WQPT considers its options
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By David Burke | Wednesday, January 23, 2008 |
While board members governing WQPT-TV are worrying about their own public broadcasting station’s financial troubles, they also are looking to a downstate Illinois neighbor and its even-worse situation.
WTVP-TV, the PBS station in Peoria, Ill., is close to halting broadcasting, with its property to be transferred to creditors. The station is $6.9 million in debt, according to the Peoria Journal-Star newspaper.
WQPT general manager Rick Best told the Greater Quad-Cities Telecommunications board Tuesday that the two stations had been in “very preliminary talks,” but he did not know whether it would serve the interests of either outlet.
“They may very possibly turn off the lights down there,” he said.
Board members asked about the possibility of serving the Peoria market should WTVP shut down.
The Black Hawk College Board of Trustees, which voted last summer to put WQPT’s license and equipment up for sale, has received no interest in purchasing it, said Fred Leggett of Kewanee, Ill., the chairman of the Black Hawk board and a member of the WQPT board.
The Black Hawk board is meeting during a retreat next weekend to discuss the college’s financial difficulties, he added.
“Even if we could sell the license, it wouldn’t make any difference,” Leggett said. “It wouldn’t help Black Hawk.”
Telecommunications board members presented a strategic plan to the Black Hawk board at its December meeting. Leggett said the Black Hawk board is not ready to respond.
The plan includes changing WQPT’s programming to a less-expensive service that would retain only about one-fourth of the shows now provided by the Public Broadcasting System, relying instead on other public television programmers.
The Program Development Plan also could mean that the PBS programs which remained could be scheduled in different time periods.
Kathy Michel, the chairwoman of the telecommunications board, said she is ready to hear some response from the Black Hawk board before proceeding.
“We need to have some understanding what the intention is,” she added.
David Burke can be contacted at
(563) 383-2400 or dburke@qctimes.com.
Comment on this story at qctimes.com.
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