WGBH

"For the radio station specifically, see WGBH (FM)."

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = WGBH-TV
city =
station_
station_slogan = Produced in Boston, Shared with the World
station_branding = WGBH Boston
analog = 2 (VHF)
digital = 19 (UHF)
other_chs =
affiliations = PBS
network =
founded =
airdate = May 2, 1955
location = Boston, Massachusetts
callsign_meaning = Great Blue Hill — see below
former_callsigns =
former_channel_numbers =
owner = WGBH Educational Foundation
licensee =
sister_stations = WGBH (FM), WGBX-TV, WCAI, WNAN
former_affiliations = NET (1955-1970)
effective_radiated_power = 72.4 kW (analog)
700 kW (digital)
HAAT = 335 m (analog)
374 m (digital)
class =
facility_id = 72099
coordinates = coord|42|18|37.2|N|71|14|11.7|W|type:landmark_scale:2000
homepage = [http://www.wgbh.org/ www.wgbh.org]

WGBH is a non-commercial television and radio broadcast service located in Boston, Massachusetts. WGBH is a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service, and has produced many programs for the network, including nearly a third of PBS's national primetime programming. Programs produced for PBS include "NOVA", "Frontline", "American Experience", "The Victory Garden" and "This Old House".

WGBH operates several radio and television stations in Boston and the surrounding area, including sister stations WGBX-TV (Boston) and WGBY (Springfield), and the radio stations WGBH, WCAI, WZAI and WNAN.

WGBH is also considered a leader in services for people who are deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind, or visually impaired. WGBH invented television closed captioning, audio description (Descriptive Video Service), and created the Rear Window Captioning System for films; they provide these access services to commercial and public TV producers, and to home video, Web sites, and movie theaters nationwide.

History

"For more of a history of the Lowell Institute Cooperative Broadcasting Council see the article on John Lowell, Jr."

WGBH Educational Foundation received its first broadcasting license (for radio) in 1951 under the auspices of the Lowell Institute Cooperative Broadcasting Council, a consortium of local universities and cultural institutions, whose collaboration stems from an 1836 bequest by textile manufacturer John Lowell, Jr. calling for free public lectures for the citizens of Boston.

WGBH Radio Boston signed on at 89.7 MHz FM on October 6, 1951, with a live broadcast of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

The original construction permit for Channel 2 in Boston went to Raytheon, an electronics company based in neighboring Waltham, Massachusetts, who would have launched a commercial television station under the call letters WRTB-TV (for Raytheon Television Broadcasting). WRTB never made it on the air, opening the way for the FCC to allocate Channel 2 for noncommercial purposes and for WGBH to receive a license to operate on that channel.

WGBH-TV Channel 2 went on the air on May 2, 1955, at 5:20 p.m. with studios located at 84 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge. When a fire [cite web | title = Fire Ravages WGBH | url = http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_081/TECH_V081_S0190_P001.pdf | accessdate = 2007-09-12 | publisher = The Tech ] destroyed the studios in the early morning hours of October 14, 1961, WGBH-TV Channel 2 and WGBH 89.7 FM signed-on from the studios of other broadcasting stations until they were able to build their new studios located at 125 Western Avenue in Allston, and sign on there on August 29, 1963. WGBH moved to a new studio complex on Market Street in Brighton in June, 2007.

WGBH was New England's first non-commercial television station and a pioneer in what is now known as Public Television. Many programs seen on National Educational Television and later, the Public Broadcasting Service, originated at the facilities of WGBH or were otherwise produced by the station.

Transmission facilities

"GBH" stands for Great Blue Hill, the location of WGBH's FM transmitter, as well as the original location of WGBH-TV's transmitter. Great Blue Hill in Milton, Massachusetts, has an elevation of 635 feet (193 m) and is the highest point in the Boston area. Today, WGBH-TV's and WGBX-TV's transmitters are located at the CBS digital television facility in Needham, Massachusetts, where channel 44 originally signed on September 25, 1967; channel 2 moved there on June 18, 1966. WGBX-TV's digital service on channel 43 shares the master antenna at the very top of the tower with the commercial stations. Analog channel 44 has a separate antenna lower down that is shared with WGBH-DT on channel 19.

WGBH operates a Shaw Broadcast Services satellite uplink facility which provides Boston broadcast television stations to Canadian cable and satellite TV distributors. As a Canadian company, Shaw is not legally entitled to operate an uplink facility in the United States. Hence, it pays WGBH to perform this service on its behalf. This facility is also located at the CBS (WBZ-TV) tower in Needham.

tudios

WGBH's original studios were located at 84 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts (presently Stratton Student Center) on the campus of MIT until the building burned down in a 1961 fire. Three years later, after being based in temporary offices and using the studios of Boston's commercial television stations to produce local programming, the station moved to 125 Western Avenue in the Allston neighborhood of Boston. The ZIP code of the station and its post-office box—PO Box 350, Boston, Mass 02134—was made famous in a recurring jingle on its 1970s and late 1990s children's program, "ZOOM".

As WGBH's operations in grew, the 125 Western Avenue building proved inadequate; some administrative operations were moved across the street to 114 Western Avenue, with an overhead pedestrian bridge connecting the two buildings. By 2005, WGBH had facilities in more than a dozen buildings in the Allston area. The station's need for more studio space dovetailed with Harvard Business School's desire to expand its adjacent campus; Harvard already owned the land on which the WGBH studios were located. WGBH built a new studio complex, designed by James Polshek & Partners, in nearby Brighton, spanning the block of Market Street from Guest Street to North Beacon Street, with radio studios facing pedestrian traffic on Market Street. The postal address and lobby entrance of the new studio building is 1 Guest Street; it was inaugurated in June, 2007. Television shows and radio programs continued to shoot at the Western Avenue studios until migration to the new facility reached completion in September 2007. The old Western Avenue studios are currently empty [ http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2007/09/16/new_building_reflects_wgbhs_purpose/ New building reflects WGBH's purpose "Boston Globe" retrieved 09-21-2007 ] except for a substation of the Harvard University police department which moved in in June 2008.

Callsign history

WGBH's original transmitter was located on Great Blue Hill in Milton, Massachusetts (thus the choice of WGBH as a callsign) and the FM radio transmitter is still there. As a result, all of WGBH's TV stations have the WGB* form; channel 44 in Boston has WGBX (supposedly for Great Blue Experimental), while channel 57 in Springfield, Massachusetts has WGBY for Great Blue Yonder. There was to be a WGBW in Adams, Massachusetts at one point that would have operated on channel 35; its W was to stand for West. The callsign has since been reassigned to a radio station in Two Rivers, Wisconsin.

WGBH's callsign is occasionally jokingly expanded as "God Bless Harvard", although the station's connections with the university are at best indirect. (Harvard was one of several Boston-area universities which took part in the Lowell Institute Cooperative Broadcasting Council, and provided land on Western Avenue in Allston for the station's studios.)

Identification and sounder

WGBH's distinctive audio sounder has been aired for more than 30 years, accompanied by different animating graphics. The first such logo appeared in 1972 and can be found on the first episode of "ZOOM". The seven-second jingle begins with a bluish green background, with the letters "WGBH" in a yellow Helvetica font zooming away from the viewer. Then, the word "Boston" zooms forward (similar in motion and gradual enlargement to the V symbol in Viacom's 1976 to 1985 identification, nicknamed the V of Doom), engulfing the whole screen and creating a yellow background, after which the word "Presents" slowly zooms forward in bluish green. This ident is generally believed to be extinct, but it has surfaced on tapes of old WGBH programming (such as the 1970s version of "ZOOM", "The French Chef", and pre-1978 "NOVA" episodes) and in video clips. A black-and-white version from 1974 has also surfaced.

The same music is also used in the current ID. The "circle outline" ident, featuring two little lights forming the WGBH logo in orange (once finished, an orange "flash" began behind the outline and changed to reveal "Boston Presents" in its place) began in late 1978 at the beginning of WGBH's national shows and is among the most famous idents such as WNET's "Radar" signature. Sometime in the mid- or late 1980s, this ident, with its jagged electronic tune and dark neon lighting, had been reported to have frightened younger viewers, (indeed, many people who viewed this logo as children recollect how they feared it) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHyxC5PoaOU YouTube video of the various WGBH logos. Comments left by users tell how scary this logo was seen by children.] and in wake of this, was shortened to just the latter half and moved to the end of shows in 1993, when the sound effect was shortened to conform to PBS's desire for shorter station ID's. It is also edited out on some shows with a program's closing credits music playing over the WGBH Boston production card, such as on "Arthur" and "Between the Lions".

The full seven-second music appears in the "neon" station IDs on WGBH itself, along with different animation for the outline logo; one version features the 1993-style version flashing out to reveal the PBS logo, while the other features the outline done at first from the point of view of the tracing line, then zooming out to reveal the 'WGBH' logo rendered as a neon sign with the matching numeral 2 illuminating in white from behind.

Channels and digital services

WGBH-TV

This is the main television service of WGBH, as it is the television station first licenced by the Foundation. (This is Comcast Channel 2 and in HD Channel 702/802.) It broadcasts mixed programming during the week with childrens' programs during the day and documentary and entertainment material at night; Saturday programming focuses heavily on cooking and home improvement how-to shows.

WGBX-TV

Similar to WQED-TV in Pittsburgh, WGBH operates a secondary station, WGBX-TV. The current tagline for this station is "independent, original, 'GBH 44". It functions as a secondary station to WGBH-TV, and focuses more promenently on program genres not covered by WGBH-TV. Reruns of the previous night's programming either from WGBH-TV or from WGBX-TV itself makes up a part of this station's programming. WGBX's digital channel provides several digital side channels that rerun programming from both WGBH and from other PBS stations around the country.

* WGBX-TV 44/DT 43 Boston (also on Comcast cable channel 11/16)

WGBY-TV

WGBH also owns and manages WGBY, the PBS affiliate in the Springfield, Massachusetts market; it however has its own branding and logo and is run separately from the Boston operation. Its digital channel carries similar programming to WGBX.

Other TV services

WGBH is one of six local Boston TV stations seen in Canada on the Bell TV satellite provider.

At one point, WGBH operated a Hyannis translator on channel 8 that had the W08CH call sign, which later ceased operations. It was deleted by the FCC in 2004. [cite web | title = Call Sign History | url = http://svartifoss2.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/pubacc/prod/call_hist.pl?Facility_id=72095&Callsign=W08CH | accessdate = 2006-02-19 | publisher = Federal Communications Commission | work = CDBS Public Access ]

WGBH Online

The internet is WGBH's "third platform" - All radio and television programs have web components that are available at wgbh.org. There are also "web-only" productions:

* WGBH Forum Network — Live and archived webcasts of free public lectures in partnership with Boston's leading cultural and educational organizations - wgbh.org/forum
* WGBH Podcasts - wgbh.org/podcasts

Digital Television

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

Formerly WGBH HD showed a separate slate of programming from the analog channel to showcase PBS's high definition content; however, in 2008 it switched to a high-definition simulcast of the analog channel, with standard-definition programming presented in windowbox or letterbox format.

Major WGBH television productions

* "All About You"
* "America's Ballroom Challange"
* "American Experience"
* "Andre's Mother"
* "Antiques Roadshow"
** "Antiques Roadshow FYI"
* "Arthur"
* "Basic Black" (formerly "Say Brother")
* "Between the Lions" (with Mississippi Public Broadcasting)
* "Curious George"
* "Design Squad"
* ""
* "Discovering Psychology"
* "Don't Look Now!" (1983, a short-lived spinoff clone of the Canadian TV show You Can't Do That On Television)
* "Evening at Pops"
* "FETCH! with Ruff Ruffman" (With PBS)
* "French in Action"
* "The French Chef"
* "Frontline"
** "Frontline/World"
* "The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship"
* "Greater Boston"
* "Gourmet Magazine's Diary of a Foodie"
* "La Plaza"
* "Long Ago & Far Away"
* "Larryboy"
* "Last Chance Garage"
* "Martha Speaks" (as of September 1, 2008, co-produced by Studio B)
* "Masterpiece Theatre"
* "Mystery!"
* "NOVA"
** "NOVA scienceNOW"
* "Peep and the Big Wide World"
* "People's Century"
* "Postcards from Buster"
* "Rebop"
* "Simply Ming"
* "This Old House"
** "The New Yankee Workshop"
* "Time Warp Trio" (the only WGBH-produced show that does not air on PBS)
* "The Victory Garden"
* "War and Peace in the Nuclear Age"
* "The Western Tradition"
* "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego" (in partnership with WQED in Pittsburgh)
**"Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego" (in partnership with WQED in Pittsburgh)
* "ZOOM"

Online

* "FFFBI"
* " [http://www.teachersdomain.org Teachers' Domain] "
* "The WGBH Forum Network"
* " [http://lab.wgbh.org The WGBH Lab] "
* " [http://engineeryourlife.org Engineer Your Life] "

Podcasting

* [http://www.wgbh.org/morningstories "Morning Stories"] Public radio's first podcast directed and produced by Tony Kahn for WGBH 89.7 and WGBH.org.

Notable people who have appeared regularly in WGBH productions

* Julia Child, "The French Chef"
* James Underwood Crockett, "The Victory Garden"
* Bob Vila, "This Old House"
* Alistair Cooke, "Masterpiece Theatre"
* Russell Baker, "Masterpiece Theatre"
* Will Lyman, "Frontline"
* Gene Shalit, "Mystery!"
* Vincent Price, "Mystery!"
* Diana Rigg, "Mystery!"
* Robert Krulwich, "NOVA ScienceNOW"
* Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, "NOVA ScienceNOW"
* Christopher Lydon, "The Ten O'Clock News"
* Michael Kolowich, "The Ten O'Clock News"
* Steve Curwood, "The Ten O'Clock News"

Footnote

[http://www.wgbh.org/forum Forum Network]

External links

* [http://www.wgbh.org/ WGBH Website]
* [http://www.wgbhalumni.org/ WGBH Alumni]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHyxC5PoaOU How logos of WGBH changed]
*TVQ|WGBH
*BIA|WGBH|TV|TV