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WQPT-TV governing group presents options for future operations at Black Hawk College

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By David Burke | Friday, September 21, 2007 12:23 AM CDT | () comments

The group governing WQPT-TV presented options for its future to the Black Hawk College board of trustees at the latter’s meeting Thursday night at its Moline campus.

A 53-page report, “A New Direction For a Community Asset,” was presented to Black Hawk board members.

“We hope we can find a point of cooperation so we can continue to operate,” said Julie McHard, of Rock Island, vice chair of the board of directors for the Greater Quad-Cities Telecommunications Corp.

The college cut its funding to the public television station, which is based on its campus, effective at the beginning of the fiscal year.

At the college board’s meeting in June, trustees voted to have the telecommunications board give a report on the possibility of procuring the station’s license and equipment, tentatively valued at $2.5 million.

While the board said earlier this week that it would not have the financial support to purchase the license and equipment, its report did give several options on how it could continue into the future:

n Continue its relationship with Black Hawk, with the college providing the funding for the salaries of six key employees of the station.

n A partnership with other educational institutions, including Western Illinois University and St. Ambrose University. (Western Illinois, however, is not pursuing the possibility.)

n A partnership with other public TV entities, including Iowa Public Television or WTVP, the community-based PBS station in Peoria, Ill.

n Running WQPT as a “community licensee,” operated by a non-profit, community-based organization.

“However, as long as the possibility exists that the trustees will sell the license to an entity that would not intend to operate a public television station, obtaining substantial community support for a new operating model will be difficult at best,” the report stated.

The report also included a history of WQPT, which signed on in 1983, and the community-related activities it conducts and the services it supplies to Black Hawk College.

Board chairman Fred Leggett said the trustees would look at the statement from the telecommunications board and discuss it at its October meeting in Kewanee.

David Burke can be contacted at (563) 383-2400 or dburke@qctimes.com.