Public Media Policybase

Commissioners’ statements on WQED second station decision, 1999

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FCC members approved the proposed sale of WQED’s second station, WQEX, in a split vote. See also the
text of the order, Dec. 15, 1999.William Kennard and Gloria Tristani (Democrats)
Michael Powell and Harold Furchtgott-Roth (Republicans)
Susan Ness (Democrat)

 

Statement of Chairman William Kennard and Commissioner Gloria Tristani, dissenting in part

We disagree with the majority’s decision not to designate Cornerstone’s application for hearing. Under Section 73.621 of our rules, an applicant for a reserved channel must demonstrate that the station “will be used primarily to serve the educational needs of the community.” If there is any substantial and material question of fact on that issue, the Commission must designate the application for hearing on the issue of whether the applicant’s proposed programming is primarily educational.

Public Media Policybase

FCC order accepts transfer of WQED’s second station, 1999

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On Dec. 15, 1999, the FCC approved a swap/sale deal that would have enabled Pittsburgh public TV station WQED to sell its second channel, WQEX, to raise capital and pay longstanding debts. (The deal fell through Jan. 18, 2000, when Cornerstone TeleVision backed out.)

See also separate statements by the commissioners. WQED developed the complex plan after the commission in 1996 declined to drop the noncommercial reservation on WQEX.

History of public media

Saudek’s Omnibus: ambitious forerunner of public TV

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When producer Robert Saudek died in 1998, his New York Times obituary called him “the alchemist-in-­chief of what is often called the golden age of television.” From 1952 to 1961, the product of Saudek’s alchemy was Omnibus, a weekly that did what public TV now aspires to do, but on commercial network TV. It turned out to be one of the last but finest gasps of the Cooperation Doctrine — the notion that commercial broadcasting could ignore the bottom line and the largest available audience. [More on the Cooperation Doctrine.]

For the December 1999 pledge drives, PBS distributed the first-ever TV retrospective on the famous series, “Omnibus: Television’s Golden Age,” from New River Media. The writers are William M. Jones, professor of political science at Virginia Wesleyan College and author of Omnibus: American Television’s Season in the Sun, from Wesleyan University Press, and Andrew Walworth, executive producer and president of New River Media.