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   from the issue of October 28, 2004

     
 
50 Years of Public Broadcasting

 BY MICHELLE DERUSHA, NEBRASKA EDUCATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS

With no microphones, cameras or even a studio of its own, it's surprising that what is now known as Nebraska Educational Telecommunications was even able to broadcast a single television program.

 
Employees work on an early production of KUON-TV when the station shared studio space with KOLN in the 1950s. Jack...
 Employees work on an early production of KUON-TV when the station shared studio space with KOLN in the 1950s. Jack McBride, former NET general manager, is at top right. Photo courtesy of NET.

Yet it did just that, in December 1953, with "University Christmas Card," a live production featuring musical performances by University of Nebraska students.

And this year, hundreds of local and national programs later, NET celebrates 50 years of providing Nebraska with public television.

How did it all come to be? It started with Jack McBride, who was hired by the university's public relations department to produce educational programs for the state's four commercial TV stations. Not long after, Midwest media tycoon John Fetzer acquired channels 10 and 12 in Lincoln, and, in a move to eliminate competition, offered KUON-TV Channel 12 to then-university Chancellor Clifford Hardin. Public television in Nebraska was born.

"We didn't even own cameras or studio equipment," recalled McBride, former NET general manager. "Every time we wanted to produce a program, we had to go out to the KOLN Channel 10 studios."

Ron Hull, who was hired in 1955 as a producer/director, remembers sharing the studio.

"We had to take turns broadcasting; when KOLN was live, we obviously couldn't be doing live TV. We had to be broadcasting a film and vice versa," Hull said. "We shared that space for three years and paid university students $1 an hour to serve as crew, managing the floor and running the cameras and audio."

Early days of distance ed

In 1956 the Federal Communications Commission granted the University of Nebraska Board of Regents control of the KUON-TV Channel 12 license.

"Even though we were only on the air from 9 a.m. to noon, five days a week, we produced a surprising number of programs," McBride said. "The first college telecourse, on the history of Nebraska, aired during that time."

McBride knew from the start that instructional television would be the backbone of the network. By 1955, KUON, in cooperation with the Nebraska State Department of Education, the University of Nebraska and Lincoln area schools, began experimenting with instructional telecasts that included everything from Spanish and French to English composition. In 1960, six nearby school districts were incorporated as the Nebraska Council for Educational Television, working with KUON to extend instructional television for use in their classrooms.

Around that time, the station was also sending instructional programs on film to a station in Scottsbluff for broadcast to broaden the reach of KUON's instructional television service.

"But we knew we had to do something else to expand the service to the rest of the state," McBride said.

Buoyed by the support of dozens of school districts, colleges and educational associations across the state, the Nebraska Council for Educational Television petitioned the FCC for additional stations, and in 1961, KUON and NCET were awarded the largest block of stations ever - eight total - to enable a statewide television network.

The passage of the Nebraska Television Act in 1963 was a milestone that authorized the development of the statewide network. It also created a new state agency, the Nebraska Educational Television Commission, and it appropriated initial funding for the nine-station Nebraska ETV Network (NETV). It also resulted in a unique collaboration between the university and the commission - it is still the only such collaboration in the country today. The university holds the license for KUON-TV Lincoln, while the commission controls the remaining eight licensed stations.

Statewide network grows

By 1965, with KUON-TV running at full power and the growth of the statewide network under way, McBride and company turned their attention to a new production facility.

"At that point we were operating under 14 separate roofs on the city campus," said McBride, including the basement of the Temple Building, a former grocery store and barbershop, a former gas station, beneath the stands of Memorial Stadium and in three houses at 16th and R streets.

Legislative approval for a new building took some time, but in 1969 land was acquired at 1800 N. 33rd St. to build the Nebraska Educational Telecommunications Center, which was later renamed for former state Sen. Terry Carpenter.

The new facility allowed the crew to step up its program production and led the way to the 1970s and '80s, when NETV really "hit its stride," said Hull, turning out local and national shows. One was "Anyone for Tennyson?" which was TV's first series devoted to poetry. Stars such as Vincent Price, William Shatner, Henry Fonda and Jack Lemmon joined First Poetry Quartet members in poetry readings ranging from Shakespeare and Tennyson to Dickinson and Whitman. Most were recorded in the Nebraska ETV studio and other public TV studios around the country. Nebraska ETV produced 50 shows in three years of "Anyone for Tennyson?"

"From the start, we always wanted at least one production on the boards that would qualify for national distribution," McBride said. "We've done that and more."

Local fare makes NETV uniquely Nebraskan. Programs and series like "Backyard Farmer," the longest-running locally produced series in the nation; the weekly news and public affairs series "Statewide;" and coverage of the Nebraska Legislature on NETV2, a second channel initiated in the 1980s, keep Nebraskans informed.

Beyond broadcasting

Anyone who has driven by 1800 N. 33rd St. in the past year has probably noticed the construction crews at work on NET's $14.8 million building renovation. The project was funded by the state to protect its investment in the technical infrastructure housed in the building, especially the new digital delivery system.

The federally mandated conversion from analog to digital technology has enabled NET to broaden its reach beyond the traditional realm of television and radio broadcasting.

For example, digital technology allows NET to multicast - that is, broadcast multiple channels simultaneously. Since April 2003, NET has been broadcasting NETV, NETV2, NETV3 (a channel dedicated to instructional programming and lifelong learning) and high-definition television during primetime. It's also enabled NET to launch the Digital Pilot Project with 100 teachers at 42 schools across the state to explore the use of datacasting, or using a portion of the broadcast spectrum to transmit video, audio, text or graphics over the air to computers, and multicasting in classrooms.

Ron Hull, left, former NET production manager, was inducted into the Nebraska Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2004. With him...
 
Ron Hull, left, former NET production manager, was inducted into the Nebraska Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2004. With him are former General Manager Jack McBride, center, and current General Manager Rod Bates. Photo courtesy of NET.

 

"It's remarkable how unique this place is and how much it does," said Rod Bates, NET's general manager who took over when McBride retired in 1996. "We're not just broadcast television or broadcast radio."

For example, in 2003, NET partnered with the Nebraska State Patrol and the attorney general's office to launch Amber Alert, the state's child abduction notification system.

The next fifty

Even McBride couldn't have imagined in 1954 what NET would have to offer Nebraskans today.

"I've been delighted that NET among other things has served as a statewide unifier," he said. "We've been able to bring the borders of the state closer as a result."

Added Bates: "New technologies are allowing us to consider programs and services we've never even thought of before. We're opening new doors that are going to allow us to communicate better and serve the educational and cultural needs of the people of Nebraska better than ever for the next 50 years."


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