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Why does Boston have so many PBS stations
- Thread starter Skynet74
- Start date
PBS isn't a network. It's a program provider, and most of its programs are not market-exclusive.
As PBS evolved out of the old National Educational Television (NET), it inherited a patchwork of member stations. Some were statewide educational networks like New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maine and Vermont. Some were individual local outlets operated by colleges and universities. Some were individual local outlets operated by community nonprofits like WGBH. Because PBS's mission was to spread its programming as widely as possible, it was happy to link up with as many stations as it could - especially because in those early years, there was no network schedule per se, with most shows being distributed on tape/film from station to station by bus or mail. It was only in the eighties that PBS began moving toward a national prime-time schedule, and it was at that point that we ended up with one primary PBS station per market.
There were once many markets with "duopoly" PBS signals like WGBH/WGBX. Albany, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Dallas all had two stations operated by a common owner. Often, as with WGBH/WGBX, one station showed the main PBS programming while the other was used for classroom programming, reruns, or even the kind of specialty stuff (statehouse coverage, for instance) that wouldn't have made sense on the main channel. Most of those duopolies went away in the 80s and 90s, especially as the advent of DTV multicasting gave every station the opportunity to run multiple program streams. Today only Boston, Milwaukee and Minneapolis remain from that list, and all 3 are using their dual signals in much the same way - HD with full bandwidth on one channel, multiple SD streams on the other.
In many other markets, multiple separately-owned PBS stations evolved for various reasons. Sometimes there was a college or school district station that grew up parallel to a community-owned station (WLRN/WPBT Miami, WUSF/WEDU Tampa). Sometimes there was both a statewide network and a separate local station (WGTV/WPBA Atlanta), or two overlapping statewide networks (Nebraska and Iowa, both viewable in Omaha/Council Bluffs). Sometimes there were just multiple community groups - KQED San Francisco/KTEH San Jose, or WNET New York/WLIW Long Island. And in some cases, you had all of the above; the Los Angeles market ended up with a community station (KCET), a school district station (KLCS) and two university-owned stations (KOCE and KVCR).
Over the years, some of those competitive situations have shaken out: stations have merged operations (WNET/WLIW, KQED/KTEH), or some of the "second" stations have left the PBS orbit to do other noncommercial programming. WNYE New York ended up under city ownership with a combination of ethnic and community programming; WYBE Philadelphia does community TV aimed at minority communities; KMTP San Francisco shows a lot of international programs. Or the "second" station ends up with a lineup of PBS (and other) shows that's different from the main station in the market. In a way, RIPBS/WSBE has taken that role, since most of its market already gets WGBH or CPTV for the main PBS network schedule.
The point is, there's no way to generalize: all of these situations have developed in response to local circumstances, which is exactly what the system was meant to do.
As PBS evolved out of the old National Educational Television (NET), it inherited a patchwork of member stations. Some were statewide educational networks like New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maine and Vermont. Some were individual local outlets operated by colleges and universities. Some were individual local outlets operated by community nonprofits like WGBH. Because PBS's mission was to spread its programming as widely as possible, it was happy to link up with as many stations as it could - especially because in those early years, there was no network schedule per se, with most shows being distributed on tape/film from station to station by bus or mail. It was only in the eighties that PBS began moving toward a national prime-time schedule, and it was at that point that we ended up with one primary PBS station per market.
There were once many markets with "duopoly" PBS signals like WGBH/WGBX. Albany, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Milwaukee and Dallas all had two stations operated by a common owner. Often, as with WGBH/WGBX, one station showed the main PBS programming while the other was used for classroom programming, reruns, or even the kind of specialty stuff (statehouse coverage, for instance) that wouldn't have made sense on the main channel. Most of those duopolies went away in the 80s and 90s, especially as the advent of DTV multicasting gave every station the opportunity to run multiple program streams. Today only Boston, Milwaukee and Minneapolis remain from that list, and all 3 are using their dual signals in much the same way - HD with full bandwidth on one channel, multiple SD streams on the other.
In many other markets, multiple separately-owned PBS stations evolved for various reasons. Sometimes there was a college or school district station that grew up parallel to a community-owned station (WLRN/WPBT Miami, WUSF/WEDU Tampa). Sometimes there was both a statewide network and a separate local station (WGTV/WPBA Atlanta), or two overlapping statewide networks (Nebraska and Iowa, both viewable in Omaha/Council Bluffs). Sometimes there were just multiple community groups - KQED San Francisco/KTEH San Jose, or WNET New York/WLIW Long Island. And in some cases, you had all of the above; the Los Angeles market ended up with a community station (KCET), a school district station (KLCS) and two university-owned stations (KOCE and KVCR).
Over the years, some of those competitive situations have shaken out: stations have merged operations (WNET/WLIW, KQED/KTEH), or some of the "second" stations have left the PBS orbit to do other noncommercial programming. WNYE New York ended up under city ownership with a combination of ethnic and community programming; WYBE Philadelphia does community TV aimed at minority communities; KMTP San Francisco shows a lot of international programs. Or the "second" station ends up with a lineup of PBS (and other) shows that's different from the main station in the market. In a way, RIPBS/WSBE has taken that role, since most of its market already gets WGBH or CPTV for the main PBS network schedule.
The point is, there's no way to generalize: all of these situations have developed in response to local circumstances, which is exactly what the system was meant to do.
In Chicago the two PBS stations are vastly different. WYCC is owned by the Community Colleges of Chicago (YCC = Your Community College) and airs mostly educational shows. There is very little PBS children's shows, except for a few on the weekend.
The 3rd PBS station WYIN is more like WTTW the main PBS station but WYIN is way out in the far south suburbs of Chicago. The signal doesn't even reach into the downtown Chicago air, over the air, though cable carries WYIN in a lot of places.
The 3rd PBS station WYIN is more like WTTW the main PBS station but WYIN is way out in the far south suburbs of Chicago. The signal doesn't even reach into the downtown Chicago air, over the air, though cable carries WYIN in a lot of places.
Scott did an excellent job of explaining the "why" of it; I'll just add that it's not at all unusual for a larger market to have 2 or more PBS-affiliated stations. Take Chicago, we have WTTW-11 (the big boy); WYCC-20 ('Wise-TV', the secondary); and, WYIN-56 (PBS serving NW Indiana, but Chicago market carriage). When you get far enough north of the city, WYIN isn't offered on cable anymore, but WMYS from Milwaukee takes its place. So, we pretty much all have 3 PBS signals on cable.
In Philly, WYBE was classified as PBS until just a couple of years ago - when they quit taking on programming from them. However, you still have 3 PBS stations that serve much of the area: WHYY, WLVT (seen north and NW of Philly) and NJT (seen in all but parts of Chester County for some reason).
In Philly, WYBE was classified as PBS until just a couple of years ago - when they quit taking on programming from them. However, you still have 3 PBS stations that serve much of the area: WHYY, WLVT (seen north and NW of Philly) and NJT (seen in all but parts of Chester County for some reason).
I live in the Los Angeles area...we have four PBS stations in our market: KCET (primary), KLCS, KOCE (both secondary), and KVCR (quasi-primary; it runs nearly the same national PBS schedule as KCET). KCET and KLCS are based in Los Angeles proper; KOCE is in Orange County (30 miles south), and KVCR is in San Bernardino (60 miles east)...all four are available market-wide via satellite and cable (except KVCR, which is only receivable in the eastern half of the market on cable and OTA).
The Indianapolis market has three PBS stations: WFYI, WTIU Bloomington, and WIPB in Muncie.
You have some areas or the country, very few, that have no PBS station of their own, often relying on a station from a nearby market via cable and/or translators, or a national feed for satellite viewers.
The Indianapolis market has three PBS stations: WFYI, WTIU Bloomington, and WIPB in Muncie.
You have some areas or the country, very few, that have no PBS station of their own, often relying on a station from a nearby market via cable and/or translators, or a national feed for satellite viewers.
Southern Maine and New Hampshire have 3 PBS stations also. Southern Maine cable companies Metrocast and Comcast have local WCBB, WENH from NH and WGBH from Boston. NH cable companies Comcast and probably others have local WENH, WMEA from Biddeford (Same as WCBB Augusta.) and WGBH from Boston.
Skynet74 said:
Minneapolis: KTCA and KTCI. Usually, its a primary and secondary, with the secondary being LP.
Example, KTCA TV 2 was full power, but good luck getting KTCI in the greater Twin Cities area.
WGBX 44 always gave me fits. Of course, with Digital TV, I don't think LP means anything anymore.
WGBY Springfield was actually run out of WGBH at first, so it was a 3 station thing, but they spun off.
Fios has 2,11 (but SD only) 44,and 36!
Garrett said:
KTCI and WGBX were both full-power analog stations...maybe not a full 5 megawatts, but hardly "LP," either. Indeed, they long preceded the advent of LPTV. (So did the other duopoly PBS signals - WXXW 20 Chicago, KQEC 32 San Francisco, WMHQ/WMHX 45 Schenectady, WNEQ 23 Buffalo, WQEX 16 Pittsburgh and so on.)
N
necrat123
Guest
Add Burlington/Plattsburg to the list, where technically there are two PBS' in the one TV market but one serves Vermont (VPT) and the other the Adirondack region (WCFE).
And to add to Skynet's comments about how you never see more than one Network affiliate in a market, you certanly do, and right here in New England. Boston DMA has 2 ABC stations, but one doesn't technically serve Boston, it serves Manchester, NH.
It's still an "in market" ABC affil.
And to add to Skynet's comments about how you never see more than one Network affiliate in a market, you certanly do, and right here in New England. Boston DMA has 2 ABC stations, but one doesn't technically serve Boston, it serves Manchester, NH.
It's still an "in market" ABC affil.
Bill_W said:
Yes they are, though they weren't until about 7 or 8 years ago. However, WMUR is still operated independently of WCVB and has loads of local news and public affairs programming geared toward the NH audience. They've been VERY successful in superserving New Hampshire and (to their credit) Hearst-Argyle has actually invested even more heavily in such programming than previous owner Imes did.
DToTheJ said:
A few more (not counting full satellites - like the Wichita Kansas+ market):
- WHAG/NBC/Hagerstown, MD is secondary NBC for the Washington DC market - focusing news on the Northwest part of the market
- WWSB/ABC/Sarasota, FL is secondary ABC for the Tampa market - focused on the southern half of the market
- KREG/CBS/Glenwood Springs, CO is a satellite of KREX in Grand Junction, but is located in the Denver market
- WSWG/CBS/Valdosta, GA in the Tallahassee market - focused on the southern Georgia part of the market
- KBTX/CBS/Bryan, TX - second CBS in the Waco market
- KLEW/CBS/Lewistown, ID - second CBS in the Spokane market (affiliated with KIMA/KEPR in the Yakima/Tri-Cities market)
- WOTV/ABC/Battle Creek, MI - second ABC for the southern half of the Grand Rapids market
Then there's the Yakima/Tri-Cities market:
2 NBCs (KNDO/KNDU), 2 ABCs (KVEW/KAPP) & 2 CBSs (KIMA/KEPR) - they share schedules but have their own local newscasts.
Can't forget a "defunct" duplicate network affiliate:
- WAKC/ABC/Akron, OH - Cleveland Market
Jim
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