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KBYU-TV, Channel 11, an unusual PBS station.

I was visiting Park City, Utah last week (for a wedding) and was scanning the cable, late at night and saw "Perry Mason" on KBYU/11. On top of it, I stuck around and watched "I Love Lucy" and "My Three Sons". It is very unusual to see such a lineup of shows on a non-commercial PBS TV station. In addition, they are planning to add "Hogan's Heroes" to the lineup as well, late nights. It was great to see these shows again. If only some other PBS affiliates would do things like KBYU does. They actually run "The Brady Bunch" during late afternoons. More power to you, KBYU!
 
KBYU is owned by Brigham Young University, which in turn is owned by the Mormon Church (which through another subsitiary owns KSL-TV).

There is another PBS station that is the primary station that is owned a public university. KBYU is a secondary...although a weird one. I know that UNC-TV (state owned public broadcaster for North Carolina) airs The Andy Griffith Show on one of their digital subchannels, but (outside of movies and Britcoms) I am unaware of any other PBS station that airs classic off-network sitcoms. If it resulted in a dramatic increase in donations...I am sure other PBS stations would air classic TV programs in a heartbeat.

As long as they don't violate their NCE license by airing commericals...they are OK legally.
 
Utah has long had 2 PBS stations: KUED-7 from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and KBYU-11 from BYU in Provo. Both are distributed throughout the region on an impressive network of translators and repeaters and have been for decades.

KUED has basically been the "secular" station; the one that's like a typical PBS affiliate. KBYU is the one that tailors programming to the large LDS community in the state. They air PBS children's and educational programming, but also LDS church speeches, discussions and programming.

Now that the BYU channel (also owned by the LDS Church) is available to cable and dish subscribers, some of the LDS programming has migrated to that channel. This allows time for KBYU to air some other "wholesome" older shows that are not carried elsewhere in the market. As the truly devout LDS church members eschew newer shows and look upon older ones as being more virtuous, they feel that they are serving that segment of the public by scheduling such programs. Personally, I like them too and did watch a few episodes myself (as well as Britcoms on KUED).

Technically, I suppose you could call KUED the "primary" PBS affiliate and KBYU the "secondary" affiliate. However, culturally - in that market - no one would think of them in those terms.
 
BRNout said:
Utah has long had 2 PBS stations: KUED-7 from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and KBYU-11 from BYU in Provo. Both are distributed throughout the region on an impressive network of translators and repeaters and have been for decades.

Don't forget KULC channel 9. ("Utah's Learning Channel", IIRC co-owned with KUED-7)
 
Peter Q. George (K1XRB) said:
I was visiting Park City, Utah last week (for a wedding) and was scanning the cable, late at night and saw "Perry Mason" on KBYU/11. On top of it, I stuck around and watched "I Love Lucy" and "My Three Sons". It is very unusual to see such a lineup of shows on a non-commercial PBS TV station...

WVIA in Scranton is another PBS station that used to run syndicated fare, such as "All in the Family" and "The Waltons" as well as "Lucy"... In fact, here's an older post from this board (which Mr. George replied to, incidentally):
http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=111408.msg895424#msg895424
 
WILLCAIL? I know about the virtual channel thingy and digital. Before the digital transition however, it sure seemed that there were three PBS or public stations in that market: Channels 7, 9 and 11. I've never seen any market with more than two PBS stations on VHF. A nearby example for me would be channel 2 of Boston (WGBH) and channel 11 of Durham, NH (WENH). Both are a portion of the Boston/Worcester/Manchester DMA.
 
willcail said:
Don't get confused by the virtual station number vs the actual VHF/UHF number.

7/9/11 are the virtual channels. (and the pre-transition analog RF channels) Their RF channels are 42, 36, and 44 respectively, but no viewer knows or cares about that.

azumanga: sorry 'bout that. I knew about the call change but had a memory lapse.......
 
DToTheJ said:
WVIA in Scranton is another PBS station that used to run syndicated fare, such as "All in the Family" and "The Waltons" as well as "Lucy"... In fact, here's an older post from this board (which Mr. George replied to, incidentally):
http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=111408.msg895424#msg895424

CT Public Television used to air Burns & Allen years back. Now the only thing that remotely resembles a sitcom on that station are those god awful British imports. And even those are getting pre-empted more and more for pledge programming.
 
KML-224 said:
How does one market have 3 PBS stations...all on VHF?

KUEN (former KULC) is not a PBS affiliate and hasn't been classified as such for at least a decade. Even when they were in the TV Guide as a PBS station (back when that meant something) they hardly aired anything from the network. It's purely 'educational' and programs course material more than anything else. Not much in the way of "Discovery Channel" type documentaries and no PBS shows.

So Utah only has 2 PBS affiliates.

Why were they all on VHF? Because, with few adjacent market signals to worry about, there was plenty of space in the spectrum for the FCC to allot channels that way. Utah's first independent station was originally on channel 20 for some reason, but moved to channel 13 in the late 1980s. It subsequently became their Fox affiliate.
 
The virtual stations numbers are pointless. The stations can change them. WOSU DT used to air Ozzie and Harriet during the old analog days.
 
Well, since Nick At Nite and TVLand have gone to hell, I think this would actually be GOOD for public TV.

On the other hand, some people will get upset over having to watch Happy Days instead of Masterpiece Theatre.

But if public stations can find ANY way to reach more mainstream (albeit older) audiences, it can only be to their benefit.
 
PBS stations seem to be at the forefront when it comes to the maximum utilization of their digital subchannels. They put the major network O & Os to shame. Given this, they could program older shows on a sub and the cultural programs on the main channel. Or vice versa. They have lots of options in that regard.

The same type of thing is starting to happen with non-commercial radio in that some formats (oldies, smooth jazz, etc.) that were trashed by commercial groups are being picked up by non-comms.
 
Bongwater said:
...some people will get upset over having to watch Happy Days instead of Masterpiece Theatre.

But if public stations can find ANY way to reach more mainstream (albeit older) audiences, it can only be to their benefit.

Maybe RTV can put together a special, commercial-free feed for PBS stations -- provided that they can get their act together.

BRNout said:
The same type of thing is starting to happen with non-commercial radio in that some formats (oldies, smooth jazz, etc.) that were trashed by commercial groups are being picked up by non-comms.

Case in point -- WGVU AM in Grand Rapids, MI, which flipped to oldies last month.
 
the former WQEX in Pittsburgh would run The Honeymooners and The White Shadow among other shows
 
BRNout said:
PBS stations seem to be at the forefront when it comes to the maximum utilization of their digital subchannels. They put the major network O & Os to shame.
They even put full-power FOX, CW & MyNetwork affiliates to shame as well.
Given this, they could program older shows on a sub and the cultural programs on the main channel. Or vice versa. They have lots of options in that regard.
So could full-power FOX, CW &MyNetwork affiliates too. In fact, they could also carry normal programming on the .1 main channel while broadcasting things like High School & small community college athletics & MNF on the .2 subchannel if they really wan......err.....bothered to get off their lazy arse.....to do so.
The same type of thing is starting to happen with non-commercial radio in that some formats (oldies, smooth jazz, etc.) that were trashed by commercial groups are being picked up by non-comms.
Yeah, but it's really quite hard to swallow the idea of a non-comm AC outlet though. That's just one format which I don't think will ever fly on non-comm stations.

That said, the two formats which spun off into AC, Beautiful Music & Adult Standards, would do quite nicely on non-comms (Yo Ivan! Yoo-Hoo! Are you still alive??)

Add in some OTR & you have the proverbial cherry on the sundae IMO.

But alas, OTR has somehow been relegated to a few scant Part 15 stations :( (I just might be willing to get me a cheap Part 15 TXer just to broadcast my OTR collection to the neighborhood).

Just my $.02 worth.....

Cheers :)
 
If there was money in doing the types of subchannels people here request, I'm sure the stations would be airing them.

- Trip
 
For a time in the 1980's WNEO/WEAO PBS 45-49 Alliance/Akron, Ohio (Now known as Western Reserve PBS) Ran Burns And Allen weekdays at 5:30 PM..and followed that up with Burns' Later ABC Series, Wendy and Me from 1964-65..Plus for years they ran Grand Ole Opry Color films from the 1950's Thursdsys at 9PM.
 
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