Gian
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@AnonymousSauce - Awesome update here, but I'm kind of expecting that supplemental covering the DC market (not least because that's where I live)
DuMont will make TV work: A TL
- Thread starter AnonymousSauce
- Start date
Supplemental: TV Station Alignments in Selected Markets
Baltimore/Washington DMA:
2: WETA (Non-commercial) [1]
4: WRC (NBC)
5: WTTG (DuMont)
7: WMAL (CBS) [1]
9: WOIC (Independent) [1]
11: WBAL (Independent) [1]
13: WJZ (ABC) [1]
Metro KC DMA:
2: WHB (DuMont) [2]
4: WDAF (NBC)
5: KCTV (ABC)
9: KMBC (CBS)
11: KCSD (Non-commercial)
Houston DMA:
2: KPRC (NBC)
4: KTHT (DuMont) [3]
8: KUHT (Non-commercial)
11: KHOU (CBS)
13: KTRK (ABC)
New Orleans DMA:
4: WWL (CBS)
6: WDSU (NBC)
8: WTPS (DuMont) [4]
12: WJMR (ABC) [4]
Boston DMA:
2: WRTB (CBS) [5]
4: WBZ (NBC)
5: WHDH (ABC)
7: WNAC (DuMont)
[1]The Baltimore/Washington market is obviously the most affected by the changes, since it represents a market that was two markets put together to make one mega-market that has a full contingent of 7 VHF stations. Two of Baltimore's stations, WMAR/2 and WBAL/11 lose their network affiliations while CBS dissolves its joint venture with the Washington Post due to FCC issues with radio station ownership, sells WTOP/9 to John Kluge, and affiliates with its original affiliate WMAL/7, whom ABC had abandoned to stay with Baltimore affiliate WJZ/13, who they had a longstanding relationship with station ownership going back to the radio era. Kluge then changes WTOP's calls back to WOIC because the FCC in this time period doesn't allow TV stations and radio stations that are not under common ownership to have the same calls. WMAR ownership, vexed at the prospect of being the third independent in a market that now had one of the strongest Indy station owners of the era in Kluge, decides to sell their license to DC-based non-commercial operators, who take on the calls WETA.
[2]Kansas City had one of the odder stories of the era of new license assignment as OTL the owners of WHB radio and KMBC radio agreed to mount a joint bid for the channel 9 frequency that would allow them to split time on air, but both would share the CBS affiliation for the market. Here with the extra two VHF slots, WHB, the MBS affiliate for KC, bids for channel 2 and affiliates with DuMont. The KC school district, who had been relegated to UHF channel 19 OTL for their educational outfit, here snaps up the other VHF slot.
[3]The owners of KTHT radio, the MBS affiliate in Houston, grab the VHF frequency assigned to Houston from Beaumont.
[4]The frequency that would become educational channel WYES OTL, which originated on channel 12 but ended up on channel 8 in the 70s due to a frequency swap with the ABC station, here goes to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the owners of the MBS affiliate in Nola.
[5]When WNAC/7 becomes a DuMont O&O after the RKO General merger, CBS is forced to find a new affiliate, and partners with Raytheon Broadcasting to revive their moribund bid for channel 2.
2: WETA (Non-commercial) [1]
4: WRC (NBC)
5: WTTG (DuMont)
7: WMAL (CBS) [1]
9: WOIC (Independent) [1]
11: WBAL (Independent) [1]
13: WJZ (ABC) [1]
Metro KC DMA:
2: WHB (DuMont) [2]
4: WDAF (NBC)
5: KCTV (ABC)
9: KMBC (CBS)
11: KCSD (Non-commercial)
Houston DMA:
2: KPRC (NBC)
4: KTHT (DuMont) [3]
8: KUHT (Non-commercial)
11: KHOU (CBS)
13: KTRK (ABC)
New Orleans DMA:
4: WWL (CBS)
6: WDSU (NBC)
8: WTPS (DuMont) [4]
12: WJMR (ABC) [4]
Boston DMA:
2: WRTB (CBS) [5]
4: WBZ (NBC)
5: WHDH (ABC)
7: WNAC (DuMont)
[1]The Baltimore/Washington market is obviously the most affected by the changes, since it represents a market that was two markets put together to make one mega-market that has a full contingent of 7 VHF stations. Two of Baltimore's stations, WMAR/2 and WBAL/11 lose their network affiliations while CBS dissolves its joint venture with the Washington Post due to FCC issues with radio station ownership, sells WTOP/9 to John Kluge, and affiliates with its original affiliate WMAL/7, whom ABC had abandoned to stay with Baltimore affiliate WJZ/13, who they had a longstanding relationship with station ownership going back to the radio era. Kluge then changes WTOP's calls back to WOIC because the FCC in this time period doesn't allow TV stations and radio stations that are not under common ownership to have the same calls. WMAR ownership, vexed at the prospect of being the third independent in a market that now had one of the strongest Indy station owners of the era in Kluge, decides to sell their license to DC-based non-commercial operators, who take on the calls WETA.
[2]Kansas City had one of the odder stories of the era of new license assignment as OTL the owners of WHB radio and KMBC radio agreed to mount a joint bid for the channel 9 frequency that would allow them to split time on air, but both would share the CBS affiliation for the market. Here with the extra two VHF slots, WHB, the MBS affiliate for KC, bids for channel 2 and affiliates with DuMont. The KC school district, who had been relegated to UHF channel 19 OTL for their educational outfit, here snaps up the other VHF slot.
[3]The owners of KTHT radio, the MBS affiliate in Houston, grab the VHF frequency assigned to Houston from Beaumont.
[4]The frequency that would become educational channel WYES OTL, which originated on channel 12 but ended up on channel 8 in the 70s due to a frequency swap with the ABC station, here goes to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the owners of the MBS affiliate in Nola.
[5]When WNAC/7 becomes a DuMont O&O after the RKO General merger, CBS is forced to find a new affiliate, and partners with Raytheon Broadcasting to revive their moribund bid for channel 2.
***
So there is the supplemental laying out station changes in the markets I covered in chapter 1. I also included New Orleans as an example of a 4-station market, who wasn't able to gain any new frequencies due to proximity to Baton Rouge and Jackson, MS, and Boston, who received a DuMont O&O because of the RKO General buyout. It should also be noted that WABD/5 New York and WDTV/2 Pittsburgh swapped calls and KHJ/9 Los Angeles took on the calls KDTV, making the DTV calls the flagship calls of the network.
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And thus WGBH-TV needs to find an alternate frequency for its TV channel; either that or remain radio-only (and let the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston handle the educational TV bit with WIHS-TV), with massive consequences for the development of public radio and television in the US and hence NET would evolve differently. Not just that, but this also has a knock-on effect on New Hampshire, and further down the line the New England cable TV market as when cable TV really got going the Boston TV channels were included in the subscriptions of many a provider throughout the region. OTOH, it will make the UHF stations very interesting because up until the 1990s or so the Boston stations really loved to pre-empt programming so that they could increase their local TV output; as a result, the purpose of the UHF stations here was to pick up the pre-empted programming, making them de facto secondary affiliates. In this region, with this early enough POD, I could easily see MIT and several others playing around with the UHF band to improve the technology - particularly for repeater networks in the DMAs in New England (and elsewhere), with the Boston DMA first and foremost (primarily as far as New Hampshire, Central Massachusetts, and Cape Cod and the Islands are concerned).
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I just remembered - when WGBH-TV got off the ground in 1955, that prompted the station to go to other states and persuade their legislatures to permit the creation of educational broadcasting. One of the first was WENH-TV in Durham, NH (where UNH's main campus is located). With the Boston stations presumably taking on New Hampshire coverage alongside Boston and Eastern Mass., that frees up two channels - chs. 9 and 11 - for educational broadcasting. If you prevent the Providence/New Bedford DMA from signing on its own stations - except for WJAR-TV, which signed on in 1949 with primary NBC affilation and secondary affiliation for CBS, ABC, and DuMont - and replace them with repeaters of the Boston stations, then you'd probably get somewhere for a pan-New England regional television system.
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That much is very true, I'll be covering that in detail in an upcoming post.
That would be interesting, it could be kind of a low-key/informal version of what happened with Baltimore and Washington.
In that case, one would have to be careful with the channel placements to avoid interference with WJAR-TV (hence why WENH was located where it was, on ch. 11). See also Eastern Educational Network (EEN), either through scholarly literature or elsewhere, which was the prime impetus for WGBH IOTL wanting to build up a public television network in the Northeastern US.
Chapter 3: DuMont Programming in the 1950s
Chapter 3
In this early era of television broadcasting, the types of programs broadcast on television were very fluid as audience tastes were just being established for the first time and television programs were mostly existing materials brought over from different media, such as radio, Hollywood movies, and Broadway. Radio was the dominant provider of source material for most of the 1940-50s time period, seeing as how three of the four TV networks originated as radio networks and still had their radio properties under their control contractually. DuMont differed from the other three networks in that it didn’t arise from a radio network and therefore had to rely on other sources of programming, at least until the RKO General buyout brought it under the same tent as the Mutual Broadcasting Service and gave it access to its programs. Allen DuMont got around this in the early days mostly by leaning on connections that he had on Broadway and also by pioneering in the areas of religious programming, the types of shows we today would call “reality TV”, and sports programming. DuMont aired several variety shows in the 1950s, including Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour, The Morey Amsterdam Show, and Cavalcade of Stars, the latter of which would contribute the talent that would be the most recognizable thing about DuMont in that era in Jackie Gleason and his Honeymooners shorts. Gleason would be signed to CBS in the summer of 1952, prior to the RKO General merger when DuMont was still cash-strapped, and launch the Honeymooners there as a spin-off sitcom in the 1955-56 season. As Gleason felt that the half-hour sitcom format was too restrictive to what he wanted to do with the Honeymooners sketches and the show consequently suffered in ratings, however, CBS cancelled the sitcom after one season. Gleason subsequently departed back to DuMont[1], and launched the Jackie Gleason Show from there, a more variety-formatted show similar to Cavalcade where he could continue the Honeymooners sketches free from the time constraints of the sitcom format. That show would be a mainstay of the DuMont schedule all the way to 1970.
Another show that would go on to define DuMont in the era and have a continued effect on the network well into the future would be the iconic children’s sci-fi/superhero adventurer Captain Video and his Video Rangers. Captain Video was a show about an interplanetary enforcer who watched over human colonies in distant solar systems in the far future (later retconned to be considered in the present of whatever the time period the story was being told[2]). The show was produced on a shoestring budget that resulted in the creative use of items the crew had lying around as props and the incorporation of material from public-domain Westerns to fill out time blocks (a move that was justified as Captain Video “checking in with his contacts back on Earth”). Despite those challenges, the show proved wildly popular with children and adults alike, spawned a movie adaptation, and went on to run in one form or another until the late 1960s, going on to influence many of the genre’s tropes in the era, such as the look of the Daleks in Doctor Who. The success of the show even compelled RKO General to purchase the comic book imprint that licensed the show for comics, Charlton Comics, in the 1960s, a move that would go on to have a lasting impact on the comic book industry as a whole starting in the 1970s “Bronze Age” of comics.
The other area that DuMont would find early and lasting success in was the arena of sports. Boxing and wrestling were mainstays of DuMont’s early years, and in 1953 the network landed a deal with the NFL to broadcast Saturday night games in the regular season. The network’s ownership of this package proved to be a boon to the network and have a subsequently enormous impact on its rise, which will be covered in future installments. The sports department also provided a proving ground for a man who would be a massive influence on the network in future years, Roone Arledge.[3]
DuMont also trailblazed in the area of how advertisers interacted with the networks and the shows they aired. In that time period, advertisers commonly sponsored a program as the sole sponsor, such as the Milton Berle Show sponsored by Buick. The networks also forced advertisers to buy tracts of markets that their ads would air in. DuMont, in an effort to set themselves apart to advertisers in ways other than ratings, allowed advertisers to buy individual spots on shows and only advertise in the markets they wanted to, which saved the advertisers money and therefore made it more appealing to advertise on DuMont. Consequently, these changes to advertising practices became industry standard.
[1]OTL, DuMont was already collapsing by the time the Honeymooners was cancelled, so the Jackie Gleason Show stayed on CBS until 1970.
[2]This never happened OTL because DuMont collapsed before it could, taking Captain Video with it. Here, with the ongoing survival of DuMont and the fact that RKO General bought Charlton Comics to keep the licensed Captain Video comics in print, Charlton integrates Captain Video into its regular superhero lineup and makes this retcon for it to make sense.
[3]Roone Arledge went on to helm ABC Sports IOTL after the DuMont collapse, innovating Wide World of Sports, Monday Night Football and several other sports programs as well as having an impact on ABC’s entertainment division. Here, he remains with DuMont and makes his contributions to its budding sports division, which will have ramifications for the North American sports world in the future...
Yeah that will be massive, not only dumont and ABC but all other too, wonder how that will impact the networks in the future(specially the AFL that is coming).
Wonder DuMont will survive as TV maker? wonder how they will make the change to digital and HD TV too
The AFL is indeed coming right on schedule in 1960. As for the impact on the other networks, all will be revealed in good time...
DuMont Laboratories will indeed survive, eventually sold off to a different corporate parent. They will make the transition to DTV, HD, flat screen, etc. just the same as every other TV manufacturer.
Chapter 4: Metromedia and NTA
Chapter 4
After the changes that were made to the Sixth Report and Order to ensure that there would be enough VHF allotments in major markets to keep all four major networks viable, most of the top 25 markets had just enough slots available to have all four networks plus a non-commercial station. Nevertheless, some of the largest markets, such as New York, LA and Baltimore-Washington, or markets that were so dominant over large areas that they could have six or more VHF allotments, like Denver and Seattle, had one or two VHF independent stations. In addition to that, because of the markets that were increasingly reliant on UHF outlets after the shifting of VHF slots in the Order, Congresspeople representing those areas were increasingly incented to seek legislative redress to the issue of TV sets not possessing UHF tuners, resulting in the 1956[1] passage of the All-Channel Receiver Act. This would open up the UHF band to viability in much of the country, even though it took until 1959 to fully take effect, and that would result in independent stations coming online on the UHF band as well. These stations would face challenges filling out their schedules that network-affiliated stations did not, as they did not have a unified source of programming to provide them material.
In this early era, before enough first-run network shows had completed their runs for them to be available in syndication as reruns, many of these stations would fill their time with movies, sports, cartoons, travel programs, and locally produced programs, such as children’s variety shows like the famous Bozo the Clown. These stations would come and go, though, many shuffling through ownership or going dark entirely only for some of them to have their frequencies go back online later under different ownership with different calls.
In the turbulence of independent TV of this era, one man was able to build a media empire on the back of independent stations. John Kluge, a German-American investor from Washington, DC snapped up WOR-TV[2] in New York when RKO General was forced to spin it off after acquiring DuMont. To that he added WTOP-TV in Baltimore-Washington and named the holding company that he made to manage these stations the Metropolitan Broadcasting Company, which he would later rename Metromedia. He then acquired KTTV-TV in Los Angeles and several UHF outlets in various cities. He was able to add stability to these stations with the size of his corporation ensuring that he could outbid independently owned stations in the markets he operated in for the most desirable programs such as rights to local major league sports teams and the most desirable movies. In doing so, he set many of the conventions for how independent stations would operate going forward and set his company up to be a quasi-network of sorts that could share programming between stations.
The NTA FIlm Network arose in the late 1950s to attempt to provide programming to some of the independent stations that did not possess the advantage of being owned by a major conglomerate. It did not operate as a true network with microwave relays or coaxial connections between stations, but instead mailed programs on tape to the individual stations and requested that they be shown in pattern. It had the backing of Twentieth Century Fox, which provided movies and some shows for the network, and launched in October 1956 with over 100 affiliates, though some of those were major-network affiliates that used NTA programming to fill in off-hours. It purchased New York independent station WATV-TV 13 to be its flagship, which it subsequently renamed WNTA. The network produced a couple of memorable shows, such as How to Marry a Millionaire and Man Without a Gun, but was losing money just about immediately with there not really being enough space for a fifth network at the time, especially one that was forced to rely on UHF for expansion. By 1959[3] the network had had enough losses that it decided to sell WNTA to the fledgling National Educational Television non-commercial network, and with that it gave up the ghost.
[1]OTL the All-Channel Receiver Act didn’t pass until 1961 and wasn’t implemented until 1964. With the greater amount of markets reliant on UHF ITTL, the Act gets passed 5 years early.
[2]OTL Kluge bought WABD and WTTG when DuMont failed, while RKO General stuck with WOR. ITTL, the station’s fates flip.
[3]OTL NTA kicked the bucket in 1961. Here with the greater competition it fails two years early.
You can give Boston five VHF channels by allocating channel 9 away from Manchester NH.
You can give New Orleans five VHF channels by giving Baton Rouge channels 9 and 11 while giving New Orleans 2,4,6,8,12.
Channel 11 went unused in Louisiana because it was allocated to Houma on the Gulf Coast and the town of Columbia in no-man's land, neither of which could support a TV station. In the sixties, the Houma station got a license, was granted a move to cover Baton Rouge but that move was protested by 2 and 9 in BR, and the protest stood. Channel 11 in Columbia, LA finally went on the air in 1998 to serve the Monroe market.
You can give New Orleans five VHF channels by giving Baton Rouge channels 9 and 11 while giving New Orleans 2,4,6,8,12.
Channel 11 went unused in Louisiana because it was allocated to Houma on the Gulf Coast and the town of Columbia in no-man's land, neither of which could support a TV station. In the sixties, the Houma station got a license, was granted a move to cover Baton Rouge but that move was protested by 2 and 9 in BR, and the protest stood. Channel 11 in Columbia, LA finally went on the air in 1998 to serve the Monroe market.
It's entirely possible, CKLW-TV/9 Windsor, ON is the current DuMont affiliate for Detroit as of this moment, after all.
As of right now (end of the 50s) KTVU-TV/2 is the DuMont affiliate, KRON-TV/4 is NBC, KPIX-TV/5, KGO-TV/7, and KQED-TV/9 are same as OTL, and KNTV-TV/11 is independent.
Thanks for the heads up about NOLA, I may retcon their allocations. I didn't know about channel 11.
Would giving 9 to Boston interfere with Providence/Springfield/Hartford stations at all?
It could still work - the Azcárraga family at this early stage would take any opportunity it can use to expand its audience, even if it means setting up a station for Anglophones in the more wealthy US as a "showpiece" for the then-Telesistema Mexicano.
The problem as far as Boston is concerned is nothing to do with New Hampshire (southern NH is officially part of the Boston DMA while northern NH is part of the Portland, ME DMA) but it's the 4+1 model - 4 commercial stations + 1 non-commercial station. There still needs to be space for at least 1 non-commercial station each for Greater Boston, southern NH, and Southeastern Massachusetts (which for all intents and purposes could be combined with the Providence/New Bedford DMA, thus preventing WPRO-TV [now WPRI-TV, ch12] from fully getting on air - WPRO-TV IOTL signing on in 1955 was a consequence of both the lifting of the Sixth Report and Order and a delay due to Hurricane Carol destroying the planned transmitter site, and if the FCC is serious about wanting to treat all of Eastern New England as one entire DMA for Boston then it should quash WPRO-TV's application, which then frees up a frequency for non-commercial TV in Rhode Island).
Yes - WJAR-TV, ch10, Providence, RI (which until 1953 was on ch11, and then moved down a frequency to avoid interference issues with New York City's WPIX and to free up space for another TV station).
Springfield, Hartford, no. Providence, yes. You would need to reallocate some channels, and given the way populations are distributed in New England, might be possible.
Another item on the TV map. If you swap 6 and 13 between Grand Rapids and Lansing, Michigan, you could move channel 13 from Rockford to Chicago, giving the windy city six VHF channels.
Another issue to consider is small market wrangling. In central Missouri, channels 6, 8, and 13 were allocated to Sedalia, Columbia, and Jefferson City. Columbia and Jeff City are close enough to be a single market. Sedalia, though, is some 45 miles west. Channels 8 (NBC) and 13 (CBS) went on in healthy markets. Sedalia was too close to Kansas City for an ABC affiliation. So, it was a satellite station for KMBC in Kansas City until 1961. At that time, Metromedia bought KMBC and had no interest in central Missouri. KRCG, 13, in Jeff City, bought the license to channel 6 (KMOS) and applied to use it for a low power translator for 13. Channel 8, KOMU, did not object because it was tantamount not to allow a full power ABC station to sign on in central Missouri and take advertising revenue. So, from 1961 to 1978, channel 6 was almost unused in Missouri, until it came on as a PBS station. The region received an ABC station when KCBJ signed on channel 17 in 1971.
So, Columbia, Missouri and Baton Rouge, Louisiana are two examples where two channel markets successfully kept a third available VHF channel off the air until UHF stations (17 in Columbia and 33 in Baton Rouge) couldn't be stopped because the FCC had allocated those channels directly to those cities.
So, Columbia, Missouri and Baton Rouge, Louisiana are two examples where two channel markets successfully kept a third available VHF channel off the air until UHF stations (17 in Columbia and 33 in Baton Rouge) couldn't be stopped because the FCC had allocated those channels directly to those cities.
Chapter 5: The Rise and (Relatively Swift) Fall of NET
Chapter 5
With the revisement of the Sixth Report and Order, non-commercial television was chiefly relegated to the UHF band outside of the markets that were fortunate enough, because of size and geography, to have at least 5 VHF allotments. Nevertheless, universities, public school systems, private philanthropists, and others acquired licenses wherever available to operate educational or public benefit television stations.
With the growth of non-commercial television, organizations would form to create and share programming between the various non-commercial stations. The most prominent of these would start its life in 1952 as the Educational Television and Radio Center (ETRC). Founded by a grant from the Ford Foundation, the organization existed to pass programming made by individual educational stations along to other stations. It did not originally create its own programming.
In the spring of 1954, however, that changed, as the needs of the emerging educational stations and their limited capacities meant that they needed an independent source of programming. The ETRC moved to Ann Arbor, MI, and began operating the same quasi-network format as NTA, creating a 5-hour per night slate of programs and distributing them via kinescope to stations. At first, these programs did not serve any entertainment function and were purely adult education, resulting in dry, academic programming nicknamed “the University of the Air.”
In 1958, the organization evolved again, moving to New York City and renaming itself the National Educational Television and Radio Center (NETRC). It began moving into entertainment and importing shows from the United Kingdom, starting with Age of Kings in 1961. On this point, however, NETRC would soon find competition in the form of the DuMont Network, which was eager to find programming that it could not only use as counterprogramming against the larger and better-positioned networks, but also wanted to raise the intellectual quality of broadcast TV, per Allen DuMont’s vision. DuMont would spend sums of money to ensure that the most entertaining British programs that would have the best chance of finding high ratings in the States would appear on the network.
Another source of programs for the NETRC would be newsmagazines and documentaries. In 1963, it would begin airing centerpiece news program NET Journal, a program that documented in-depth explorations of pressing issues of the day, such as poverty and racism.These programs were critically acclaimed but frustrated many in more culturally conservative districts, and even officials in the Johnson Administration itself. Combined with the continued financial woes of UHF educational stations in smaller markets, these developments would lead to calls from Congress and the administration to force the documentaries from the air and explore creating a government-run system of public television that would guarantee operating funds for the individual stations and programming that would strive not to rock the boat.
On the point of the NET Journal and the other documentaries, NET, as it was called after dumping its radio assets in 1963, would find an unlikely ally in DuMont. Allen DuMont felt that the documentaries were important programs and helped elevate television broadcasting. Plus they were shows that were already being made that DuMont would not even have to pay for to broadcast on its network. Therefore, DuMont and NET were able to strike a deal to simulcast NET Journal and the other documentaries on DuMont, and that would ensure that they would continue to air even in markets where the local educational stations refused to air them.
This would help accelerate NET’s demise, however, as with DuMont airing the most popular British shows and the NET documentaries, there wasn’t much else in terms of entertainment programming left for NET to air. Also, the federal and many state governments were breathing down NET’s neck looking for blood due to the controversial nature of the documentaries and the continued financial woes of the stations. By 1964[1], the Johnson Administration had arranged with the Carnegie Foundation to commission a report on the future of non-commercial television. The report, released in 1965, recommended that the government found its own public television network to replace NET. That year, the Public Broadcasting Act would be passed by Congress, creating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and thereby enshrining Carnegie’s recommendation into law.
From that point forward, the government and the Ford Foundation cooperated to force NET from the air, threatening to cut its funding unless it merged with New York affiliate WNDT and ceased network operations. They also demanded the cessation of the documentaries, though those continued with DuMont agreeing to front the cost of their creation. The Public Broadcasting Service began operations on October 5, 1968, after the completion of the NET-WNDT merger, and from that point NET ceased to operate as a network, only creating some programs to be distributed via PBS.
[1]In OTL, this happened in 1966. ITTL, the entire timeframe of the events of PBS’s creation is accelerated by two years due to the lack of programming on NET and the greater reliance on UHF of non-commercial stations leading to earlier federal and state attention to the issue.