest market,but they waited the longest.

It wasn't until April 1972 when WOET Channel 16 (originallly commercial indie WKTR)came on the air,at first simulcasting WMUB-TV in Oxford. A few years later the calls changed from WOET to WPTD (Public Television Dayton) and from WMUB-TV to WPTO(Public Television Oxford). WPTD became the originating station until the mid 1990s when both stations went to seperate programming.


Beforehand, Dayton only had a translator of WMUB..or you had to hope for a good clear sky to pull in WCET,Cincinnati. In 1970, Sesame Street was aired in the mornings on a commercial station, WKEF. In-school instructional programming was aired from 1962 to 1967. on Channels 72 and 76 by way of Statovision from the now long gone MPATI...the ones that used an airplane equipped with two VTRs and two transmitters in an airplane flying over a small town north of Hartford City, IN.

 

[bpatrick]

I don't know what Raleigh/Durham's market
ranking was in 1955, but WUNC/4 signed on
on January 8, 1955. The statewide UNC-TV
network (as it is known today) began around
1965, with the addition of WUND/2 Columbia/
Edenton, which also serves parts of the Hampton
Roads area.

 

[easttxtv]

Amarillo didn't have it's own PBS station until 1988, when KACV/2 debuted. Before that, KERA/13 from Dallas was available through the local cable system.

Three markets larger than Rockford that don't have PBS stations:
[...]
#108 Tyler-Longview, Tex.

Would be interesting to see Tyler-Longview get one, but many of the potential viewers in the market already support KERA or the LPB station in Shreveport. If there was a wider gap between the next nearest markets, there might be more of a demand for a local PBS station.

 

[ShawnHill1]

Kinda a shame that Rockford never had (or has) a PBS station of its own. When I lived there, I do remember somewhat that the city's school district channel on cable ("WGRE" Channel 20) showing some PBS programming (maybe the Annenberg-type of variety). I guess if no one in the area wants to put forth the time and money to build a public TV station, what can you do. I'm certain with the area getting both WTTW and WHA on cable suits them just fine.

As for Bakersfield, they do share a PBS station (KVPT Channel 18) with the Fresno market, with a separate lower-powered transmitter for the Bakersfield market (Channel 65, now on 34). In fact, Fresno and Bakersfield could qualify for biggest market(s) waiting long to get its own PBS station. KVPT signed-on as KMTF in 1977 (owned by the Fresno County school district back then), while the Bakersfield signal came on the air in 1990. Bakersfield also gets KCET from Los Angeles on cable and over-the-air as well.

Speaking of KCET, I just found out on their web site, they just created a new seperate channel (KCET Desert Cities) for the Palm Springs market, through Time Warner Cable.

 

[genius]

El Paso(#99 I think) didn't get it's own PBS station until 1978.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

Kinda a shame that Rockford never had (or has) a PBS station of its own. When I lived there, I do remember somewhat that the city's school district channel on cable ("WGRE" Channel 20) showing some PBS programming (maybe the Annenberg-type of variety). I guess if no one in the area wants to put forth the time and money to build a public TV station, what can you do. I'm certain with the area getting both WTTW and WHA on cable suits them just fine.

Even though DeKalb is in the Chicago market, I'm surprised that Northern Illinois University there has never signed on a PBS station that could target the Rockford area. Have there been efforts in the past to try to get a PBS station at NIU?

 

[w9wi]

Even though DeKalb is in the Chicago market, I'm surprised that Northern Illinois University there has never signed on a PBS station that could target the Rockford area. Have there been efforts in the past to try to get a PBS station at NIU?

Yes, that's surprised me a bit too. The public *radio* station for Rockford was launched by NIU.

Before DTV pretty much wiped out the assignment table, there was no non-commercial reserved channel assigned to Rockford, nor to adjacent Beloit or Janesville, Wis.. Two non-commercial reserved assignments that could have served Rockford would have been channel 65 at Freeport or channel 33 at DeKalb - the latter obviously assigned with the thought NIU might be interested.

I don't know of any past efforts to start a TV station at NIU, but someone closer to the area (I'm from Madison) might know more..

I'm also surprised nobody ever tried to start a *translator* of WHA or WTTW. I wonder if cable penetration in Rockford was unusually high from an early date, i.e. the mid-late 1960s?

 

[ShawnHill1]

Even though DeKalb is in the Chicago market, I'm surprised that Northern Illinois University there has never signed on a PBS station that could target the Rockford area. Have there been efforts in the past to try to get a PBS station at NIU?

Yes, that's surprised me a bit too. The public *radio* station for Rockford was launched by NIU.

Before DTV pretty much wiped out the assignment table, there was no non-commercial reserved channel assigned to Rockford, nor to adjacent Beloit or Janesville, Wis.. Two non-commercial reserved assignments that could have served Rockford would have been channel 65 at Freeport or channel 33 at DeKalb - the latter obviously assigned with the thought NIU might be interested.

I don't know of any past efforts to start a TV station at NIU, but someone closer to the area (I'm from Madison) might know more..

I'm also surprised nobody ever tried to start a *translator* of WHA or WTTW. I wonder if cable penetration in Rockford was unusually high from an early date, i.e. the mid-late 1960s?

I'm also sorta surprised NIU didn't start-up a PBS station as well, seeing as they have two radio stations targeted to Rockford. You also could go as far saying that Rockford College or Rock Valley College could have started their own public television station (or teamed up with another organization). WHA and/or WTTW could have done what I mentioned about KCET, and start-up a cable-only service geared towards a neighborhing market still within the viewing range of the original station. But I won't continue to dwell on this point, but it's good discussion.

I know cable television came to Rockford around the early to mid 1960s (either '63 or '65), so can I imagine both WHA and WTTW both being on Rockford cable since the beginning, or at least since the 1970s.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

Even though DeKalb is in the Chicago market, I'm surprised that Northern Illinois University there has never signed on a PBS station that could target the Rockford area. Have there been efforts in the past to try to get a PBS station at NIU?

Yes, that's surprised me a bit too. The public *radio* station for Rockford was launched by NIU.

Before DTV pretty much wiped out the assignment table, there was no non-commercial reserved channel assigned to Rockford, nor to adjacent Beloit or Janesville, Wis.. Two non-commercial reserved assignments that could have served Rockford would have been channel 65 at Freeport or channel 33 at DeKalb - the latter obviously assigned with the thought NIU might be interested.

I don't know of any past efforts to start a TV station at NIU, but someone closer to the area (I'm from Madison) might know more..

I'm also surprised nobody ever tried to start a *translator* of WHA or WTTW. I wonder if cable penetration in Rockford was unusually high from an early date, i.e. the mid-late 1960s?

If 33 in DeKalb and 65 in Freeport were utilized as PBS stations, it would have made sense to have the Freeport allocation as more of a repeater for 33 in DeKalb (a regional PBS network for Northern Illinois), with 65 also covering an area of northwestern Illinois (particularly Stephenson, Carroll, and JoDaviess counties, including the cities of Freeport, Savanna and Galena) that might still have difficulty receiving PBS OTA (KIIN-12 Iowa City--Iowa Public Television, and WQPT-24 Moline/Quad Cities are offered in Carroll and JoDaviess counties on cable as they are part of the QC market, but are not that great to pick up OTA in those counties).

This brings up another point: I'm surprised there isn't a translator for Iowa Public Television that serves the immediate Dubuque, IA area (which could also be received in Galena and perhaps Savanna).

 

[johnnya2k6]

Here in Fairbanks, KUAC became Alaska's first PBS station when it signed on 1971.

But Anchorage would have to wait until 1975 -- that's right, 1975!!!! -- for KAKM to hit the airwaves! Yeah, even though network television came to Alaska in 1953 with only two Anchorage stations, we would beat them to the public television punch by four years!

Jonathan Allen

 

[w9wi]

This brings up another point: I'm surprised there isn't a translator for Iowa Public Television that serves the immediate Dubuque, IA area (which could also be received in Galena and perhaps Savanna).

Indeed, in general I'm surprised there were never more translators in Dubuque.

Technically part of the Cedar Rapids market, it's a long way from the towers - and much of the city is on the wrong side of a ridge for CR reception. The ridge on the other side of the Mississippi isolates Dubuque from the Madison transmitters too.

I do recall seeing a listing of a translator of KWWL there - on channel 78?

 

[KeithE4]

I do recall seeing a listing of a translator of KWWL there - on channel 78?

There were Dubuque translators for all 3 CR/Waterloo stations in the '60s, all above Channel 70. I don't know why there was never a IPTV translator there. They have Channel 29 allocated for a NCE station but AFAIK, it's never been used.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

I do recall seeing a listing of a translator of KWWL there - on channel 78?

There were Dubuque translators for all 3 CR/Waterloo stations in the '60s, all above Channel 70. I don't know why there was never a IPTV translator there. They have Channel 29 allocated for a NCE station but AFAIK, it's never been used.

Getting a little off-topic on Dubuque, despite the history of KFXB-40 there (ABC 1970-95?, Fox as translator of KFXA-28 Cedar Rapids 1996?-2006, independent/religious ever since) but considering the terrain and bluffs of that tri-state area of Iowa/Illinois/Wisconsin, should more analog allocations had been allocated to Dubuque and in essence, give the possibility of the city having its own television market (even though it would have taken several eastern Iowa counties away from the CR/Waterloo DMA, Jo Daviess and perhaps Carroll counties from the Quad Cities market, and at least Grant and Lafayette counties from Madison)? I think with some engineering trickery (although I am no engineer), it might have been possible to allocate at least 2 reduced power V's to Dubuque (channels 5 and 11) to avoid interference with Chicago and Des Moines/Ames (perhaps put them on the Wisconsin side of the Dubuque area and with similar power to WREX-13 in Rockford), in addition to 40 and the previously mentioned channel 29 allocation. I've always wondered if there were efforts to make Dubuque its own market (which, if created, could still have been larger in population than perhaps Quincy/Hannibal and definitely Kirksville/Ottumwa).

 

[fortmill]

I think Fort Wayne might have been one of the last top hundred market cities (I know its no longer top 100) to get PBS, I think in the late 80s.

 

[Markxxx]

Channel 33 in DeKalb would seem to be very close to Channel 32 in Chicago.

Since Chicago also has a Channel 66 (well it does now but not then, but Channel 66 was unusual as it was asigned to BOTH Joliet and Elgin). If the transmitter would've been in Chicago, as it is now, (Channel 66 is licensed to Joliet but the transmitter is in Chicago) that is probably far enough away, but if Channel 66 was asigned to Elgin, and the transmitter was there, that could've been an issue.

Considering they are in the same market. I wonder if that could've been the reason.

I see Channel 48 is also allocated (or was allocated) to DeKalb for non-commercial use. That seems to be a better option.

I wonder if anyone ever tried to make use of Channel 54 assigned for non-commercial use in Kankakee?

 

[dhett]

Not the biggest market in the bunch (#170), but still bigger than Fairbanks (#203):

Yuma AZ just got its first PBS station in December - a LPTV translator of KAET Phoenix. Station K19CX is owned by Prescott indie KAZT-TV and was a translator of that station until December, but had to stop rebroadcasting their own programming due to syndication exclusivity issues, according to the KAZT-TV Wikipedia article. So now, while KAZT-TV still owns K19CX, they air KAET programming on it instead. The El Centro CA half of the market still does not have a PBS station, to the best of my knowledge.

Yuma does have a full-service NCE allocation on ch 16, but no one has applied for a station.