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The FCC votes to strengthen Pittsburgh public television
Monday, December 27, 1999
The Federal Communications Commission's decision to approve the deal that lets WQED Pittsburgh unload Channel 16 is long overdue and, what's more, right. But opponents of the transfer keep making noise, like a TV station test pattern. Here, too, there's sound, but not very many people are listening.
The latest target of the Save Pittsburgh Public Television Campaign is U.S. Sen. John McCain, for writing letters to the FCC in the last two months urging it to rule on the case - not how, mind you, but soon. Imagine that - a U.S. senator, indeed a candidate for president, telling a federal agency to get a move on.
It was high time that Republican Sen. McCain - not to mention Democratic Reps. Ron Klink and Frank Mascara and Republican Sens. Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter - tried to light a fire under the FCC.
Since the early '90s, with its industry profoundly changing, WQED has been confronted by hard realities and tough choices. Corporate sponsorships were drying up, station budgets were bloated and the proliferation of cable channels made public television programming less distinctive.
The message was clear: The massive enterprise, both in Pittsburgh and nationally, had to change if it was to ever see the 21st century. In this city, that meant a leaner structure, layoffs and the difficult decision of having to sell off an expendable second outlet, WQEX.
In 1996, the FCC refused to let WQED sell its sister station to a buyer that would have converted it to a commercial license. Enter Plan B, the complicated arrangement that the federal government OK'd on Dec. 15.
Under its terms, Christian broadcaster WPCB will move from Channel 40 to Channel 16 and take over its educational, noncommercial license. Paxson Communications Corp. will buy Channel 40 for $35 million, which will be split between WQED Pittsburgh and Cornerstone TeleVision, which runs WPCB.
Goodbye WQEX. Long live a more robust WQED.
But that's never been enough for Jerry Starr, a leading spokesman for the Save Pittsburgh Public TV campaign who dubbed himself "a 1950s-style troublemaker," and his allies. Unable to demonstrate "community outrage" over the demise of WQEX, the opponents attacked WQED executive salaries, the supposed conservatism of public television and the right-of-center religious programming that will appear on the new Channel 16.
These matters may get the activists' blood boiling, but they have never increased the pulse rate in the WQED viewing area.
The group subscribes to a quaint, 1960s view of public television. But TV land now offers scores of choices, and on many nights it's hard to tell the lineups of public and commercial television apart. If public television, borne on the backs of viewer donations and corporate underwriting, is to stave off irrelevancy, it must become financially positioned to compete. That was WQED's objective in selling WQEX.
Mr. Starr and other critics tried to turn it into political drama. It may have had its moments, but it was no "Masterpiece Theatre." It's time to move on.