Can You Remember When Your Market Got Its First Educational TV Station?

[Ultimajock]

While I mentioned earlier that Madison's WHA started in 1954, I didn't say anything about the rest of what's now Wisconsin Public Television: The remainder of the full-power WPT stations didn't sign on until the '70s (with Green Bay's WPNE apparently being the first to do so). Even now, Green Bay is a larger TV market than Madison.

...in fact, WPNE/38 was originally planned to be WRST-TV, licensed to the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Politics between the Green Bay and Oshkosh campuses eventually led to the Green Bay campus taking over both the TV station CP and what was then WHKW-FM Chilton, a satellite station of WHA Radio in Madison...

In addition, WHA may have, on occasion, had some different programming from the rest of WPT. At the very least, I don't think WHA's "Saturday Morning" lineup of old TV shows (e.g., "Alfred Hitchcock Presents") during the '80s was carried by any of the other WPT stations.

Also, Wisconsin is an interesting situation in that Milwaukee's aforementioned WMVS and WMVT have some ties with WPT--but have always been operated outside of it. (The same goes for Duluth/Superior's WDSE.)

...WHA-TV was licensed to the University of Wisconsin, separate from the other WPT stations which were licensed to the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board. Thus, even when simulcasting most of its programming with WPT, WHA-TV was officially a separate entity in the '70s and '80s. WMVS and WMVT are owned by Milwaukee Area Technical College, and WDSE is owned by Duluth-Superior Area Educational Television Corporation (which also owns and operates WRPT/31 Hibbing), also separate entities...

 

[w9wi]

While I mentioned earlier that Madison's WHA started in 1954, I didn't say anything about the rest of what's now Wisconsin Public Television: The remainder of the full-power WPT stations didn't sign on until the '70s (with Green Bay's WPNE apparently being the first to do so). Even now, Green Bay is a larger TV market than Madison.

...in fact, WPNE/38 was originally planned to be WRST-TV, licensed to the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Politics between the Green Bay and Oshkosh campuses eventually led to the Green Bay campus taking over both the TV station CP and what was then WHKW-FM Chilton, a satellite station of WHA Radio in Madison...

That (about a WRST-TV permit in Oshkosh) is a new one on me.. I won't say it would have been impossible to get something filed & then absorbed, but I'm pretty sure I'd have known about it if there was a permit. There's never been a non-commercial channel allotted to Oshkosh, not that they couldn't have operated non-commercially on channel 48 (later 22) allotted for commercial operation. Or used non-commercial channel 24 (later deleted) allotted to Chilton.

Might the establishment of the TV station at Green Bay have been an economic move? At the site south of town it would have covered the Fox Cities pretty well, with most of the weaker service area covered by WMVS. And it would have had coverage north of town, in places like Oconto which would have required another transmitter if they'd stuck with the Chilton site. (not to mention a much better signal in Green Bay, both then and now the largest city in the area)

With the TV transmitter at Green Bay, it wouldn't have made much sense to continue FM transmitters at Chilton and Suring -- moving the FM transmitter to Green Bay as well would have simply made sense. With the high power in use at Delafield, any area not well-served by WPNE-FM is well covered by WHAD.

 

[Ultimajock]

While I mentioned earlier that Madison's WHA started in 1954, I didn't say anything about the rest of what's now Wisconsin Public Television: The remainder of the full-power WPT stations didn't sign on until the '70s (with Green Bay's WPNE apparently being the first to do so). Even now, Green Bay is a larger TV market than Madison.

...in fact, WPNE/38 was originally planned to be WRST-TV, licensed to the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Politics between the Green Bay and Oshkosh campuses eventually led to the Green Bay campus taking over both the TV station CP and what was then WHKW-FM Chilton, a satellite station of WHA Radio in Madison...

That (about a WRST-TV permit in Oshkosh) is a new one on me.. I won't say it would have been impossible to get something filed & then absorbed, but I'm pretty sure I'd have known about it if there was a permit. There's never been a non-commercial channel allotted to Oshkosh, not that they couldn't have operated non-commercially on channel 48 (later 22) allotted for commercial operation. Or used non-commercial channel 24 (later deleted) allotted to Chilton.

Might the establishment of the TV station at Green Bay have been an economic move? At the site south of town it would have covered the Fox Cities pretty well, with most of the weaker service area covered by WMVS. And it would have had coverage north of town, in places like Oconto which would have required another transmitter if they'd stuck with the Chilton site. (not to mention a much better signal in Green Bay, both then and now the largest city in the area)

...my source was Dr. Robert Snyder of UW-Oshkosh, who told me all of this in 1977 when I was a volunteer at WRST-FM. There wasn't a CP issued for a WRST-TV, despite Snyder's push to get a filing for one. The original idea, which he claimed had been developed circa 1967 (when the school was still a part of the old Wisconsin State University system), was for much of the programming to be relayed from WHA-TV and WMVS via OTA signals, similar to what the nearby commercial KFIZ-TV/34 Fond du Lac would do from 1968 to 1972 with some programs from WVTV/18 Milwaukee. However, around the same time, Russ Widoe, the former "Colonel Caboose" of WBAY-TV/2 in Green Bay, formed Northeastern Wisconsin In-School Telecommunications (NEWIST) with the purpose of broadcasting in-school educational programming from the facilities of WLUK/11. Eventually, NEWIST moved to its own facilities at UWGB, and placed some of its programming (as well as Sesame Street and The Electric Company) on KFIZ. Before Snyder could convince the Wisconsin State University system to give the WRST-TV concept a final go-ahead, the WSU system was merged into the University of Wisconsin system in 1971, with Widoe having more influence with the new Board of Regents and the Educational Communications Board than Snyder. The WRST-TV concept was taken by the Regents and ECB and placed onto NEWIST instead...

 

[RadioJunkieMike]

Responders to my previous thread about the first Independent stations got me thinking about the early days of Educational TV.

I'm really not certain about how Educational TV stations started, later to be part of PBS. I know that in NYC, Channel 13 was struggling as an Independent, broadcasting in Italian several hours a day. It also signed on late and was off the air earlier than other NYC stations. So I suppose when a non-commercial group was formed, it figured it could buy Channel 13 rather than having to put an inferior signal UHF station on the air, which is what happened in many cities, the largest of which was Los Angeles.

...

I was too young to remember first hand when Channel 13 in NYC went non-commercial. But I remember some early shows aimed at kids on 13: Misteroger's Neighborhood (at the time, Misteroger's was all one word), What's New (a science show for kids, similar to Mr. Wizard) and The Friendly Giant, a 15 minute import from Canada.

I remember even now that production values for Channel 13 were primitive. Sometimes they'd just have a clock with the call letters and channel number show you how long it would be before the next program would air. And it included the NET Owl. The early forerunner to PBS, called NET, National Educational Television, used a line drawing of an owl as its symbol. No doubt because owls are supposed to be wise.

Wiki has an interesting account of Channel 13's early days:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WNET

I was 7 years old when the station became an educational outlet in 1962. I remember they carried the School Television Service during the day and I recall watching *lots* of that programming as a kid. The "owl" logo you're referring to is here:

http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/wp-content/k/NDT.jpg

 

[wbhist]

WNDT/WNET was the last of the NYC area VHF stations to convert to color, in 1967, with live studio color capacity coming in '68 (its first color studio cameras were General Electric PE-350's; their film chains may've been RCA TK-27's). By then, the station had moved away from its early "owl" logo and had their "13" in what looked like extended sans-serif extra boldface type.

I think there should be another thread as to your memories of when the educational / public TV station in your market first got color (some sooner than others, and even the specific color equipment used).