WTVP


WTVP, virtual channel 47, is a Public Broadcasting Service member television station licensed to Peoria, Illinois, United States and serving the North-Central Illinois television market. The station is owned by the Illinois Valley Public Telecommunications Corporation. WTVP's studios are located on State Street in downtown Peoria, and its transmitter is located along Interstate 474 in East Peoria.

History

Early educational television in region

After World War II, the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign hosted the National Association of Educational Broadcasters for the establishment of broadcast allocations for non-commercial educational programming. The outcomes from these meetings established the foundation for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.
Commercial broadcast television networks and their local Peoria affiliates provided some educational programming for children in the 1950s and 1960s, but this program content disappeared by 1970.

Channel assignments for station

Under the original FCC analog television channel allocations, channel 59 was reserved for public television use in Peoria; but when WTVP was established, it chose 47, the other, lower open channel in Peoria. The FCC later moved the official public television reservation to 47 to open 59 to commercial use, and channel 59 was eventually used by WAOE in 1999.
The callsign WTVP was used by channel 17 in Decatur, Illinois until that station changed its callsign to WAND in 1966, a few years before channel 47 came on the air and chose WTVP for its own callsign.

Establishing a public television station for the Peoria area

In 1969, Bradley University and Peoria supporters led by Phil Weinberg, academic dean at Bradley University, began discussions for establishing an educational TV station, WTVP to serve the needs of the Peoria, Bloomington and Galesburg markets.
Dr. Weinberg's viewing of Sesame Street, produced by the Children's Television Workshop, since November 10, 1969 convinced him that the Peoria community and children in the region should have quality educational television programs.
A number of meetings were held with civic organizations, businesses, elected public representatives, and K-12 educational institutions. The outcome of these discussions was the establishment of Illinois Valley Public Telecommunications Corporation incorporated in the State of Illinois on November 10, 1971.
Weinberg arranged for Sesame Street to play on WMBD-TV for six months before it moved to WTVP in June 1971. The station's studios and offices were located at Jobst Hall on Bradley University's campus from 1971 to 2003.
Dr. Weinberg served as the organization's first President. From 1971, Elwin Basquin served as the station's first paid manager, retiring as General Manager in 1996. Chet Tomczyk succeeded Basquin as general manager and became President & CEO.

Digital television conversion

In 1998, the FCC mandated that broadcast stations migrate from analog to digital television transmission in United States.
Specifically, an unfunded federal mandate for US television stations. See Digital television transition. Since 1993, auctions of former television spectrum to the wireless telephone and broadband service companies by the FCC generated $52 billion. That revenue was not used to mitigate the digital transition costs for the non-commercial, educational television stations.
As a result of a fund-raising campaign beginning in 1999 entitled Funds for Forty-Seven, WTVP raised the resources toward its conversion to digital broadcasting. To accommodate for its anticipated digital broadcasting capacity, the station began to plan for a new facility in 2000. Once the Board of Trustees approved a search for an appropriate site to construct a new studio, the station explored many possibilities. 101 State Street, the former location of the O'Neill Transportation depot across the railroad tracks from the Post Office in downtown Peoria, was identified as a potential location and, through the generosity of the property's owner, William J. O'Neill, was made affordable to the station. A facility was designed by PSA and Clark Engineering. After a competitive bid process, CORE Construction was selected as general contractor. The facility was designed to give the station the ability to offer more and better productions of interest, services to the public, and community interaction.
At the end of 2007 and early 2008, the station faced long-term debt pressures, which were widely reported by other local media and later resolved in an agreement with its bank, and with the help of thousands of special contributions resulting from a campaign called Save Our Station.

Governance

WTVP has had a long history of cooperation with Bradley University and Bradley's public radio station WCBU, but WTVP is independently owned by the Illinois Valley Public Telecommunications Corporation, an Illinois non-profit organization whose main purpose is to run the TV station. IVPTC is governed by a board of trustees, all of whom serve voluntarily. Each IVPTC trustee is nominated by the Board's nominating committee and approved by a vote of the full Board. The full Board of Trustees meetings are open to the public. Permanent seats were reserved by its original charter for one voting representative from each of the following institutions: Bradley University, Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences, Peoria Public Schools, Peoria Public Library, Pekin Public Schools, and Illinois Central College.
An experimental collaboration involving joint management and operational cooperation with WILL-TV and the University of Illinois has been working well enough that the WTVP Board of Directors voted in December 2013 to extend this agreement for an additional three years. The overall purpose of the agreement is to help both stations operate more cost effectively in serving eastern and central Illinois.
On June 30, 2014, WQPT, owned by Western Illinois University-Quad Cities, outsourced its master control operations to WTVP, in Peoria, as originally outlined by D. L. Markley and Associates in the 1970s Convocom design. WIU-QC capital improvements and upgrades to supported this level of integration. CEO and President of WTVP, Chet Tomczyk, along with Chief Engineer, Bill Porter, designed and implemented the WQPT/WTVP joint master control room in 2014.

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP Short NameProgramming
47.11080iWTVP-HDMain WTVP programming / PBS
47.2480iWTVP-KDPBS Kids
47.3480iWTVP-WCWorld
47.4480iCreate
47.5480iWTVP Remote

Local programming

The station broadcasts PBS programming and other national content, but also has produced many original programs for local audiences. Projects include documentaries such as a Peoria historical documentary entitled Main Street Memories and its first high definition program, entitled Grand View Drive. In addition, WTVP has produced local public affairs programming such as At Issue and Interesting People.
WTVP has collaborated widely with other non-profits in the Central Illinois region. Since constructing and moving to the Peoria downtown/riverfront studio facility in June 2003, WTVP's 101 State Street location has become a frequent space for events, open houses, tours, dinners, productions, and art exhibitions.

Sports programming

WTVP 47 served as the home broadcaster for Bradley Braves men's basketball.

Awards and recognitions

In 2005, the station earned the ArtsPartner of the Year Award in recognition of its efforts to promote culture in Central Illinois, acknowledging its investment in local arts production such as a series of broadcasts with the Peoria Symphony Orchestra and its short-form programs produced and broadcast by the station at no charge to many local arts organizations that year.
WTVP patrons Glen and Polly Barton received the PBS Leadership Award in 2003. The O'Neill Family, represented by P. Joseph O'Neill, received the PBS Leadership Award in 2006.
Since its inception, WTVP has received national recognition in the form of PBS Development Awards and Certificates of Achievement for its fund-raising innovations and achievements.