Corporation for Public Broadcasting awards grant to WBGU-PBS

WBGU-PBS has been awarded a Digital Distribution Fund grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The $217,000 grant will cover half the cost of updating the station’s master control area and increasing digital storage capacity.

“Great thanks goes to Director of Technical Services Al Bowe and his team for their leadership in creating a plan that ties so well into new digital technology,” said WBGU-PBS General Manager Patrick Fitzgerald. “This grant will help us to achieve new efficiencies in monitoring, storing and moving content in the new digital age.”

As with most public television stations, the primary goal during WBGU’s conversion to digital broadcasting in August 2003 was to get a signal on the air, while maintaining the analog broadcast signal used by the vast majority of the station’s viewers.

Master control upgrades will enable one person to monitor and control the station’s five different program channels and enable audio and video elements such as weather warnings and graphics to be inserted on each digital channel.

Increasing the station’s digital storage capacity will enable WBGU to store and transport local programs digitally, which will preserve program quality, improve station workflow and result in significant cost savings.

“We’ll be able to retire our 20-year-old tape machines,” says Bowe. “We’ll save money on tape stock, and at the same time reduce the number of steps and the multitude of hours it presently takes to get programs on the air.”