Say someone wants to start a local PBS station, how do they do it?
They apply for a broadcast license from the FCC (assuming any are available in the area). If none are available, they have to see if they can get the license from someone currently using it.
Once that’s established (not easy), then they have to contact PBS and set up an agreement to carry their programming.
Once all is in place, they can build their broadcast facility (I guess you can do it before any of the first two, but you’re setting yourself up for big losses if you don’t get the agreement) or take over an existing facility and go on the air.
Money is essential.
Excellent question. Two bits of anecdotal evidence:
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All the PBS stations in North Carolina (except one, of course) are ‘repeaters’ rebroadcasting channel 4, in Chapel Hill, which is one of the few physical appurtenances of the University of North Carolina System (as opposed to UNC - Chapel Hill and the other, smaller local UNC schools).
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The educational programs carried in the daytime by (commercial) Channel 7 in Watertown, NY, when it first signed on in the 50s, and the local PBS station, are operated by the “St. Lawrence Educational Television Council,” evidently a multi-county local organization.
Conclusion from two samples: Who may apply for a PBS franchise is a state or local public body with an educational purpose; it’s left to the states to designate what organizations will qualify in their states.
You (meaning your station) need to be licensed by the FCC to operate a nonsectarian, nonpoltical and noncommercial educational television station.
You also generally need to be the only such station in town - the current recommendation is that new membership in PBS is limited to stations serving areas unserved by an existing PBS member station.
This comes from PBS’ latest round of membership policy reviews and recommendations.
Now it’s a bit different. In the analog days of TV the FCC set a table of allocations, and anyone could fill out a form, pay a fee and apply for a license. If there was more than one applicant the FCC would make each side present its case how it would serve the community and the FCC would look at that and of course the actual ability to get the station on the air.
Since a TV license is a limited thing, even a non-commerical license has some value, even if the station isn’t in operation. The FCC wants to make sure people are using and not just holding construction permits.
In the old days many organizations sought to buy out commercial channels and make them educational stations. WNET, Channel 13 in NYC and WWHY in Wilmington DE (serving Philadelphia) are good examples of this. Both channels (under different call letters) were commerical stations that couldn’t make a go of it. So groups of people interested in bringing educational TV to the area got the license and flipped it from commerical to non-commericals. In the above case both NYC and Philly had reserved allocation for TV, for educational channels on UHF, and the groups felt that UHF wasn’t a real option. Indeed before 1964 (and for somewhile after) when the FCC requried all sets to carry UHF tuners it was a problem.
Now that analog TV is a thing of the past (excepting low power TV stations that may switch but don’t have to), the FCC hasn’t established a new policy on allocations. This is due in part to existing stations having trouble and the FCC feels it should give an existing station a right to an empty allocation rather than a new station.
For instance in Chicago, WLS was on channel 52 prior to digital cut off. Because channels 52 -69 were taken away from TV and given to other services, WLS had to move it’s digital channel back to channel 7 (it’s old analog channel). But WLS found so many problems it has applied to move to channel 44 (WSNS-TV’s old analog channel), rather than try to make a go of DTV on channel 7.
UHF is better than VHF for digital TV, especially in urban areas with high density and buildings like NYC and Chicago. (But there are a lot of DTV stations on high VHF, 7-13 and even a few on low VHF 2-6 that can work depending on the terrain).
If you want to start a PBS station Rockford, IL is currently the largest TV market (#132) without a PBS station. Currently cable TV imports PBS from either Chicago or Madison Wisconsin.
I forgot to mention… Rolling with PBS is not cheap.
Right about the end of June, one of our local college-run channels (KCSM) dropped PBS membership to save $400,000 a year.
Not so. My local PBS station is part of a privately-owned corporation that also owns the local NPR station. These have to be not-for-profit, and they have to be kept separate from any for-profit ventures the company may also own. For example, WITF, Inc. has a non-profit arm for WITF-TV and WITF-FM, and a for-profit arm for their magazine and some other services it offers. But there is no requirement for a public broadcasting station to be owned by a university or other educational group.
Good point. One of the little-noted details about U.S. broadcasting is that the commercial networks pay their local affiliates “compensation” for turning over large amounts of their schedule to network programming. By contrast, PBS charges stations for the programs it provides.
(Of course I’m oversimplifying how both systems work in reality, but it’s broadly true.)
PBS isn’t really a broadcast network in the traditional sense, though. There’s no PBS master feed for the affiliates to switch over to in prime time. They are really just a giant content syndicate, and in that respect their model is not particularly different from other syndicated programming, which individual stations (or station groups) pay for.
Thanks. The post was, as noted, two anecdotal points. I ventured to (tentatively) draw a conclusion from two points; you’ve refuted it, with an additional data point,
We have 2 PBS stations serving the metropolitan area of Denver and have had for more than 20 years. Maybe the rules have changed.
The license for Channel 6 was originally held by the Denver Public Schools. I am not sure who formed Channel 12 (the other station), but both stations are received throughout the metro area.
Bob
Most large metro areas have more than one PBS station. Chicago has three, although WYIN has its transmitter so far south that it barely reaches donwtown Chicago. WYIN wanted to move it’s transmitter to the Sears Tower, but both WTTW (The main PBS in Chicago) and WYCC (Channel 20) posted objections.
I don’t quite get this: Back a while ago (a few years, I think), we didn’t get Montana PBS on Dish Network (digital satellite TV). We did get PBS, but it was a generic PBS with no local programming and no information regarding local stations. For a while we even got both Montana PBS and that generic PBS, but now we only get Montana PBS.
So, my question for you is: If PBS itself didn’t produce that generic channel, who did?
By what I linked to, it would appear that the rules for establishing new affiliates may have changed as recently as June 19, 2009. I don’t think they have any plans to systematically kill off duplicates in any particular market.
When I was a kid, Chicago had only one PBS station, and AFAIK, they still have only one, but Dish Network brings several PBS channels in the San Francisco local channels package, so there’s no particular rhyme or reason to it all.
WAG: you were getting the program feed that PBS sends to its stations.
What’s the difference? PBS my send the feed for Nova at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, but Montana PBS may choose to run it at 8:00 Wednesday. (And Idaho PBS may not carry Nova at all.) By contrast, NBC will feed the Tonight Show (complete with commercials) at 11:30 p.m. and the local stations are all expected to air it at the same time.
OK. I thought friedo was implying there was no such feed, just a bunch of programs PBS could send the station on request.
This squares with my experience.
I popped in to add to this, and add from MsRobyn here.
In Georgia, Atlantans get two PBS stations, Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB), and Public Broadcasting Atlanta (PBA). The latter station also carries a NPR radio station (WABE 90.1). It should be noted, however, that GPB carries 3 DTV stations, the second being a PBS Kids station and the third being the Knowledge / PBS World channel. Frankly, the exact opposite of how I would think it would go.
I am aware that one of the stations (Can’t recall ATM) is indeed a repeater, and they make announcements to the fact that they are “covering all of Georgia”. A dozen or so channel designations and call signs are put up on the screen, and the local towns they can be found broadcasting out of.
All of that to say this::
I am not under the impression that GA has a private, for profit carrying PBS programming.
IIRC, one of the two stations for a while had a tag line “A Service of Atlanta Public Schools”. A few years back, there was an article in the AJC on why Atlanta even has two PBS stations. I just caught the headline, and did not have a particular reason to read th article back then.
So, one market can have two PBS affiliates, but, I think it would take a LOT of Money (If the local telethons can attest) and some, above and beyond reason to carry the programming. That is, i think your market would have to be proven to exist, before you can begin programing.
There is a PBS feed that satellite subscribers can get. I forget how it’s branded.
Programming flexibility is a function of who pays money to whom. In the case of PBS, member stations pay for the right to be PBS affiliates, and they must purchase programming from PBS or another provider. Consequently, local affiliates are free to air whatever shows they want (or can afford) whenever they wish to air them. For example, WITF shows Sesame Street at 9:00 a.m., and again at 7:00 p.m. They can do that because they’ve paid for the right to show each episode, and because they know that people will watch it again at 7.
Conversely, commercial networks pay their affiliates, who are then obligated to air network programming when the networks tell them to on pain of financial penalties or non-renewal of contract.