KQED (TV)

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = KQED
city =
station_
station_slogan =
station_branding = KQED
analog = 9 (VHF)
digital = 30 (UHF)
other_chs = KQET ch.25 analog / ch.58 digital, Watsonville/Monterey/Salinas, California
subchannels = 9.1 HD 9.2 KTEH 9.3 PBS World
affiliations = PBS
network =
founded =
airdate = 1954
location = San Francisco, California
callsign_meaning = Quod Erat Demonstrandum
former_callsigns =
former_channel_numbers =
owner = Northern California Public Broadcasting, Inc.
licensee =
sister_stations = KQED-FM
former_affiliations = NET (1954-1970)
effective_radiated_power = 316 kW (analog)
777 kW (digital)
HAAT = 509 m (analog)
437 m (digital)
class =
facility_id = 35500
coordinates = coord|37|45|18.8|N|122|27|10.4|W|type:landmark_scale:2000|name=KQED
homepage = [http://www.kqed.org/ www.kqed.org]

KQED is a PBS-member station in San Francisco, California, broadcasting on VHF channel 9. This channel is also carried on Comcast cable TV and via satellite by DirecTV and Dish Network. Its transmitter is located on Sutro Tower in San Francisco.

KQED Public Television 9 is one of the nation's most-watched public television stations during primetime [ [http://www.kqed.org/about/ About KQED] ] .

Noteworthy KQED television productions include the first installment of Armistead Maupin's miniseries "Tales of the City", "Tongues Untied by Marlon Riggs", and a series of programs focusing on the historic neighborhoods in San Francisco, such as The Castro and The Fillmore District. Ongoing productions include "The Josh Kornbluth Show", "California Connected", "Check, Please! Bay Area", "Spark", "This Week in Northern California" and "QUEST" [ [http://www.kqed.org/quest/about More information - KQED QUEST ] ] .

History

KQED was organized and created by veteran broadcast journalists James Day and Jonathan Rice June 1, 1953 and first went on air April 5, 1954. It was the sixth public broadcasting station in the United States, debuting shortly after WQED in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The station's call letters, "Q.E.D.", literally translated from the Latin phrase, "quod erat demonstrandum", meaning "which was to be demonstrated."

In its early days following sign-on, KQED broadcast only twice a week for one hour each day. Despite the very limited schedule, the station was still losing money, leading to a decision in early 1955 from its board of trustees to close down the station. Its staff got the board to keep the station on the air and try to get needed funds from the public in a form of a televised auction, in which celebrities would appear to auction off goods and services donated to the station. While the station still came a little short, it did show that the general public cared to keep KQED on the air. Since then, the auction became a fund-raising tool for many public television stations, though its usage waned in recent years in favor of increased usage of special pledge drives throughout the year. [ "Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television", by Erik Barnouw; Oxford University Press, 1982]

KQED Television had a sister station, KQEC, which broadcast on Channel 32. KQED had inherited the station in 1970 (as KNEW-TV) from Metromedia, but found they could not operate it without losing money. Various PBS and locally produced programs from KQED would air erratically and at different times of the day on KQEC. In 1988, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revoked KQED's license to operate KQEC, citing excessive off-air time, further charging dishonesty in previous filings with regard to the specific reasons. The alleged dishonesty was in reference to KQED's claim of financial woes for keeping KQEC off the air for most of 1972 through 1977, and again for several months in 1979 and 1980. After being revoked from KQED, the reassigned license was granted to the Minority Television Project (MTP), one of the challengers of the KQED/KQEC filing. [cite news
url = http://www.current.org/ptv/ptv888kqed.shtml
title = FCC revokes license for San Francisco public TV station KQEC
publisher = Current.org
author = Alex Friend
date = 11 May 1988
accessdate = 2007-01-17 ] The KQEC call letters were changed to KMTP-TV under the new license.

On May 1, 2006, KQED, Inc. and the KTEH Foundation merged to form Northern California Public Broadcasting. [cite press release
url = http://www.kqed.org/press/newsevents/47.jsp
title = KQED, Inc. and KTEH Foundation Form New Broadcast Organization
publisher = KQED Pressroom
date = 2 May 2006
accessdate = 2007-01-17 ] The KQED assets including its television (KQED TV) and FM radio stations (KQED-FM) were taken under the umbrella of that new organization. Both remain members of Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR), respectively.

Controversies

"Televising executions"

During the early 1990s, when the State of California reinstituted the death penalty, the KQED organization waged a highly controversial legal battle for the right to televise the forthcoming execution of Robert Alton Harris at San Quentin State Prison. [cite web
url = http://journalism.indiana.edu/resources/ethics/getting-the-story/witness-to-an-execution/
title = Witness to an execution
publisher = Indiana University School of Journalism
author = Michael Schwarz
date =
accessdate = 2007-01-17 ] The decision to pursue the videotaping of executions was controversial amongst those on both sides of the capital punishment debate; [cite news
url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,973102,00.html
title = The Ultimate Horror Show
publisher = TIME Magazine
author = Jill Smolowe
date = 3 June 1991
accessdate = 2007-01-17 ] contemporary reports noted that a number of KQED's members (primarily families throughout the Bay Area) dropped their financial support for the station, intending for their charitable contributions to KQED to support programs such as Sesame Street rather than legal fees.Fact|date=February 2007

"Tales of the City"

KQED was co-producer of the television adaptation of Armistead Maupin's novel, "Tales of the City", which aired on PBS stations nationwide in January 1994. The six-part miniseries stirred controversy over the gay themes, nudity and illicit drug use in this fictional portrayal of life in 1970s San Francisco. The controversy led to calls from the public to cancel the series, a bomb threat at WTCI in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which forced that station to pull the program an hour before airtime, and threats from state and federal governments to cut funding for the network and its stations. Although the program gave PBS its highest ratings ever for a dramatic program, the network decided to forgo participation in the production of an adaptation of the second book in the series, "More Tales of the City".

Digital television

KQED-DT is an ATSC digital television signal broadcast over channel 30 from Sutro Tower available over-the-air with a digital tuner, or through digital cable service from Comcast.cite web
url = http://www.comcast.com/customers/clu/channelLineup.ashx
title = Comcast San Francisco Channel Lineup
publisher = Comcast
accessdate = 2007-01-17 ] With either, there is an offering of three sub-channels:

High-Definition
* KQED HD on DT9.1 / 30.1 (Comcast 709)
Standard-Definition
* KTEH on DT9.2 / 30.2 (Comcast 10)
* KQED World on DT9.3 / 30.3 (Comcast 190)

KQET

KQED's television programming is repeated in the Monterey/Salinas/Santa Cruz market on KQET, analog channel 25 and digital channel 58, licensed to Watsonville.

KQET was founded in 1989 as KCAH, a locally-owned PBS member station that served the Monterey area.

In the late 1990s, San Jose PBS member station KTEH acquired KCAH, making it a satellite of KTEH.

KCAH changed its call letters to KQET on August 12, 2007, months after the merger of KQED and KTEH. On October 1, 2007, KQET switched programming sources from KTEH to KQED. [cite web|year= 2006 |url= http://www.kteh.org/tv/kqetschedule.pdf |title= KQET Fall 2007 Schedule | accessdate = 2007-10-16]

Radio

Publishing

In 1955, KQED began publishing a programming guide called "KQED in Focus". The program guide began to add more articles and took on the character of a regular magazine. The name was later changed to "Focus Magazine" and then to "San Francisco Focus". [ [http://www.kqed.org/about/history/1950s.jsp "About KQED: The 1950s"] , "KQED.com".] In 1984, a new programming guide, "Fine Tuning" was separated off from "Focus", with "Focus" carrying on as a self-contained magazine. [ [http://www.kqed.org/about/history/1980s.jsp "About KQED: The 1980s"] , "KQED.com".] In the early 1990s, "San Francisco Focus" was the recipient of number of journalism and publishing awards, including a National Headliner Award for feature writing in 1993. In 1997, KQED sold "San Francisco Focus" to Diablo Publications in order to pay off debts. [ [http://www.kqed.org/about/history/1990s.jsp "About KQED: The 1990s"] , "KQED.com".] In 2005, "San Francisco Focus" was resold to Modern Luxury Media, who rebranded the magazine as simply "San Francisco". [ [http://www.sanfran.com/files/pressroom/ModernLuxury_release1.pdf "San Francisco" magazine re-launches in a new format that redefines city and luxury magazine publishing"] (press release), Modern Luxury Media, October 18, 2005.]

References

External links

* KQED [http://www.kqed.org/ Official website]
* California Connected [http://www.californiaconnected.org Official website]
* This Week in Northern California [http://thisweek.kqed.org Official website]
*TVQ|KQED
*BIA|KQED|TV|TV
*TVQ|KQET
*BIA|KQET|TV|TV
* [http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=80&q=call%3dKQED%26type%3dA KQED-TV (analog) coverage map]
* [http://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=80&q=call%3dKQED%26type%3dD KQED-DT (digital) coverage map]
* [http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R610131000 Forum discusses proposed changes to KQED's bylaws, which would eliminate members' voting rights.]
* [http://www.kqed.org/about/newsevents/bylaws-vote-results.jsp Results of Member Elections include the elimination of their voting rights]
* [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/11/10/18328603.php KQED Workers Authorize Strike]
* [http://radiotime.com/station/s_34804/KQED-FM_88.5.aspx Programming information]