WNYE-TV 25 Celebrates 100 Years of Municipal Broadcasting?

[Gregg.]

This is the 100th year of municipal broadcasting in NYC. WNYC, now on AM 820, signed on the air on July 8, 1924. Meanwhile, WNYE-TV 25 is using the slogan "Celebrating 100 Years of Municipal Broadcasting" during its station IDs.

But WNYE-TV really has little to do with this milestone. WNYE-TV and FM were for decades owned by the New York City Board of Education, hence the call letters, with the E standing for Education. Meanwhile, WNYC-AM-FM-TV were owned by the City of New York. I guess ultimately you could say they were co-owned. But WNYE-TV-FM were in the Board of Education HQ in Brooklyn while WNYC-AM-FM-TV were near City Hall in Lower Manhattan. Their staffs were also separate.

WNYE-FM does have a historical distinction of its own. It is New York's oldest FM station, if we count Apex stations as part of the FM dial. The Apex band (25 - 42 MHz) was just below the old FM band (42 - 50 MHz) and the current FM band (88 - 108 MHz). WNYE-FM went on the air in November 1938. WNYE's transmissions were only intended to be heard in classrooms, equipped with an Apex receiver. But WNYE won't have its century-mark celebration until 2038, 14 years from now.

 

[K.M. Richards]

I agree. They're fudging a semantic point here ... both were technically owned by the City of New York, but "educational" ≠"municipal".

Although, as my research for the article on WNYC-TV revealed, they were almost on channel 25 -- on the City's original application -- and that was only amended to channel 31 after the now-famous Sixth Report and Order (which established UHF) specified that only educational institutions coild apply for the reserved channels.

History of UHF Television

uhfhistory.com

Channel 25 didn't get on the air until six years after channel 31, in the WUHF experiment of 1961-62. So WNYE-TV will have to wait until 2067 for its 100th anniversary!!

 

[djl]

Before age 12 I lived in Queens. Our elementary school had a DuKane radio system as part of their PA and they had it tuned to WNYE and could send it to all classrooms or just selected ones

 

[TheBigA]

The part of this story not yet mentioned in this thread is that the city sold WNYC-AM/FM/TV under Rudy Guiliani about 25 years ago. So the only broadcasting still owned by the city in any way is WNYE. I think the only reason they still own it is they lease it out from time to time. Not like the days of Fiorello LaGuardia reading the Sunday comics on the radio, as he once did during a newspaper strike.

 

[TheBigA]

Before age 12 I lived in Queens. Our elementary school had a DuKane radio system as part of their PA and they had it tuned to WNYE and could send it to all classrooms or just selected ones

This was common in a lot of big cities. Atlanta, Cleveland, Newark were among the other cities I know that had radio stations owned by the Board of Ed. The idea was to teach classes on the radio for students who were unable to get to school. They would also broadcast the student plays and band recitals. I've seen pictures of a student chorus in front of some microphones, intended to capture their singing for the radio.

 

[PTBoardOp93]

I don't have any problem with the claims. The City of New York has been a broadcast licensee for 100 years, even though they shuffled frequencies in the intervening period.

It's an interesting bit of trivia. I wasn't aware that WNYC AM went back to the dawn of broadcasting.

 

[Rollo-Smokes]

This is the 100th year of municipal broadcasting in NYC. WNYC, now on AM 820, signed on the air on July 8, 1924. Meanwhile, WNYE-TV 25 is using the slogan "Celebrating 100 Years of Municipal Broadcasting" during its station IDs.

But WNYE-TV really has little to do with this milestone. WNYE-TV and FM were for decades owned by the New York City Board of Education, hence the call letters, with the E standing for Education. Meanwhile, WNYC-AM-FM-TV were owned by the City of New York. I guess ultimately you could say they were co-owned. But WNYE-TV-FM were in the Board of Education HQ in Brooklyn while WNYC-AM-FM-TV were near City Hall in Lower Manhattan. Their staffs were also separate.

WNYE-FM does have a historical distinction of its own. It is New York's oldest FM station, if we count Apex stations as part of the FM dial. The Apex band (25 - 42 MHz) was just below the old FM band (42 - 50 MHz) and the current FM band (88 - 108 MHz). WNYE-FM went on the air in November 1938. WNYE's transmissions were only intended to be heard in classrooms, equipped with an Apex receiver. But WNYE won't have its century-mark celebration until 2038, 14 years from now.

The WNYE stations were never housed at the old Board of Education headquarters, at 110 Livingston Street in downtown Brooklyn. But they were located close by, albeit separately.

WNYE Radio was based at Brooklyn Technical High School. WNYE-TV's original studio was adjacent to New York City Technical College on Tillary Street, off Jay Street.

When the licenses were transferred from the now-Department of Education (renamed by the Bloomberg administration) to what is now the NYC Office of Technology and Innovation, the stations' operations were consolidated at the CUNY Graduate Center in midtown Manhattan. The administrative offices, however, are in the former WNYC space at One Centre Street.

And while the centennial of municipally-owned broadcast media in NYC is more about WNYC, WNYE has always been an arm of City government from its radio origins. So it is appropriate for Channel 25 to mark this milestone as WNYE-TV has carried the flag since 1997.

Just a note: NYC Media marked WNYE-TV's 55th anniversary with a couple of spots that aired in 2022. So at least they're paying attention over there.

 

[Weiserguy]

Sorry guys, but you're all wrong (except @djl, who wrote about something else). The NYC Board of Education was a completely independent governmental entity, chartered by the State of New York, until Mike Bloomberg pulled a bunch of strings to get the state legislature to dissolve it and integrate the schools into a new NYC Dept. of Education, reporting to the mayor's office. That's how NYC got its hands on WNYE. Until then the legal licensee was the NYC Board of Ed, while, as @BigA mentioned, Rudy sold off the city's broadcast properties during his administration in the 1990's to plug another year's budget deficit. (Another great move, huh Rudy? Putz.)

(When your dad's a NYC high school teacher, you do learn a few tidbits by osmosis, even from 3000 miles away. )

 

[Weiserguy]

WNYE Radio was based at Brooklyn Technical High School. WNYE-TV's original studio was adjacent to New York City Technical College on Tillary Street, off Jay Street.

The transmitter and tower/antenna was on the dome of Brooklyn Tech. But I went to college literally right next door to what had been called NYC Community College (and was renamed NYC Technical College sometime thereafter), and I was unaware that the WNYE studio was there. You sure about that?

 

[Rollo-Smokes]

Sorry guys, but you're all wrong (except @djl, who wrote about something else). The NYC Board of Education was a completely independent governmental entity, chartered by the State of New York, until Mike Bloomberg pulled a bunch of strings to get the state legislature to dissolve it and integrate the schools into a new NYC Dept. of Education, reporting to the mayor's office. That's how NYC got its hands on WNYE. Until then the legal licensee was the NYC Board of Ed, while, as @BigA mentioned, Rudy sold off the city's broadcast properties during his administration in the 1990's to plug another year's budget deficit. (Another great move, huh Rudy? Putz.)

(When your dad's a NYC high school teacher, you do learn a few tidbits by osmosis, even from 3000 miles away. )

But, who controls the Board? The Mayor of New York City. That person appoints the Schools Chancellor. Public school employees are municipal civil servants. Those things never changed even after Bloomberg converted the BoE into the DoE and gained more control from Albany.

 

[Rollo-Smokes]

The transmitter and tower/antenna was on the dome of Brooklyn Tech. But I went to college literally right next door to what had been called NYC Community College (and was renamed NYC Technical College sometime thereafter), and I was unaware that the WNYE studio was there. You sure about that?

Check out these two pages from WNYE-TV's television manual for the '67-'68 school year, which can be found at David Eduardo (Gleason)'s World Radio History site...And here's the entrance to the Channel 25 studios, attached to Kiltgord Hall at City Tech. George Westinghouse High School is on the left. (from Wikipedia)...

 

[Weiserguy]

I recognize Westinghouse High in the background, probably walked by it 500 times. (Usually from the front side though.) But I don't recognize the TV Production Center sign. That would have caught my attention, which makes me wonder when they moved into that space. Do you happen to know, or an educated guess? It's literally spitting distance from my own alma mater.

(Actually, the manual pages you excerpted are from the 1967-68 term, which was a couple of years before I started college. But the cars in the photo are earlier in the current century (the sedan's vintage might be late 90's), so maybe the facade of their building entrance got redone after I'd graduated in the early 70's.)

 

[Rollo-Smokes]

I recognize Westinghouse High in the background, probably walked by it 500 times. (Usually from the front side though.) But I don't recognize the TV Production Center sign. That would have caught my attention, which makes me wonder when they moved into that space. Do you happen to know, or an educated guess? It's literally spitting distance from my own alma mater.

The space.prpbably pre-dated WNYE-TV, which signed-on in April 1967. The Board of Education was producing programs which aired on other NYC stations, including Channel 13,

(Actually, the manual pages you excerpted are from the 1967-68 term, which was a couple of years before I started college....)

I literally mentioned that.

 

[Rollo-Smokes]

I agree. They're fudging a semantic point here ... both were technically owned by the City of New York, but "educational" ≠"municipal".

Although, as my research for the article on WNYC-TV revealed, they were almost on channel 25 -- on the City's original application -- and that was only amended to channel 31 after the now-famous Sixth Report and Order (which established UHF) specified that only educational institutions coild apply for the reserved channels.

History of UHF Television

uhfhistory.com

Channel 25 didn't get on the air until six years after channel 31, in the WUHF experiment of 1961-62. So WNYE-TV will have to wait until 2067 for its 100th anniversary!!

A governing body called "The University of the State of New York"–not to be confused with the State University of New York (SUNY), an actual network of schools–was granted UHF permits in major cities across the state, with the original intention of creating a statewide network of educational stations. Those plans were abandoned a few years later and the permits were dispersed to local school boards and nonprofit community educational groups.

In the grand scheme, what WNYE-TV is today is what WNYC-TV should have evolved into had the Guiliani administration not gotten greedy. Channel 31 could have had the cool shows appealing to hipsters while functioning as the main megaphone for City government. Channel 25 would have morphed into more of a secondary PBS outlet, while still maintaining an educational focus.

 

[TheBigA]

In the grand scheme, what WNYE-TV is today is what WNYC-TV should have evolved into had the Guiliani administration not gotten greedy.

My view about the sales of WNYC-AM/FM/TV is not that they were about greed, but rather ideology. Guiliani and Chris Christie were of the same mind that government shouldn't own broadcasting. In the case of the WNYC radio stations, they were already being operated by the WNYC Foundation, with only some support staff (engineers) being city employees. They also occupied space in the city's Centre Street building. I think the sale of the radio stations was inevitable, and the process began before Rudy.

 

[Rollo-Smokes]

My view about the sales of WNYC-AM/FM/TV is not that they were about greed, but rather ideology. Guiliani and Chris Christie were of the same mind that government shouldn't own broadcasting. In the case of the WNYC radio stations, they were already being operated by the WNYC Foundation, with only some support staff (engineers) being city employees. They also occupied space in the city's Centre Street building. I think the sale of the radio stations was inevitable, and the process began before Rudy.

The WNYC Foundation was operating Channel 31 as well. All three outlets could have been kept together but Giuliani chose to auction off TV because, at the time, the TV license was more valuable. The City got $207 million for it. There's the greed.

On the surface, Chris Christie's decision to break up New Jersey Network was for the reason you stated. But he was also sensitive to criticism and didn't want a state-controlled media outlet potentially going after him. In retrospect, if NJN still existed when the "Bridgegate" scandal emerged a few years later, they would have had a field day covering it. It would have also been interesting to see how NJN handled Christie's run for President in 2016.

But instead, he completed the task of making New Jersey public media (especially television) subservient to New York City and Philadelphia. At least the state collects revenue from the NJPBA tower leases.

 

[Weiserguy]

I literally mentioned that.

Yup, you did. Sorry about that. The eyes went to the big numbers (on the period-piece manual cover) rather than your small text immediately above it.

 

[Kemosabe]

WNYE-TV produces some very informative series about New York that it reruns long after much of the content has become obsolete. Over the years, I've enjoyed programs like $9.99, Secrets of New York, Blueprint NYC, and Neighborhood Slice. Beyond their informational value, the foregoing shows are quite entertaining.

And here's the entrance to the Channel 25 studios, attached to Kiltgord Hall at City Tech. George Westinghouse High School is on the left. (from Wikipedia)...
View attachment 7466

The banal WNYE-TV building was replaced a few years ago by a larger, more unattractive box. What a disappointing neighbor to the C.B.J. Snyder school!

 

[fybush]

Whatever the motivations were, the sale of channel 31 for $207 million turned out to be a very smart move. Almost nobody in the city was watching it, just as is the case now for 25, and the sale was probably at the absolute peak of TV valuations. There was barely any city-produced programming on it at the time, just leased time to a variety of outside producers.

What exactly would have been "saved" if the city had kept it?

WNYC radio was a different animal - the programming there was both internally produced and unique on the dial, with a large and loyal audience.

Imagine an alternate timeline in which the city sold 93.9 and 820 to commercial operators. There would have been a much larger outcry than the shrug that greeted the demise of WNYC-TV.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Whatever the motivations were, the sale of channel 31 for $207 million turned out to be a very smart move. Almost nobody in the city was watching it, just as is the case now for 25, and the sale was probably at the absolute peak of TV valuations. There was barely any city-produced programming on it at the time, just leased time to a variety of outside producers.

What exactly would have been "saved" if the city had kept it?

WNYC radio was a different animal - the programming there was both internally produced and unique on the dial, with a large and loyal audience.

Imagine an alternate timeline in which the city sold 93.9 and 820 to commercial operators. There would have been a much larger outcry than the shrug that greeted the demise of WNYC-TV.

Yes and also WNYC-TV had to contend with WNET as the primary PBS affiliate in New York. However the New York TV market also has Connecticut Public Broadcasting covering parts of their area, WLIW Garden City and NJ PBS covering parts of the market. That's is partially a rational on why WNYC 31 had to be sold.