WHYY-TV

WHYY-TV (channel 12) is a television station licensed to Wilmington, Delaware, United States, serving as the primary PBS member station for the Philadelphia area. It is owned by WHYY, Inc., alongside NPR member station WHYY-FM 90.9. WHYY-TV and WHYY-FM share studios and offices on Independence Mall in Center City, Philadelphia, with an additional office in Wilmington; through a channel sharing agreement with WMCN-TV (channel 44), the two stations transmit using WHYY-TV's spectrum from an antenna in Philadelphia's Roxborough section.

WHYY-TV is one of four PBS member stations serving the Philadelphia market, alongside Philadelphia-licensed WPPT (channel 35), Allentown-based WLVT-TV (channel 39), and NJ PBS (channels 23 and 52). In southern Delaware and on the Delmarva Peninsula, WHYY-TV is seen on WDPB (channel 64), a full-time rebroadcaster in Seaford, Delaware.

WHYY-TV was established in 1957 on channel 35 in Philadelphia as the first educational TV station in the city. Seeking to expand its coverage area, it successfully filed to use channel 12 in Wilmington, which was left vacant after the closing of a commercial station, and moved its primary programming there in 1963. It also opened a Wilmington studio and began producing Delaware-oriented public affairs programming.

History

The channel 35 years

In May 1951, Philadelphia's Board of Education first considered the idea of asking for an educational television channel, either Philadelphia's 35 in the newly created UHF band or the channel 12 allocation at Wilmington, for use by the city schools and other organizations. A $150,000 grant from the Ford Foundation was received in 1953, when the Delaware Valley Educational Television Corporation was chartered and filed for channel 35. A year later, the Philadelphia Educational Radio Corporation, a consortium of schools and colleges, launched WHYY (90.9 FM), the city's first noncommercial radio service, on December 15, 1954.

With WHYY radio in operation, the focus shifted to giving birth to WHYY television. After the organization changed its name to the Metropolitan Philadelphia Educational Radio and Television Corporation, it received a construction permit in March 1956 for a station on UHF channel 35, the designated educational television channel for the city. That April, WHYY negotiated a five-year lease of the former WCAU-TV studios at 1622 Chestnut Street. Plans called for a weekly output of 25 hours of programming. The station appeared ready to go on November 26, 1956. Twelve city schools were being equipped with UHF-capable sets to receive the programs; a two-page feature entitled "This Is WHYY" ran in a late October edition of ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' Magazine; and test patterns were being broadcast. However, an unexpected snag emerged between station management and the school board. It had committed $100,000 to finance the station but instead opted to give only $75,000, diverting the remainder to a management study of the new outlet by a New York firm. The school board wanted control to be based on financial contributions, which would have given it more power in station decision-making, and there were also concerns that the UHF station would suffer from the inability of all television sets to tune that band (as television sets were not required to include UHF tuning until the All-Channel Receiver Act took effect in 1964).

The school board's decision set WHYY-TV back nearly a year; after an agreement was reached to reorganize the board of directors and for the chairman and president of WHYY to present their resignations, the last obstacle was removed in February, with the station finally debuting on September 16, 1957. Six months after start-up, the first nighttime programs were presented by the station to complement daytime instructional output.

The fight for channel 12

WHYY-TV had been on the air in Philadelphia for a year when events further down the Delaware River transpired that would have a major effect on the young station. Channel 12 in Wilmington had been occupied by WVUE, a commercial station. WVUE closed in September 1958, a casualty of ownership complications and financial losses, and within a week of its shutdown, committees involving Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey legislators were formed to study the feasibility of procuring channel 12 for regional educational broadcasting use while maintaining channel 35.

WHYY was not the only entity interested in channel 12. Other applicants also filed for authority to build it as a commercial station. As Delaware groups marshaled a demonstration in Washington in support of designating the VHF channel for educational use, the FCC convened hearings with WHYY and four commercial applicants to start in October 1960, then delayed into 1961.

The four commercial applicants each had configurations of television experience and political backing. Metropolitan Broadcasting (renamed Metromedia in April 1961), owner of independent television stations in Washington (WTTG) and New York City (WNEW-TV) as well as Philadelphia's WIP radio, had taken an option on a $185,000 parcel of land in Wilmington for potential facilities. National Telefilm Associates, another owner of a New York City-area station (WNTA-TV); locally based Rollins Broadcasting, owned by former lieutenant governor John W. Rollins and his brother O. Wayne Rollins and owner of Wilmington radio station WAMS (1380 AM); and Wilmington Television, a private firm owned by primarily Midwest backers led by Egmont Sonderling, were also in the running. National Telefilm and Wilmington Television bowed out in February 1961, leaving Metropolitan, Rollins, and WHYY. Just as oral hearings finally commenced in October, Metromedia unexpectedly withdrew despite having prepared voluminous exhibits and materials in support of its case; no reason was given.

With the fight having been winnowed to two, oral hearing centered around program proposals and Rollins's record as a broadcaster with WAMS, which WHYY charged to be poor. Rollins attacked WHYY for leading a letter-writing campaign to the FCC that constituted illegal ''ex parte'' communications to the commission. WHYY contended Wilmington had enough commercial service from Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Salisbury, Maryland, stations; Rollins believed Delaware could support a commercial station with a strong public service component, claiming WHYY was dominated by Philadelphia interests.

It took months for FCC hearing examiner Walther Guenther to render an initial decision, which Delaware's U.S. representative, Harris McDowell, criticized as a product of a slow comparative hearing process. The decision, handed down in late September, awarded the channel to WHYY. Guenther found that, although WAMS operated in the public interest, there was a "distinctly greater need" for a VHF educational TV channel than for another commercial service; he favored WHYY on diversity of media ownership over Rollins's nine radio and three television stations but Rollins on its ability to air paid political programming and its familiarity with the area. Instead of appealing, Rollins withdrew on November 13, 1962, paving the way for WHYY to win a channel 12 construction permit on December 26. (Wilmington 12 only)

Expanding to Wilmington and growth in Philadelphia

After Rollins dropped out, WHYY began planning for the needed physical plant to activate the channel. It announced it would be a two-city operation with studios in Wilmington and Philadelphia, having already obtained an option on land for a transmitter site at Glassboro, New Jersey

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