TOM RIELAND

From the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains to the plains of Wapakoneta, these days the high lonesome sound of bluegrass and other roots-style music can be heard almost anywhere in Ohio. Rich Baker, a bluegrass musician and a host of the weekend Bluegrass Ramble radio show on WOSU-AM in Columbus, says the genre’s deep Ohio roots are currently enjoying a quiet renaissance. “Bluegrass has always had its ups and downs, but it’s stronger than it’s ever been right now,” he says.

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Kevin Martin, the chairman of the FCC, is touring Ohio on Tuesday to get press coverage about the February 17th transition from analog to digital broadcasting. We’ve worked with Christine Merritt, Executive Director of Ohio Assn of Broadcasters to arrange Martin’s appearance at a public forum at WOSU@COSI at 3:30 pm, Tuesday, January 6th. Everyone is invited. If you are interested, stop by COSI and meet the current FCC Chairman.

Here’s an interview Martin gave to Broadcasting magazine just last week about DTV.

Over the holidays, I came across the first line of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and was inspired to use it as a review of where we are in the world of public media at WOSU. Tell me your thoughts.

“It was the best of times;”

The Obama administration platform plans to foster “the next generation of public media,” and “support the transition of existing public broadcasting entities and help renew their founding vision in the digital world.” A nice change compared to the previous administration, which zeroed out public broadcasting’s minimal federal support every budget. Let’s hope the Obama camp understands the power of public media to transform communities.

“it was the worst of times;”

The state of Ohio faces an incredible $7.3 billion shortfall in the next two-year budget. In the past two years, the state has substantially reduced support for public broadcasting. What’s next?

“it was the age of wisdom;”

Digital broadcasting was conceived for all the wrong reasons over a decade ago, but it may be the savior for over-the-air broadcasters like WOSU. We can provide more public service – more national and local programming – and better quality. We’ve become what I call “bitcasters” rather than broadcasters as we creatively think about splitting our digital signal to provide a number of new services in the future (i.e. mobile television, emergency alerts).

“it was the age of foolishness;”

As the February 17th federally mandated transition to digital broadcasting looms, the federal government is trying to help us transition analog television sets to digital, but many will still find their television broadcasts disappear in about six weeks.

As of today, some 8 million U.S. households are unprepared for the transition. The government has failed to focus the necessary funding and resources on those most in need of the financial and technical support – the poor and the elderly. Instead, they’re spending $1.3 billion on a coupon program for everyone with an analog TV. The money is great, but it is not placed where it is needed most. We made a special request to NTIA (the government org responsible for the converter coupon program) to assist us with coupons for our unique partnership with LifeCare Alliance and COAAA to help those most in need with the transition. We were turned down flat.

“it was the epoch of belief;”

We have faith that public media will survive this time of economic distress, because it is one of the only trusted media left in the country. As we’ve seen in Detroit and Chicago recently, the newspaper industry is in great distress. Media as a whole seems hyper focused on either entertainment or political extremes. It’s an opportune time for NPR, PBS and local public media to establish their base as providing serious journalism. If we do, we believe you support it.

“it was the epoch of incredulity:”

We are astonished to see our endowments shrink, our governmental funds at great risk, but also amazed at the commitment of our membership and underwriters, despite the times.

“it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair;”

We can only believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel – that public media stations across America won’t go dark as they face serious fiscal challenges. While WOSU has been able to weather the storm so far, many stations (WGBH - Boston, Chicago Public Radio, Maine Public Broadcasting, and many others) have trimmed their staff due to budget shortfalls. Even NPR has faced a “winter of despair” cutting 64 employees and the programs Day to Day and News & Notes.

“we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.”

At WOSU, we have such an amazing opportunity to use the new technologies for public service rather than profit. There is a necessity in this complex world for a non-commercial, nonprofit, locally based media organization. To assure that, we are changing before our eyes, developing more programming through unique partnerships, engaging the public online and through social media tools, and building new digital media streams. A single local radio or television program has relevance well beyond broadcast now and often the online value exceeds that of broadcast.

On February 17th, after 53 years on the air, the analog channel 34 disappears from the Columbus landscape and is replaced, incredibly, by WOSU HD (our new primary channel), WOSU Ohio, and WOSU Create. Three channels take the place of one. WOSU FM has two HD Radio channels and soon a third – expanding its public service remarkably due to digital technology.

It’s been an expensive ride, but we do believe we have “everything before us…”

What do you think?

I often seem caught in a twilight zone between the digital future and my old friendly analog past. The other night I was coming home late and decided to surf AM to tune in the Packers/Bears game. It brought me back 30 years, when I was a weekend DJ at a station, WCOW (really), in Sparta, Wisconsin. I would work until midnight and drive the 40 minutes home listening to AM stations in Chicago (WLS, 890), Little Rock (KARK, 920) and the Mutual Radio Network out of Miami, which had a hotshot radio host named Larry King. The same Larry King who started a show at CNN in 1985 (he’s not nearly as good an interviewer as he was on radio).

The AM signal skips around at night and the so-called AM superstations can be picked up far and wide. I was able to listen to my Packers overtime loss listening to the New Orleans station (WWL, 870). By the way, the reason WOSU 820 goes to low power at night is because the FCC designated WBAP 820 AM in Arlington, Texas as a clear channel station, which means they can send out 50,000 watts at night. Apparently, even a full power 820 signal in Columbus might interfere with this station in Texas.

Contrast my AM surfing with this social media tidbit from CNET News:

Google will be mapping Santa Claus’ trek from the icy North Pole to rooftops around the globe on Christmas Eve. But this year, good girls and boys can track their gifts via mobile phones and Twitter, too. Starting at 3 a.m. PST on Wednesday, a Google Map with Santa’s current location will be displayed on the NORAD Santa Web site, operated by Google and the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Google will be displaying high-resolution “Santa Cam” video of the gift-laden airborne sleigh. And for the first time, people can track Santa’s journey on mobile phones with Google Maps for Mobile and follow him on Twitter by adding “@noradsanta.”

I think I’ll send Santa a twitter suggesting he surf the AM dial and let us know what cool stations he can pick up.

On the evening of Wednesday, December 17th, the leadership of all of the commercial television stations in Columbus gathered at WOSU to take part in a special phone bank.

At 7:30 that evening, the Columbus broadcast stations posted a slate on the screen for five minutes, which basically said that if you are seeing this, you need to do something or your television signal will go away in two months. The screen was only transmitted over-the-air to analog viewers throughout central Ohio.

This was part of a statewide and national effort to signal the change to digital television and provide information to those unaware of the federally mandated switch on February 17th. What happened? Well, the phones at WOSU didn’t ring off the hook as expected, at first. The national phone bank hired to handle the calls was designed to provide information about common questions and then send viewers to the local phone bank. Unfortunately, the national phone bank was overwhelmed by calls starting at 7:30 pm and many people could not get through.

Working with Christine Merritt of the Ohio Association of Broadcasters, the local managers decided to bypass the national phones and promote the local number with a crawl on the screen. Once the crawl showed up, the phones started going strong and we counted about 350 calls over an hour or so period.

Many of the callers wanted to know if the federal coupons were available and we had that information at the ready. Others had the converters, but had signal issues and we discussed placement of antennas. There are folks who have been getting analog TV fine who will have to invest in an outside antenna to get digital signals. There are so many converter boxes out there that it was most difficult to help people with those issues, but the folks we had here did their very best.

It’s likely we’ll try this again on January 12th, so stay tuned for a post about that evening. Remember that while many have cable or satellite in Columbus, there are an “estimated” 100,000 households who have over-the-air free TV as their primary provider. That translates into over 200,000 people. And that doesn’t even count those of us with over-the-air on our third televisions.

A side note — my 15 year old daughter asked me last night to fix her bedroom TV, which gets over the air digital TV with a zenith converter box. She wanted to watch WOSU Create, which she has become addicted to. I simply moved her rabbit ears antenna about three inches (toward our tower in Westerville) and things cleared up nicely. I wish all the digital TV issues were that easy!

Apply online for government coupons to help buy converter boxes: www.dtv2009.gov
Troubleshoot some antenna issues at www.antennaweb.org

A glimpse behind the scenes of the telephone action at WOSU when the analog signal was shut down briefly:

The annual WOSU holiday party included a wonderful potluck with staff, board and friends, who brought boxes of canned goods to contribute to the Mid-Ohio food bank as entry to the party. It was also an opportunity to honor a few of our own. We have two awards honoring staff, who are nominated by their colleagues and then chosen by a committee of past winners and board members. The first is called the I. Keith Tyler Award, named for the long time educator and trailblazer in educational radio at Ohio State. This year’s award went to our 30 year veteran as TV Station Manager, Ed Clay, who is retiring this summer.

The second award was formed just a few years ago after I learned about the career of Robert C. Higgy (pictured at right). We decided a technology achievement award was most appropriate for our organization. The 2008 honoree is Mike Meadows, Chief Engineer for WOSU Radio, who was instrumental in assuring the technological success of our new radio studio complex. We were blessed to have join us that evening Mr. Higgy’s daughter, who lives in Athens.

Let me tell you just a few things about the amazing Mr. Higgy. A Columbus boy, he was just 16 years old when his electrical communications expertise was put to work. He was called by Ohio State to help teach WWI soldiers about communications. By the time he graduated from OSU, he had put WOSU AM on the air (1922). It was one of a handful of educational stations on the air in the early 20s and the station was the first in Columbus. It originally had the call letters WEAO, which stood for Willing Eager Athletic Ohio.

By the late 20s, he had wired the campus to broadcast 300 lectures every school year and began radio broadcasts of the Buckeyes from Ohio Stadium. Higgy went on to put our FM station and TV station on the air, before retiring in the early 1960s after 42 years of service.

Robert Higgy’s legacy will live with us forever. And I just wanted you to know a bit about one of the giants whose shoulders we stand on today at WOSU.

The November 19^th Columbus Dispatch headline, “ESPN deal for BCS a victory for viewers,” could not have been more misleading. The deal is certainly not a victory for over 100,000 households in central Ohio unable to view, for the first time, the major collegiate bowl games, including the national championship.

Some of these viewers have made the choice to stick to free television rather than get cable or satellite TV. They could afford pay TV, but opt-out. However, the Dispatch piece ignores the disenfranchisement of the most impoverished segment of this community, who cannot afford pay television.

One thing we all share in this community—no matter our status or wealth—is the sense that we are all a part of a bigger community and that we all experience the enormous pride that goes with cheering on an Ohio State victory. With this $125 million contract with ESPN, college football has successfully isolated those arguably most in need of this entertainment in their life. It means after 2011, a large swath of Columbus will be unable to watch the Buckeyes in a major bowl game. In fact, it should be noted this is the first time a major sports championship game will be unavailable to broadcast-only television audiences.

ESPN believes that everyone will have pay television by 2011, but with more channels and better quality pictures available through the digital conversion (not to mention the poor economy), I believe more people may begin to choose free over-the-air digital television.

One solution would be to have the ESPN-owned ABC broadcast network pick up the games and broadcast on their ABC affiliates. Local stations like Channel 6 could even broadcast on their second or third digital channel. ESPN’s president, George Bodenheimer, however, said the network planned to keep all of the games on ESPN and not broadcast any on local ABC stations.

Where is the sense in a decision that excludes 14 million homes in America—over 100,000 in Columbus from enjoying one of the premier sporting events in the country?

We hope everyone reconsiders their assumptions about the viewers in America and rallies in support of those who can’t afford or simply choose not to be part of our wired world.

The headline is from a quote of a resident of the Bryden House in Columbus, where a few dozen volunteers spent last Saturday installing digital conversion boxes. WOSU coordinated this unique effort in the country to serve the most at-risk by making their old analog televisions able to receive digital signals through a converter box. With our social service partners, volunteers at Bryden and other locations across Columbus installed about150 boxes and contributed over 300 volunteer efforts to do so. It’s a start. At Bryden, which provides low-income apartments, folks were very appreciative of our efforts. They were used to getting a few stations on analog, but with the converter boxes, most received 11 channels (3 from WOSU) of programming that was extremely sharp.

When the some 50 volunteers gathered back at WOSU, we heard about issues related to reception, antennas, ancient TVs without RF connections and more. We’ll be planning more installations as part of our special HELP YOUR NEIGHBOR project, which culminates on February 17th when all analog transmissions go away. There are thousands in Columbus with over-the-air TV and few means to make the transition. We’re trying to help with our partners LifeCare Alliance and Central Ohio Area Agency on Aging.

If you are interested in helping, we need funds to help pay for the boxes and antennas — for every $20 contribution, we can help someone needy make the transition and keep watching TV, which is so important to their lives. For many its their only lifeline to the outside world.

Go to www.wosu.org/dtv for more information about our project. We’re planning to install more boxes in the community after the first of the year. You can volunteer by contacting WOSU at 292-9678.

Let me know your thoughts on this project.

There is a candidate running this year for the Ohio State Legislature who I’ve known for some time. I talked with him the other day and he bemoaned the fact that to run an effective campaign for a legislator job at the Statehouse will cost about a half million dollars. I don’t think any of us can imagine the sacrifice public servants go through to run for office. The fundraising, the time and effort, the public scrutiny and too often the negative television spots full of deceptive half-truths. I admire anyone running for office, no matter the party, but also wonder how many people reject any consideration of becoming a public servant because of the impact on their personal and professional lives. It’s too bad.

From the Columbus Dispatch 10-19-08 “The best candidate is one who leaves the house in the morning, campaigns all day, comes home and passes out in his suit, then gets up and does it again the next day,” preached Pete O’Grady, a former state party chairman.

On a related note, WOSU was proud to host two congressional debates over the past month for the 12th and 15th districts in central Ohio. Again, I was impressed with all the candidates involved. I appreciated their agreement to a debate without much format, which was ably led by our News Director Mike Thompson. The debates in our WOSU@COSI studios were well attended and broadcast “live” on 820 AM and WOSU TV. Special thanks to our friends (that’s you Mary Jo) at Time Warner for agreeing to support the productions. Watch these debates online, checkout the local and national races with tons of perspective stories and check out our election blog, which includes a fine piece by local historian Ed Lentz on the shortest presidency in history. http://www.wosu.org/election/

A major part of my job revolves around representing WOSU to the Columbus area community. Those efforts often put me in some interesting situations, meeting some wonderful people. Such was the case tonight when I sat at a dinner party with the Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court Thomas Moyer. There is always the fear in these situations that you will have little in common with someone of Justice Moyer’s status, but he quickly put me at ease by telling me that many years ago he served on the WOSU Friends Board. Justice Moyer, a native of Sandusky, is a history buff and was interested that I had produced a number of historical documentaries. He has studied closely the Battle of Lake Erie (a key battle in the War of 1812), which I knew little about. It is always interesting to see how multi-dimensional folks are. Thanks, Justice Moyer, for a memorable night!