TOM RIELAND

At 7am on March 31, WOSU television shut off its analog signal. TV Chief Engineer Tom Lahr was at the Westerville transmitter to shut down WOSU, while Engineer Ling Ling Sun was at the Fawcett Center to remotely shut down WPBO in Portsmouth. Each transmitter was placed into the standby mode to kill the carrier and then sequenced through the off mode.

This was a historical moment for WOSU Public Media. The analog TV34 went on the air over 53 years ago from the original transmitter and tower site on North Star Road at the edge of the Ohio State campus. For well over a year now, we have been planning for this moment and preparing viewers for the switch. Thanks to everyone who played a role in the transition, as well at the outreach around it. As of 10:30am this morning, the DTV call center had only received about six phone calls.

Tom Lahr, Station Manager Ed Clay and myself were on WOSU AM’s Open Line with Fred Andrle this morning answering questions about the transition and hearing about reception issues. Less than 2.9 percent of the households in the Columbus area have been designated as “unready” for the switch to digital.

Thanks to everyone for all efforts around the DTV transition. It really was a TEAM effort!

The final video segment before going off the air including a review of our WOSU TV 34 IDs through the five decades ending with an upside down logo. In 1956, when WOSU went on the air, the first thing anyone saw was a slide of the ID that was misplaced in the slide chain upside down. So, it was kind of an inside joke that we ended broadcast of analog in the same manner. Thanks to John Prosek and Ryan Witt for producing this.

Today, the U.S House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet held a hearing titled, “Oversight of the Digital Television Transition” in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington. Ohio Representative Zack Space used his two minute opening statement to praise the local work of WOSU to provide assistance and education to the Columbus region about the transition to digital only broadcasting. He also called the WOSU Coupon Donation Program a model for other communities to emulate and included mention of our focus on helping seniors make the transition in partnership with LifeCare Alliance and Central Ohio Area Agency on Aging.

The federally funded DTV converter coupon program has now cleared its waiting list and if you need a coupon and either haven’t applied or you applied earlier and your coupon has expired, go to the NTIA website to apply anew. If you do not need coupons because you have pay TV, we’d like to ask you to consider applying anyway and contribute those coupons to WOSU for our HELP YOUR NEIGHBOR project to assist those most in need of these coupons (poor, elderly, ESL households).

A new ruling announced by the FCC has given public television stations an opportunity to shutdown their analog signals between March 27 and March 31. Given this ruling, WOSU has decided to shut down its analog transmitters for WOSU Columbus and WPBO Portsmouth on March 31st at 7am.

WOSU analog will have been on the air for slightly over 53 years. TV34 went on the air in February, 1956.

There are a number of factors that have led to this decision. Certainly, one is that in shutting down at the end of the month in lieu of June 12th, WOSU will save about $26,000 in utility bills at a time when that savings is critical to our budget. However, that’s not the only consideration. Through Nielson survey numbers, we have seen a dramatic drop in the number of “unready” households in the Columbus market. In fact, over 97 percent of the viewers in the Columbus market either have pay TV or have installed converter boxes on their analog televisions to receive over-the-air broadcasts. With the Fox affiliate in Columbus going off analog in February, many have gotten the message. Also, by going off now, we are able to begin the process of taking the analog equipment off our Westerville, OH tower, allowing us to maximize our digital over-the-air signal, which is now at half power. As more folks are tuning in through digital converter boxes or digital televisions, its critical for us to be at full power.

WOSU will continue to assist folks with the transition well into June and continue our relationship with COAAA and LifeCare Alliance to assist those most in need. If you haven’t applied for a DTV Coupon, please do so and contribute it to WOSU upon arrival. It will help us help the most in need in Columbus. Go to: https://www.dtv2009.gov to apply. WOSU has collected over 2,900 coupons to date to assist the elderly and poor in Columbus with the transition to digital broadcasting.

Dispatch Columnist Joe Blundo is a regular on WOSU’s Open Line and recently wrote a column related to the March pledge drive on WOSU TV. We thank Joe for his fiscal support and for giving us an opportunity to point out why they are programmed the way they are — here is an excerpt from his March 15, 2009 column:

Oh, how we Rieu these words: ‘pledge drive’
By JOE BLUNDO

I understand the need for a pledge drive. I send money to the WOSU stations once a year. But the pledge programming has long baffled me. Why — when you’re trying to get cash out of an audience that likes Nature, Frontline and American Experience — would you subject it to incessant repeats of Heart Healthy Yoga?

The short answer: It works.

“PBS collects statistics about how much money and how many pledges,” said Kristen Kuebler of TRAC Media Services, an Arizona company that analyzes and researches public-TV ratings and audiences.

“Wayne Dyer and Suze Orman both are programs that very dependably generate a lot of phone calls for the stations and a lot of dollars.”

This is not what I wanted to hear, because it makes it more difficult to hate the programs. I’ll admit it: I have Celtic Woman rage.

The regular programs I prefer — Nature, for example — are not great pledge generators, said Kuebler, director of station research.

“Ordinary PBS programming has long narrative arcs that last for a whole hour with no interruption. . . . They can’t put up a show that’s totally absorbing for an hour, because they wouldn’t get any . . . (pledge) calls.”

The strategy behind PBS pledge programming is to replace the cerebral with the emotional; the latter, Kuebler said, attracts different viewers and motivates some to give.

“They see it, and they want to respond to it right away.”

The programs have to be repeated several times to reach a substantial portion of the viewing market. Hence: more Andre Rieu than you can stand.

“By having pledge shows air more than one time, the stations are giving the lighter viewers more opportunity to find them,” Kuebler said. “They understand that, for some regular viewers, this can be a hardship.”

I would be one. The deprivation is stark: It seems an eternity since I last watched Norm the carpenter miter a piece of molding on This Old House.

But there’s no escape: PBS stations nationwide conduct pledge weeks simultaneously, using the same shows.

“It becomes the most cost-effective way to do it,” said Ed Clay, station manager of WOSU-TV. “We get help with national promotions. We’re really pulled together as a unit. It’s very difficult for stations to go it alone and be successful.”

Dyer and Orman, Clay said, have been proven pledge generators at WOSU for years. They reflect the audience’s heavy representation of baby boomers, who like advice on how to manage money, preserve health and attain goals.

So the price I pay for Nova is the occasional forced serving of Ed Slott’s Stay Rich for Life.

Sometimes it’s too much to bear. That’s when I switch on commercial television and remember what real suffering is.

Joe Blundo is a Dispatch columnist. His blog, Regular Joe, is at blog.dispatch.com/blundo.
jblundo@dispatch.com

For more than 20 years, Fred Andrle has been a constant voice of intellect and reason, while serving as the radio host of WOSU AM 820’s Open Line. Fred will retire at the end of May and his announcement to that effect has sparked hundreds of emails into WOSU. Ken Rudin, NPR’s political junkie even posted a very nice tribute in his blog. His loss will be felt by the station and his colleagues, but mostly by the community. Fred is the consummate journalist, who will not shy away from asking the toughest questions. As one of his past guests told me last night at an event — “he’ll give you a few softballs and you start feeling pretty good and then he’ll lay a zinger on you out of the blue.” He’s been tough on the Mayor, on OSU Presidents, and on many local corporate heads. The thing about Fred is that his questions come from deep research and are well crafted. His follow-ups are often tougher than the original question.

I remember the first time I heard Fred Andrle on WOSU. It seven years ago on a steamy summer day in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and I was a week or so from coming to Columbus for a job interview at WOSU. I was roaming around the WOSU website (in its infancy at that point) and was able to listen to the “live” stream of Open Line. I remember thinking at first it was a national NPR program, then thinking how incredible it was to have this local talent on WOSU. Listening to Fred helped me prepare for my visit and certainly understand the community better. I also began to appreciate this quality person before I ever set foot in the station.

All of us will miss Fred, but we are already beginning to talk about some special projects designed to coax him out of retirement and back to the microphone, at least for a short time, in the future.

Here is Fred in his own words (MP3; running time 2:24)

Tim Feran at the Columbus Dispatch covered Fred’s retirement announcement recently. Here’s his story published on March 3, 2009:

Columbus listeners will lose a calm, familiar voice at the end of May with the retirement of veteran talk-show host Fred Andrle. The longtime host of the live, midday call-in show Open Line on WOSU (820 AM) announced yesterday that he would leave the program after 20 years.

“I never, ever thought I’d be here — or anywhere — for 20 years. I thought it would be two or three years,” said the 68-year-old native of Buffalo, N.Y. “That’s all I had stayed at any job before this one. But it was just a perfect fit. The audience liked it very much, and I liked it very much.”

Tom Rieland, general manager of WOSU Public Media, called Andrle “a gift to the Columbus community.”
“I consider him the best radio talk-show host in America, and I know his loyal listeners would agree,” Rieland said. “We plan to lure Fred back to the microphone on occasion, but I know his talents will flourish in many other directions, and we wish him all the best in life.”

While much of the radio world became loud and coarse, Andrle stuck with a civil, low-key style. Only a few interview subjects caused problems for him, sometimes because of their lack of preparation. “You know you’re in trouble when you can tell the story of a nonfiction book better than the writer,” he said, chuckling.

More often, his conversational style drew out the best in his guests. “I interviewed Joan Baez today, and I interviewed her 40 years ago in California,” he said yesterday. “Back then, she was at the height of her career and she was feisty and cranky and difficult. And before today’s show, I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ But she was lovely, kind and generous and relaxed. She laughs a great deal.”

Andrle broke into radio as a student at Canisius College in Buffalo, announcing between songs at “one of these lush-music stations.” After earning a master’s degree in communication at Stanford (Calif.) University, he took teaching jobs at Northern Arizona University, then Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware — bringing him to central Ohio in 1969. “I found out . . . (teaching) is not what I do best,” he said. He followed those stints in the 1970s with commercial-radio work and producing and hosting gigs for Warner-Amex Qube, the interactive cable outlet, and WOSU-TV (Channel 34).

A talk show on public television ran from 1981 to 1984, opposite the NBC sitcom Cheers. “Nobody watched,” he said. After a trip to China in early 1988 that included producing six documentaries, Andrle left WOSU for about six months, then received word about the Open Line job.

The station initially viewed it as a temporary position, but he decided to try it. “I was on a cross-country trip at the time, visiting friends in my old Dodge van,” he said. “I arrived maybe an hour before showtime, drinking Pepsi. Tom Wiebell was waiting, just in case I didn’t make it.”
In August 1988, he hosted his first Open Line segment.
The station is just starting to plan for life after Andrle, said Rieland, who confirmed that WOSU would continue with a local call-in show, “hopefully as a multimedia program.” “We’re really at the beginning stages of trying to figure out what that will be,” Rieland said. “We’re not even sure we’ll be ready by June.”

Andrle, who recently published a book of poetry, plans to continue writing, traveling and occasionally hosting for WOSU. “It’s been a delight doing the show,” he said. “I feel very, very privileged to have done a show in which we’ve been able to present all these people, ideas, issues — every point of view. “I feel a personal loss at leaving, but I know deep down it is time to leave.”

tferan@dispatch.com

Paul Harvey died over the weekend in Arizona at 90 years old. I didn’t know Paul Harvey was still on radio until I heard him at my dry cleaners recently. Though you certainly may quarrel with his politics or with his mixing hard and soft news with in-your-face promotion of his latest product sponsor (listen to the first “news” story on the You Tube clip below), Paul Harvey was a tradition for many of us growing up in the 60s.

When I came home for lunch from grade school, I would arrive at noon and hear the booming voice of Paul Harvey as I came through the door. For 15 minutes, my Mom and I would eat our grilled cheese and listen intently to Paul Harvey on WKTY-AM. It was almost a sacred time. What a writer. What a delivery. We would be on pins and needles when he would do his “Rest of the Story” pieces and we would laugh together.

It wasn’t until much later that I started to wonder about his news and commentary style, his hucksterism. For me, his voice simply brings back wonderful memories of lunches with Mom.

This newscast (part 2) is from sometime early in November 1963. There is even a promo for Notre Dame football with Howard Cosell at the end: