WHYY-TV

'WHYY-TV' is the PBS member station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its offices are located in Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware; where the station is officially licensed. Both the TV and FM transmitters are located in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia. WHYY also operates 'WDPB' in Seaford, Delaware, a full-time satellite which serves the Delmarva Peninsula. WDPB's transmitter is located in Seaford, and broadcasts on analog channel 64, digital 44.

Contents

History

Series produced

Digital Television

References

See also

External links

History

The channel 12 allocation in the Philadelphia DMA was at first occupied by 'WDEL-TV', owned by the Steinman family of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who also owned WDEL radio. ^[1] WDEL-TV signed on in 1949 on channel 7 as the NBC affiliate for Northern Delaware (which was a separate market at the time). It also carried programming from the now-defunct DuMont Television Network. The Steinmans' television station in Lancaster, WGAL, also signed on at about the same time on channel 4. WDEL-TV moved to channel 12 in 1951 to allow WGAL to move to its present channel 8. WDEL-TV was sold to Paul F. Harron, the owner of WIBG in Philadelphia, in March of 1955. (Steinman continues to own WDEL radio to this day.) At that time, the call letters were changed to 'WPFH' (for the initials of its new owner), and channel 12 dropped its NBC affiliation in favor of becoming an independent station. The FCC also collapsed the Northern Delaware market into the Philadelphia market around the same time. Two years later, Storer Broadcasting bought channel 12 and changed its callsign to 'WVUE'. The station went dark in 1959. The WVUE call sign is now used on a Fox television affiliate in New Orleans.
WHYY-TV signed on for the first time on September 2, 1957; on channel 35. It was the 23rd educational station in the country, and the second in Pennsylvania (WQED-TV in Pittsburgh had signed on three years earlier). It was owned by Metropolitan Philadelphia Educational Radio and Television Corporation. It broadcast from a studio on Chestnut Street in Center City, which had previously been home to WCAU-TV (channel 10).
The station found the going difficult at first, in part because television sets were not required to have UHF tuning capability. Then, in the early 1960s, WHYY's owners applied for the vacant channel 12 allocation in Wilmington, and the FCC granted WHYY's request to move the station to channel 12 in 1963. WHYY signed on channel 12 for the first time on September 12. This greatly expanded WHYY's coverage area; it could now be seen as far west as Lancaster, Pennsylvania; as far south as Dover, Delaware and as far north as New Brunswick, New Jersey. It also opened a studio in Wilmington, and began producing the first newscast focused on Delaware issues, "Delaware Tonight." Although it is licensed in Wilmington, WHYY has always been a Philadelphia station for all intents and purposes; to this day it identifies as "Wilmington/Philadelphia" on-air.
Later in 1963, WHYY moved its main studio in Philadelphia to the former home of WFIL-TV (channel 6, now WPVI-TV) on 46th and Market streets. In 1979, channel 12 moved to its current home in the Living History Center Museum on Independence Mall.
In 1984, WHYY bought WDPB and turned it into a full-time satellite of channel 12. WDPB had signed on in 1981.
The station is currently scouting out land for a new studio, as the city wants to redevelop part of the area around Independence Mall.

Series produced

WHYY-TV presents four regular TV series for PBS stations: PBS's ''Hometime'', and the syndicated ''Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen'', ''Christina Cooks'' and ''Flavors of America with Chef Jim Coleman'' with ''MoneyTrack'' beginning in April 2005. These shows are produced by independent companies for WHYY. The station has also developed several TV specials, such as ''The Great Comet Crash'' and ''Trading Women''.
From 1986 to 1989, WHYY's studio was the home of ''Double Dare'', and the first season of ''Finders Keepers'', two Nickelodeon game shows, as well as the syndicated Bill Cosby hosted version of ''You Bet Your Life''.
WHYY-TV only produces four original programs: the local news show ''Delaware Tonight'', broadcasting from its Wilmington studios; ''Radio Times on TV'', a weekly version of its daily talk show with host Marty Moss-Coane; ''Experience'' shorts, about Philadelphia's cultural community; and ''Flicks'', a three-minute movie review by film critic Patrick Stoner. The shorter version of ''Flicks'', ''Quick Pics'', is also shown on many PBS stations around the country. WHYY was also one of the first PBS affiliates to air Doctor Who.

Digital Television

WHYY currently broadcasts three digital channels:
WHYY Digital HD
12.1 (Comcast 240)
WHYY's flagship digital service is on air, either for free (through digital over-the-air antenna service) or through Comcast. Often it is a digital simulcast of programming available on the analog station; however, there are schedule differences from time to time. Each weeknight from 5:30 p.m. to 6 a.m., it broadcasts local and national programs in high definition (in widescreen) and with surround sound audio, including Nature, NOVA, History Detectives and American Experience.
Y Arts
12.2 (Comcast 241)
This 24/7 mix of local, national and global arts and culture programming includes familiar programs such as Great Performances, Mystery! and American Masters and original WHYY productions like Thomas Eakins: Scenes From Modern Life, Mural and Backstage at the Pennsylvania Ballet. Among the new local offerings on Y Arts are Radio Times Arts & Culture — a weekly series of Marty Moss-Coane's interviews with key players in the cultural community — and University of the Arts Student Showcase.
WHYY Wider Horizons
12.3 (Comcast 242)
Broadcasting Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., this lineup of programming is aimed at the interests of people of age 50+ with news and public affairs programs — including BBC World News, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, WHYY Delaware Night and Charlie Rose — and a variety of cooking, gardening and travel series. Included are WHYY's Civic Space discussions and the live broadcasts of 91FM's Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane and Voices in the Family with Dr. Dan Gottlieb.
The channel frequency for the digital broadcasts changed from 55 to 50 in December 2006.

References

1. The Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia: WDEL-TV

See also

WHYY-FM

External links

★ WHYY website

★ WHYY on PBS

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