WQPT to lose ‘NewsHour,’ ‘Nightly Business Report’
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By David Burke | Monday, May 19, 2008 |
Budget cuts at WQPT-TV mean such Public Broadcasting System stalwarts as “News Hour with Jim Lehrer” and “Nightly Business Report” will be gone from the Black Hawk College-based station beginning in July.
The station will enter PBS’ program development plan, or PDP, which will give WQPT an allotted number of hours from the network and delay other programming by at least eight days.
Some other programs such as “Now” and “Nova” also will be going off the WQPT schedule, while several other shows will appear in new time periods this summer, station program manager Jerry Myers told members of the Greater Quad-Cities Telecommunications Corp. at their meeting Monday.
All of those PBS series are seen in the Quad-City region on Iowa Public Television, which includes stations in Davenport and Iowa City.
Becoming a PDP station costs WQPT less money, general manager Rick Best said, and that will clear the way for programming from other public broadcasting sources.
“You’re adding to the inventory of the entire market,” he said.
Studies of other PDP stations in markets that have two PBS affiliates have shown an increase in audience size and overall funds for both stations involved, he said.
The finalized draft of the WQPT schedule will not be completed, Myers said, until PBS provides local stations with its plans for the 2008-09 season.
A new video server needed to tape-delay broadcasts will be purchased, Best said. Various grant funds totaling more than $80,000 have been received or are close to being announced.
The server will allow WQPT to broadcast in high-definition.
“That’s something we didn’t want to give up unless we absolutely had to,” Best said.
The PDP is part of a strategic plan to allow the station to continue after all of its funding from Black Hawk College was cut at the beginning of the fiscal year.
The telecommunications board will delve further into its strategic plan with consultant Don Thigpen, the retired manager of a Florida PBS station.
“We’re moving in the right direction,” Thigpen told the board in a telephone conference call.
David Burke can be contacted at
(563) 383-2400 or dburke@qctimes.com.
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