6/27/08

WQPT announces new program schedule
and new upcoming local programs

WQPT will soon be celebrating our 25th anniversary as THE local public television station for the greater Quad Cities area. It’s a milestone that we take great pride in and one that our viewers and supporters helped make possible.

Last year, the WQPT staff and the board of directors of the Greater Quad Cities Telecommunications Corporation embarked upon a strategic planning process that was designed to evaluate how we serve the public and to determine what adjustments might be appropriate as we begin our next 25 years.

That process included an intensive review of funding, organizational, and programming issues. The result was a blueprint for how we will best serve our viewers with quality public television programming and services, and how we will ensure that WQPT thrives and is able to provide those services into the future.

Black Hawk College, where we are today, has been a great partner for WQPT for the past 25 years. There are changes happening and challenges ahead in the world of higher education, and much like WQPT’s own strategic planning process, the College has been forced to examine what their budget can or cannot support, and what is most central to their mission. It is already well known that WQPT is no longer part of Black Hawk’s budget, although we continue to be a department of the college, and the college continues to support the station with space and in-kind services.

Not all of the facets of our strategic plan have been implemented. Over the course of the next one to two years, we’ll be looking at potential organizational changes, developing new revenue sources, and determining who our operating partners will be and where we may be physically located.

The new schedule that we are announcing today is designed to provide a greater variety of programs in television markets where most of the viewers have access to more than one public television station, as is true in the Quad Cities region. Our intent is to improve the variety of programs by eliminating some of the duplication between stations and focusing on those genres that have the most appeal to viewers in this region.

PBS is perhaps the best known, but not the only source of great programs for public TV stations. We already use a number of other sources and we will rely more heavily upon those. Many favorite PBS programs will remain in our schedule, some will be on a new day and time, and we’ll be bringing new series to our viewers that have never been offered before in the Quad Cities. That is perhaps the most exciting part of the new schedule. It gives us the flexibility, as a locally programmed public TV station, to determine which programs have more appeal to our viewers, and to place them in our lineup. Utilizing a greater variety of programming sources also allows WQPT to significantly reduce our annual payments to PBS, which helps address the budget deficit created by the withdrawal of Black Hawk College funding.

Some of the changes will include an expanded block of programs in the afternoons from 10 am to 2:30pm on weekdays that appeal to adult viewers. At the same time, we are keeping our emphasis on children’s programming by offering 5 to 6 hours of quality PBS kid’s shows per day.

For our viewers that like interview and public affairs shows, “Charlie Rose” has a new home at 5:30pm, in addition to the earlier showing at 1:00pm.

Our schedule includes new series like Wild! and Jonathan Bird’s Blue World for nature lovers, History Project for history fans and Everyday Edisons for the inventor in you.

Our existing local programs “Perspective with Susan McPeters” and “Quad City Life and Times” are joined by a new locally produced cooking program, “Recipe Re-Do” that premieres on July 3.

Increased local programming is a goal of our strategic plan, and we intend to unveil more programs in the months ahead, along with plans to have them available as “video on demand” on our website.

Other familiar programs remain in the schedule, such as Nature, NOVA, Antiques Roadshow, Lawrence Welk, Classic Gospel, This Old House, American Experience, Independent Lens, Austin City Limits, Great Performances and many others.

As with any change, there will be adjustments for viewers as they get accustomed to the new schedule. However, we are confident that those who appreciate public TV will have a greater selection of programs that will serve them better in the years ahead.

For additional information, please contact WQPT at 309/796-2424
or toll-free at 1-800/747-2430.