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PBS Stations on Channel 2

G

Gregg

In a number of cities around the U.S. (Boston, Miami, Minneapolis) what would become PBS managed to get the best TV channel available, Channel 2. I also know that Penn State University got Channel 3, but that was in the middle of Pennsylvania, so maybe there wasn't much competition for that channel assignment.

Did it just happen that a university or other civic organization manage to get their application for a TV channel to the FCC first, before a commercial broadcaster got the idea?

And since we're on the topic, why did NYC, DC and LA get their "educational" stations so late? In NYC they had to buy a commercial station (Ch. 13) and in LA and DC, all the VHF channels were already assigned by the time they got UHF channels.



Gregg
[email protected]
 
Other markets where NET/PBS ended up on Channel 2:


*Nashville (later swapped with Channel 8)
*Dozier/Andalusia, AL
*Denton, TX/Dallas/Fort Worth (wasn't that a later sign on?)
*Little Rock, AR


You could also take this thread one step further and list the number of markets with two or three VHF's allocated to that market where educational stations took one of the VHF's:

*Birmingham
*Jacksonville
*Columbus/Tupelo, MS
*Savannah
*Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill
*Tallahassee
*Fort Smith, AR
*Topeka
*Monroe, LA
*Columbia, MO

This might beg the question: did Birmingham, Jacksonville and the Triad get cheated when allocations were handed out in the '40's and '50's? The proximity of each of those markets to other markets (Montgomery, Gainesville, Charlotte) probably had a lot to do with it.

Any others?
 
KACV in Amarillo is on Ch. 2.

Your Nashville reference, I assume, is supposed be Ch. 8, right?

The DFW market ended up with 2 PBS channels for a time but I don't know if the Ch. 2 allocation was specifically for edu-tv there or not. They are, unfortunately, back to just Ch. 13 there now for PBS.
 
In Atlanta, WGTV Channel 8 (flagship of statewide GPB network) was originally a commercial allotment...as the first home of WSB-TV. When WSB-TV moved to Channel 2 in 1952, WLTV (now WXIA) took over, and they moved to Channel 11 shortly therafter.

After WROM-TV 9 Rome moved to Chattanooga (as WTVC), the Channel 8 allotment was made to Athens (70 miles east of Atlanta) and reserved as NCE.

If WSB-TV had remained on Channel 8, and WLTV went to 11 (regardless of it were on 2 or not), it is possible Atlanta would have had an NCE Channel 2.
 
In Sneedville, TN, about half-way between Knoxville and the Tri-Cities, is WETP 2 (formerly WSJK), which has been a PBS since its sign on in the late 60s. The station originally served Knoxville and the Tri-Cities until Knoxville got it's own PBS station (WETP's simulcast partner, WKOP) in 1990. Now, WETP serves mainly the Tri-Cities.
 
Gregg said:
In a number of cities around the U.S. (Boston, Miami, Minneapolis) what would become PBS managed to get the best TV channel available, Channel 2. I also know that Penn State University got Channel 3, but that was in the middle of Pennsylvania, so maybe there wasn't much competition for that channel assignment.

Did it just happen that a university or other civic organization manage to get their application for a TV channel to the FCC first, before a commercial broadcaster got the idea?
Click to expand...

Channel 2 non-commercial allotments in the original 1952 table:
Little Rock
Miami
New Orleans (channel ended up in Baton Rouge and commercial - rare!)
Boston
Minneapolis/St. Paul
Grand Forks, N.Dak.
Vermillion, S. Dak.
Nashville (later swapped with channel 8)
Amarillo
Denton, Tex. (this is the one that was the 2nd PBS for Dallas/Fort Worth. It's now operated by a religious group but still as a non-commercial outlet)

The table shows dramatic differences in the concentration of non-commercial reservations between states. Kentucky and Montana had similar numbers of channel allotments, but there was only one non-commercial reservation in Kentucky. Montana had six. (ironically, none of them used until the 1990s) In Wisconsin and Washington State, 21% of allotments were reserved; in Tennessee and Pennsylvania the figure was closer to 7%.

I'm guessing educational interests in Wis. and Wash. lobbied harder for allotments. It was a political issue at the time.

And since we're on the topic, why did NYC, DC and LA get their "educational" stations so late? In NYC they had to buy a commercial station (Ch. 13) and in LA and DC, all the VHF channels were already assigned by the time they got UHF channels.
Click to expand...

No VHF channel was reserved in any of these cities in the original table. UHF channels *were* available. (and rumor has it the allotment in LA, channel 28, was used almost immediately by a station at USC, but it went bust)

All current VHF stations in these cities were already on the air by the time the 1952 table was created. I would presume the FCC felt they couldn't force a New York VHF station to move to UHF to accomodate a non-commercial reservation.
 
In Raleigh/Durham, Channel 4 was almost a commercial
station. Around 1954 Jefferson Standard (later Jefferson-
Pilot, now Lincoln Financial), owners of WBTV in Charlotte,
expressed an interest in the Channel 4 license, but the
University of North Carolina also wanted it, the FCC favored
UNC, and Jefferson president Charles Crutchfield also thought
the idea of what was then called educational television a good
one, and gladly withdrew his application. WUNC has been on
the air since January 8, 1955 (five days before I was born, BTW).

As for the question of whether the Triangle (Greensboro/Winston-
Salem/High Point is the Triad) got shortchanged, not really. Look
where the other channels other than 5 and 11 are:

Channel 2: WFMY Greensboro
Channel 3: WWAY Wilmington, WTKR Norfolk, even WBTV overlaps
the southern end of the market
Channel 6: WECT Wilmington, WTVR Richmond
Channel 7: WITN Greenville/New Bern Washington, WDBJ Roanoke
Channel 8: WGHP High Point, WRIC Richmond, WFXI (drop-in)
Morehead City, NC
Channel 9: WNCT Greenville/New Bern/Washington, WSOC Charlotte
Channel 10: WAVY Norfolk, WSLS Roanoke
Channel 12: WXII Winston-Salem, WCTI Greenville/New Bern/
Washington, WWBT Richmond
Channel 13: WBTW Florence, SC, WVEC Norfolk, WSET Lynchburg, VA

Greenville/New Bern/Washington has a PBS station on 2 (WUND), which
covers the northeastern part of the market and part of Norfolk as well.

As for Birmingham, again look at the neighboring markets, and remember
that WBRC/6 started on 4:

Channel 2: WSB Atlanta, WDIQ Andalusia, WKRN Nashville
Channel 3: WRBL Columbus, GA, WRCB Chattanooga
Channel 4: WCBI Columbus/Tupelo, MS, WSMV Nashville
(WCBI was a result of WBRC's being moved to 6)
Channel 5: WAGA Atlanta, WTVF Nashville
Channel 7: WCIQ Mt. Cheaha State Park
Channel 8: WGTV Athens/Atlanta, WAKA Montgomery,
WNPT Nashville
Channel 9: WTVA Columbus/Tupelo, WTVM Columbus, GA,
WTVC Chattanooga
Channel 11: WXIA Atlanta, WTOK Meridian, MS
Channel 12: WSFA Montgomery, WDEF Chattanooga

So while it seems unfair for these two markets to have three
VHFs and one of them noncommercial, I don't think the FCC
allocated the channels unfairly.
 
You have to remember the original allocations were done in the early 50s and the FCC was only sure that NBC and CBS would be there. In fact, it's thought that had not Paramount Theatres and ABC merged, ABC wouldn't have made it.

The educational was for education the FCC wasn't thinking of a national service like PBS at the time.

I still say it's funny that LA didn't have ONE VHF educational station, nor did Washington DC.

In the case of WGBH Channel 2, it was a commercial allocation that failed to make a go of it and get on the air so it allowed the FCC to reassign it. I would say a lot of other educational stations have similar stories.
 
In the case of WGBH Channel 2, it was a commercial allocation that failed to make a go of it and get on the air so it allowed the FCC to reassign it. I would say a lot of other educational stations have similar stories.
Click to expand...

Buffalo had a similar story. NBC had operated experimental UHF station WBUF on Channel 17 in the 1950s, but it failed and they donated the license to an educational broadcasting council that started WNED-TV. Channel 17 remained a commercial allocation until 2001, when secondary PBS outlet WNEQ/23 (a non-commercial allocation) was sold and became commercial station WNLO (now a CW affiliate), and WNED finally was on a non-commercial allocation.
 
jal41 said:
In Atlanta, WGTV Channel 8 (flagship of statewide GPB network) was originally a commercial allotment...as the first home of WSB-TV. When WSB-TV moved to Channel 2 in 1952, WLTV (now WXIA) took over, and they moved to Channel 11 shortly therafter.

After WROM-TV 9 Rome moved to Chattanooga (as WTVC), the Channel 8 allotment was made to Athens (70 miles east of Atlanta) and reserved as NCE.

If WSB-TV had remained on Channel 8, and WLTV went to 11 (regardless of it were on 2 or not), it is possible Atlanta would have had an NCE Channel 2.
Click to expand...

What happened was this: in the '40s the Atlanta Journal and the Atlanta
Constitution were owned by different companies; the Journal, owners of
WSB radio (NBC), applied for Channel 8, while the Constitution, owners of
WCON radio (ABC), applied for Channel 2. Channel 8 got on the air first,
and before Channel 2 could sign on, the Cox family, owners of the Journal,
bought the Constitution. Under then-existing crossownership rules, the
Coxes could not own both WSB and WCON, so they got the FCC to move
WSB to Channel 2, then sold WCON (which became WLTV) to a company
called Broadcasting Inc. WLTV signed on on Channel 8 on September 30,
1951, three years and a day after WSB signed on.

Then Channel 9 opened up in Rome, too close to Atlanta, causing short-
spacing with Channel 8. Eventually, 9 moved to Chattanooga (WTVC)
and 8 to Athens, with WLTV (by now WLW-A) moving to 11 around 1953.

Actually, had the original plan worked out, ABC would have been on Channel
2 from the very beginning, instead of from September 1, 1980, and the history
of Atlanta television would have been quite different. It's also possible (and
I emphasize "possible") that Athens would have gotten 11 or the UHF there,
Channel 34 (Univision now), might have been assigned to the University of
Georgia.
 
The story of Boston's Channel 2 (was Re: PBS Stations on Channel 2)

M.J. said:
In the case of WGBH Channel 2, it was a commercial allocation that failed to make a go of it and get on the air so it allowed the FCC to reassign it. I would say a lot of other educational stations have similar stories.
Click to expand...

Buffalo had a similar story. NBC had operated experimental UHF station WBUF on Channel 17 in the 1950s, but it failed and they donated the license to an educational broadcasting council that started WNED-TV. Channel 17 remained a commercial allocation until 2001, when secondary PBS outlet WNEQ/23 (a non-commercial allocation) was sold and became commercial station WNLO (now a CW affiliate), and WNED finally was on a non-commercial allocation.
Click to expand...

Please let me add to this. Originally, Boston's Channel 2 was to be commercial as WRTB-TV in Waltham, MA, owned by Raytheon. It was to be a full-time CBS affiliate. At the time, Boston had WBZ-TV/Channel 4 as a combo NBC/CBS affiliate and WNAC-TV/Channel 7 (now WHDH) as a combo CBS, ABC and DuMont affiliate. There was plenty of opportunities for another commercial station to come on board to be come a full-time network affiliate whether it be CBS, ABC and Dumont. In fact, CBS wanted to possibly buy WRTB as many of CBS's O&O's are on Channel 2. WRTB, Channel 2 would have fit nicely to the CBS portfolio. Alas, nothing ever came of it. Running a TV station was not one of Raytheon's big plans. So, the Construction Permit was given as a gift to WGBH, who was already running a modestly successful non-commercial FM station on 89.7 since 1951. At the time, the FCC was trying to put "Educational" broadcasting on the map. And while a good amount of these Educational stations were on the air, most were on UHF. With no mandate for all-channel legislation in sight, UHF stations, never mind being Educational, were considered "second class citizens". Putting a non-comm on Boston's Channel 2 was a big boost for Educational TV in one of the nation's largest TV markets. What used to be called Educational stations are now called "Public" stations and are giving the commercial stations a run for their money. (Of course, these "public" stations are running so-called "enhanced underwriting" announcements. But we all know that they are really running ads.)
 
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