WSKG-TV (channel 46) is a PBS member television station in Binghamton, New York, United States, serving New York's Southern Tier. It is owned by the WSKG Public Telecommunications Council alongside NPR members WSKG-FM (89.3) and WSQX-FM (91.5). The three stations share studios on Gates Road in Vestal, New York; WSKG-TV's transmitter is located on Ingraham Hill in the town of Binghamton. WSKG is rebroadcast on a high-power satellite station, WSKA (channel 30), licensed to Corning and serving the western Twin Tiers from a transmitter on Higman Hill southwest of the town.
The New York State Department of Education's plans for educational television in New York state included a transmitter on channel 46 in Binghamton, and in 1952 the state obtained a construction permit for the facility. However, the network never received state funding. Meanwhile, in 1961, the Southern Tier Educational Television Association, a consortium representing local school districts, was chartered to provide educational programs for air on Binghamton's commercial stations. In 1966, it took over planning for its own educational station as well as the Department of Education permit.
WSKG-TV began broadcasting on May 12, 1968. It was named to honor a deceased local clergyman at the request of an anonymous donor. In constructing the facility, the original general management wildly overspent, leaving the station with more than a million dollars in debt and triggering a financial crisis in 1969. The station came days away from signing off the air but survived due to budgetary austerity, state support, and increased local giving. In 1975, WSKG-TV spawned WSKG-FM, the region's public radio station. In the 1970s, WSKG and local education officials built a large regional translator network, while the station began producing local newscasts, which were cut in 1981 as a drain on station resources. Between 1968 and 1989, the station operated from five different locations, including space in four different regional elementary schools, before acquiring and moving into its present site in Vestal.
In the 1990s, WSKG negotiated steep cuts in state funding that saw its subsidy decline by more than half from 1990 to 1996. Management responded by conducting two rounds of layoffs, closing most of the translators, and outsourcing many of the broadcaster's business operations. In the 2000s, WSKA was built to provide high-power public television to the Elmira–Corning area for the first time.
History Planning and construction The construction permit for channel 46 was awarded by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to the New York State Department of Education on August 13, 1952, with the call sign WQTV. WQTV was projected as one of up to ten transmitters in the New York state educational television network. However, the state legislature never funded the network, leaving WQTV little more than a station on paper for more than 15 years. The Binghamton Press television column in December 1955 predicted that it would be a "long, long time" before channel 46 was in use.
On March 28, 1961, school administrators in the Triple Cities proposed a plan to begin educational television programming to be broadcast two days a week over commercial station WNBF-TV, which offered the use of its facilities for this purpose. The report also proposed the formation of the Southern Tier Educational Television Association (STETA) to manage the service. The first STETA programs were broadcast on October 24, 1961, to an estimated 50,000 students. For the 1962–63 school year, the organization offered 11 programs on WNBF-TV and WINR-TV. STETA programming later expanded to three channels after the debut of WBJA-TV.
In December 1964, Governor Nelson Rockefeller proposed to establish an educational TV network, with one of the four stations being at Harpur College (now Binghamton University); however, most of it would be used for closed-circuit telecasting, and no specific mention was made of activating the WQTV permit. In 1966, STETA took over planning to build the station, using federal grant money originally allocated to the state government and expanding its board of trustees to better reflect channel 46's planned coverage area. The new facility was proposed to connect Binghamton University and other institutions.
STETA leased facilities in the Vestal Plaza shopping center in Vestal; it received a $250,000 (equivalent to $ in ) equipment donation from CBS that secured its ability to build channel 46. Another gift, of $50,000 (equivalent to $ in ) from an anonymous donor, led the station to change its call sign. The donor gave in memory of Dr. Stanley K. Gambell, a pastor of the local First Congregational Church who had died in a car crash the year before. Gambell had hosted the series Stories Retold on WNBF-TV from 1963 until 1966 and previously spent 10 years on the air at Philadelphia's WFIL-TV. In August, STETA filed to have the 15-year-old WQTV permit transferred to it from the state Department of Education. The FCC approved the change in November alongside plans for studios at Vestal Plaza and the Roberson Memorial Center. STETA then began a fund drive to raise money from the community, as well as construction on the transmitter facility and tower at Ingraham Hill.
Early years and financial trouble WSKG-TV began broadcasting on May 12, 1968, having aired its first test pattern the day before. Nearly immediately, STETA was submerged in debt. By March 1969, the situation was so dire that the New York State Department of Education was reported to be taking over channel 46 and using it to rebroadcast WCNY-TV in Syracuse. The original general manager, Jerry R. Brown, resigned after just 10 months, and the board of trustees persuaded former local school superintendent William A. Anderson to step in at the troubled station. A day after being appointed, Anderson laid off 17 of STETA's 28 full- and part-time employees; two weeks later, he reached an agreement with electrical utility New York State Electric & Gas after it threatened to shut off power to channel 46. The station vacated its original studios in Vestal Plaza in favor of using empty space in the George Washington Elementary School in Binghamton; cut all local productions; and negotiated with its two largest creditors, tower constructor Stainless Inc. and equipment manufacturer RCA.
However, the withdrawal of support from the State University of New York system in connection with its University of the Air classes and an inability to secure a Ford Foundation grant caused the station to lose support it had been counting on. On April 22, Anderson declared, "Our only hope now is massive public support", revealing that he had been instructed by the board of trustees to take channel 46 off the air on April 26. However, the board granted a reprieve after the state legislature added funds for the station, dependent on matching funds in the local community, to its supplemental budget. The state Department of Education ordered an audit of the organization. When George Washington Elementary School closed in June 1969, the station moved yet again, this time to a three-room suite in the city's Woodrow Wilson Elementary School.
Even as it was revealed that the station was behind on paying withholding tax to the Internal Revenue Service, Anderson unveiled a plan to resolve WSKG's financial obligations—totaling $1.148 million (equivalent to $ in )—to an audience of dozens of creditors in late June. STETA hired a fundraising firm to arrange a fund drive and auctioned off furnishings from its former Vestal Plaza studios. It paid off some of its obligations, while a number of smaller creditors forgave their debts. The board deadlocked on another proposal to shut down the station, leaving it to resume broadcasting for the 1969–70 school year.
In October, the Department of Education published details of its audit of STETA, but the audit only extended through June 30, 1968, whereas evidence indicated it was in late 1968 and early 1969 that spending had become excessive. Instead, it was details uncovered through other means that revealed the station's activity: an insurance claim on color television sets bought from RCA and the purchase of silver tea services and a color film processor. The station had paid for an animal mascot, a St. Bernard named Heidi; when they finally tried to use her in a program, she would not follow instructions and had to be sent to an obedience school in Buffalo. The expenses painted a picture of a station that had overbought on equipment and nearly doubled its budget to go on air; details around the color TV sets led to a state police probe. A Broome County grand jury indicted Brown on six counts of grand larceny in May 1970, but the indictment was tossed by a judge in 1973, as evidence in the Brown case was inconsistent with that provided by STETA in a lawsuit against its insurer.
Turnaround Anderson left his role as chairman in December 1969 and was replaced by attorney Salvatore A. Fauci. Under Fauci, STETA made significant headway at reducing its debt, increased local giving, and began an annual on-air auction to raise funds. Within three years, channel 46 was profitable. It outgrew the Woodrow Wilson School site and moved to the former Hooper School in Endwell in the town of Union. The school also housed other community services, including a police substation and Meals on Wheels.
During the 1970s, WSKG expanded its television coverage and moved into radio. In 1973, it built a translator on Hawley Hill to extend its broadcast signal to the Elmira area; four years later, the Schuyler-Chemung-Tioga Board of Cooperative Educational Services constructed a six-transmitter network to further extend educational television service, and WSKG took over operation of a translator in Stamford. These were among the first in a network that included 52 translators by 1990. The main station doubled its effective radiated power in December 1979. WSKG-FM launched on October 22, 1975, bringing National Public Radio and classical music to the Southern Tier. With these expansions and additional viewers and listeners, as well as increasing programming costs, WSKG's budget swelled from $300,000 (equivalent to $ in ) to $1.3 million (equivalent to $ in ) between 1974 and 1978.
The station also expanded its local news coverage. In 1976, the station scrapped its existing current affairs program, Weekday, and began airing 7 and 11 p.m. local newscasts, known as WSKG News Center. The 11 p.m. newscast moved up to 10 p.m. later that year before returning to 11; weekend early evening newscasts were introduced in January 1980. The station reformatted its news programming as the market's first hour-long newscast, The Ten O'Clock Report, in August 1981.
Two studio moves in the 1980s In 1981, WSKG began the process of moving facilities yet again, this time to the former Francis Donnelly Elementary School in Conklin. Costs for the move escalated from a bid of $200,000 (equivalent to $ in ) to $1.3 million (equivalent to $ in ). The news department was cut back, then abolished, in 1982 as the station made cuts, bracing for expected reductions in federal support for public broadcasting. In canceling The Ten O'Clock Report, the station launched four new local programs to cover local news, arts, and sports coverage.