WLAE-TV,
virtual channel
In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...
32 (
UHF digital channel 23), is an
educational
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Vari ...
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
television station
A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the eart ...
licensed
A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit).
A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...
to
, United States. The station is owned by the Educational Broadcasting Foundation, a partnership between the Willwoods Community (a
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
-related organization) and the Louisiana Educational Television Authority (operator of
Louisiana Public Broadcasting
Louisiana Public Broadcasting (LPB) is a state network of Public Broadcasting Service ( PBS) member television stations serving the U.S. state of Louisiana. The stations are operated by the Louisiana Educational Television Authority, an agency c ...
, which owns the
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
member stations in Louisiana that are located outside of New Orleans). WLAE's studios are located on Howard Ave. in
, and its transmitter is located on Paris Road/
Highway 47 (northeast of
Chalmette). On
cable
Cable may refer to:
Mechanical
* Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof
* Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...
, the station is available on
Cox Communications channel 14.
History
As a PBS member station
In 1978, a group of married couples, supported by the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, formed the Willwoods Community. The organization joined forces with the Louisiana Educational Television Authority, which had been looking for a way to get its locally based programming into the state's largest market, to obtain the other non-commercial license allocated to the New Orleans
market
Market is a term used to describe concepts such as:
*Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand
*Market economy
*Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market
Geography
*Märket, an ...
. On December 14, 1981, under the banner of the "Educational Broadcasting Foundation," the partnership was granted an educational
station license from the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
(FCC).
WLAE-TV first signed on the air on July 8, 1984; it originally served as a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). WLAE-TV operated as a secondary member of the network through PBS' Program Differentiation Plan, as New Orleans' primary PBS station was
WYES-TV
WYES-TV, virtual channel 12 (VHF digital channel 11), is a Public Broadcasting Service ( PBS) member television station licensed to New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. The station is owned by the Greater New Orleans Educational Television Fou ...
(channel 12);
as a result, the station only carried 25% of the programming broadcast by PBS. As a side note, ''
Sesame Street
''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) ...
'' was one of the few programs that was shown on both stations.
In addition to offering PBS programming, WLAE also aired, and still airs, locally produced educational programs, as well as select programming from Louisiana Public Broadcasting (mostly consisting of news and
public affairs programming).
WLAE is also one of very few
public television
Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...
stations to televise a daily
Catholic Mass
The Mass is the central liturgical service of the Eucharist in the Catholic Church, in which bread and wine are consecrated and become the body and blood of Christ. As defined by the Church at the Council of Trent, in the Mass, "the same Christ ...
, presented live from the
St. Louis Cathedral in the city's Jackson Square district; PBS had tightened its restrictions regarding religious programming on member stations in 2009, although WLAE was exempted from these restrictions through a
grandfather clause
A grandfather clause, also known as grandfather policy, grandfathering, or grandfathered in, is a provision in which an old rule continues to apply to some existing situations while a new rule will apply to all future cases. Those exempt from t ...
.
[ WLAE was one of at least two PBS member stations that were owned at least in part by a Catholic-related organization (KMBH in Harlingen, Texas was the other; it is now ]Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
affiliate KFXV, owned by commercial media company Entravision Communications
Entravision Communications Corporation is an American media company based in Santa Monica, California. Entravision primarily caters to the Spanish-speaking Hispanic community and owns television and radio stations and outdoor media, in several o ...
), and one of at least three in general that were run by a religious organization (counting KBYU-TV
KBYU-TV (channel 11) is a non-commercial educational independent television station licensed to Provo, Utah, United States, serving Salt Lake City and the state of Utah. The station is owned by Brigham Young University (BYU), an arm of the Church ...
in Provo, Utah, which left PBS in 2018).
In 2000, WLAE and WYES both received a $691,000 grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is an American publicly funded non-profit corporation, created in 1967 to promote and help support public broadcasting. The corporation's mission is to ensure universal access to non-commercial, ...
to negotiate and establish joint production and master control facilities. The two stations' operators agreed to build the facility on the grounds of a Lakefront research park
The following is a list of science park, technology parks and biomedical parks of the world, organized by continent.
Asia
ASEAN Economic Community
Report listing all the Economic Zones in the ASEAN Economic Community froUNIDO Viet Nam China ...
owned by the University of New Orleans
The University of New Orleans (UNO) is a public research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is a member of the University of Louisiana System and the Urban 13 association. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High rese ...
. In 2005, WLAE and WYES planned a campaign to raise $4 million in capital on behalf of their relocation plan.[ During most of 2016, WLAE underwent a technical upgrade, preventing the airing of its programming on its three subchannels, but it is now at full programming.
]
Hurricane Katrina
When Hurricane Katrina struck the New Orleans metropolitan area
The New Orleans metropolitan area, designated the New Orleans–Metairie metropolitan statistical area by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, or simply Greater New Orleans (french: Grande Nouvelle-Orléans, es, Gran Nueva Orleans), is a me ...
on August 29, 2005, WLAE was knocked off the air due to significant damage to its transmitter. It took two years for the station's over-the-air signal to be restored. Soon after the storm, it established a direct feed to New Orleans area cable providers (including the market's largest, Cox Communications) and to satellite provider DirecTV
DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. I ...
. The station's analog signal resumed operations in January 2007, its digital signal signed on the air for the first time two months later in March 2007.
Meanwhile, the University of New Orleans campus suffered major damage due to the storm. WYES and WLAE management agreed to forgo plans to build the new studio facility at the research park. Instead, the money earmarked for that project was used to purchase new master control equipment to replace the equipment at the WLAE studios that had been damaged by the storm.[
]
As an educational independent station
On August 1, 2013, WLAE ended its membership with PBS to increase its focus on its locally produced programming; WYES became the market's exclusive PBS station once again as a result. The station had contemplated the move since the Louisiana state government reduced the station's funding by $270,000 in 2010. The decision to drop PBS programming was estimated to save the station around $130,000 annually (out of an annual budget of $2.3 million), allowing WLAE to invest the money into its local productions. The station's departure from PBS resulted in the ''PBS NewsHour
''PBS NewsHour'' is an American evening television news program broadcast on over 350 PBS member stations. It airs seven nights a week, and is known for its in-depth coverage of issues and current events.
Anchored by Judy Woodruff, the pro ...
'' only being available through WYES-TV's World
In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...
subchannel on digital channel 12.2 until it was added to that station's primary channel the following month on September 2, 2013; the program had aired on WLAE under a longstanding arrangement with WYES.[ The station is considering entering into production and business partnerships with WYES.][
]
Digital television
Digital channels
The station's digital signal is multiplexed
In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...
:
Analog-to-digital conversion
WLAE-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 32, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcasts on its pre-transition UHF channel 31. Through the use of PSIP
The Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) is the MPEG (a video and audio industry group) and privately defined program-specific information originally defined by General Instrument for the DigiCipher 2 system and later extended for the AT ...
, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel
In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...
as its former UHF analog channel 32.
Programming
As a non-commercial independent station, much of WLAE's programming currently consists of locally produced programs as well as programs distributed by American Public Television
American Public Television (APT) is an American nonprofit organization and syndicator of programming for public television stations in the United States. It distributes public television programs nationwide for PBS member stations and indepe ...
(APT) and other distributors of syndicated public television programs. The station's original productions include the hour-long health discussion program ''Hello Health'' (which debuted in 2008 under a partnership with the Ochsner Medical Center
Ochsner Medical Center, historically also known as Ochsner Clinic, Ochsner Hospital, and Ochsner Foundation Hospital, is a hospital in Jefferson, Louisiana, a short distance from the city limits of New Orleans. It is a part of Ochsner Health S ...
); the legal discussion program ''John Redman: Power of Attorney''; the Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to viceroyalties forme ...
-targeted monthly magazine series ''Conexiones''; interior design
Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordi ...
how-to program ''Chet Chat''; and interview and discussion program ''Ringside Politics''.[ It also airs many programs from part-owner LPB, including its flagship news program, ''Louisiana: The State We're In.''
]
See also
*Catholic television
Catholic television refers to television networks and programs based on the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Networks
Argentina
* Canal Orbe 21, HQ; Buenos Aires
Brazil
* Canção Nova, HQ; Cachoeira Paulista
* Rede Aparecida, HQ; Aparecid ...
*Catholic television channels
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
*Catholic television networks
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
References
External links
WLAE.com
- WLAE official website
willwoods.org
- The Willwoods Community official website
{{Public broadcasting in the United States
Television stations in New Orleans
Independent television stations in the United States
Catholic television channels
Television channels and stations established in 1984
1984 establishments in Louisiana