Timeline: 1950s-’60s

1950

February Iowa State College launches WOI, first TV station owned by educational institution, though it operates commercially (in 1994, Iowa State sells WOI).

Oct. 16 NAEB and educators organize Joint Committee on Educational Television (JCET) organizes (it later changes its name twice, eventually becoming the Joint Council on Educational Telecommunications in 1966).
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1952

April 14 FCC’s Sixth Report and Order allocates local TV channels, reserves 242 for noncom educational TV.

October Ford Foundation funds Educational Television and Radio Center in Ann Arbor to distribute programs.

In latter-day tryout of Cooperation Doctrine, Ford also begins Sunday arts magazine Omnibus on CBS, hosted by Alistair Cooke. (It airs five seasons, the last on ABC.)
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1953

May 25 The University of Houston signs on the first noncommercial educational TV station, KUHT.

1955

KQED in San Francisco pioneers the public TV auction.

1958

Sept. 2 Congress passes National Defense Education Act, which aids numerous instructional TV projects.

1959

Jan. 24 Under new president John White, Educational Television and Radio Center adds “National” to its name (it later becomes National Educational Television, NET).

July NETRC moves from Ann Arbor to New York City.

Video: One teaching job facing many new station was explaining its purpose to the public, as in this 1959 program by Cincinnati's WCET, produced five years after the station signed on. Like many other stations on UHF channels, WCET also had to persuade viewers to hook up set-top UHF converter boxes. Viewers get a bonus: more than 20 minutes of classic jaunty and bustling background music from the 1950s.

1960

Sept. 12 Taped live with an early videotape machine recently installed at Denver's KRMA, The Ragtime Era premieres and will become NET's most popular show, adding fun to educational TV's arts programming and making Max Morath a star. [article]

December Eastern Educational Television Network (EEN) incorporates after 1959 demonstration of hookup between Boston and Durham, N.H.

1961

Educational Radio Network established (“Eastern” is added to name in 1963).
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Midwest Program for Airborne Television Instruction (MPATI) experimentally broadcasts ITV to six states from airliner circling above Indiana.

Oct. 20 Educational TV begins airing the BBC's An Age of Kings, a 15-part combination of Shakespeare's history plays that will be one of its earliest hits. [article]

1962

May 1 President Kennedy signs Educational Television Facilities Act [text of law], bringing first major federal aid to pubcasting (predecessor of today’s Public Telecommunications Facilities Program, PTFP).

Illustration of MPATI experiment shows plane transmitting classroom programs to schools.

July 10 All-Channel Receiver Act signed into law, aiding reception of UHF stations, including some many educational stations.

Sept. 9 New York City finally gets a public TV station, as WNDT (later WNET) goes on-air.

FCC approves Lorenzo Milam’s KRAB-FM in Seattle, first of “Krab Nebula” community radio stations.

Before the All-Channel Receiver Act, viewers had to buy converters to pick up Channels 14-82. (Photo: Early Television Museum.)

1963

Jan. 25 WGBH begins airing Julia Child’s first French Chef series (later distributed nationally).

July 25 FCC allows Instructional Television Fixed Service microwave for education.

1964

FCC authorizes 100th noncommercial educational TV station.

June 10 FCC authorizes first statewide educational TV translator network, in Utah.

Dec. 7-8 NAEB First Conference on Long-Range Financing proposes presidential commission on future funding.

1965

Nov. 10 Carnegie Corporation of New York establishes Carnegie Commission on Educational Television (Carnegie I).

Fred Rogers’ program, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, debuts on EEN regional hookup (goes national on NET in 1968).

1966

Aug. 1 Ford Foundation proposes to the FCC (in vain) that profits from a nonprofit communications satellite system for all broadcasters would go to public broadcasting.

Julia Child and producer Russ Morash pioneered
how-to programs.

1967

Jan. 26 Carnegie I releases report proposing federal aid and an extension of educational TV called “public television” [summary].

Feb. 23 WETA premieres Washington Week in Review (it goes national on PBS in 1969).

March NAEB Second Conference on Long-range Financing reviews Carnegie report.

April NAEB report, The Hidden Medium, promotes aid to educational radio as well [summary]. April: Though Carnegie report and original legislation would have aided only TV, the final Senate bill creating CPB also includes radio, thanks to a concerted campaign by Jerold Sandler and other radio advocates [excerpt from Jack Mitchell's history of public radio].

Nov. 5 Ford Foundation launches Public Broadcasting Laboratory (PBL), live Sunday-night magazine program. (CBS starts 60 Minutes a year later.)

Nov. 7 President Johnson signs Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, authorizing federal operating aid to stations through new agency, CPB [text of law and LBJ's message]. CPB funding decisions would be made year to year; Congress wouldn't consider endowing a long-term funding source.

1968

March CPB incorporates.
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LBJ meets with CPB's
first board, 1968.

KQED, San Francisco, innovates in news programming with Newsroom, begun during newspaper strike.

1969

NET begins regular interconnection for educational TV; The Forsyte Saga is a hit.

CPB begins general support grants to stations (later called Community Service Grants).

Precursor of Internet, ARPANET, hooked up by researchers for Defense Department.

Nov. 3 PBS is incorporated [document]. (Its board chooses Hartford Gunn as first president, February 1970.)

Fred Rogers makes a successful appeal for CPB's first appropriation with a moving plea to Sen. Pastore, who says afterwards, "Looks like you just earned $20 million." [video on YouTube]. Gunn accompanies Rogers at the witness table.

PBS's first president, Gunn, was a key strategist from WGBH, Boston.

Nov. 10 Sesame Street debuts.

A 1999 stamp recognized Sesame Street as one of the Top 10 "icons" of the '70s.

1970s