Vermont Public Co. is the public broadcaster serving the U.S. state of Vermont. Its headquarters, newsroom, and radio studios are located in Colchester, with television studios in Winooski. It operates two statewide radio services aligned with NPR, offering news and classical music, and the state's PBS service. It was formed by the 2021 merger of what had been previously separate organizations, Vermont Public Radio and Vermont Public Television, which were both renamed Vermont Public in 2022.
The services were separate organizations prior to 2021. The first to be founded was Vermont Educational Television (Vermont ETV), originally a service of the University of Vermont, in 1967; the network's four main transmitters were completed in March 1968. Originally mostly funded by the state of Vermont, Vermont ETV began fundraising in the community and developed a substantial audience in the Canadian province of Quebec, which has historically accounted for a significant portion of viewer donations and where a related charity once operated to process Canadian viewers' donations. Vermont ETV was separated from the university in 1989 and later renamed Vermont Public Television and Vermont PBS. In addition to public television programming from PBS and other distributors, Vermont Public produces TV programs of local interest.
Vermont Public's radio operation began broadcasting in 1977 as Vermont Public Radio (VPR). The first transmitter served southern Vermont; coverage of the northern half of the state was added in 1980 and extended by the construction of new stations as well as the acquisition of several existing commercial radio stations. Beginning in the 2000s, VPR established a second radio programming service with a classical music format, which also now has statewide coverage; the existing programming was shifted to an all-talk format with shows from NPR and other public radio distributors as well as local programming focusing on Vermont issues and musical artists.
History of the Vermont Public Co.
In September 2020, the Vermont Public Co. was formed; it became active on June 30, 2021, with the merger of Vermont PBS and Vermont Public Radio, which had been separate entities.[1] The move brought together the 57 full-time VPR employees with 42 at Vermont PBS to create the state's largest news organization, with $90 million in assets.[2][3] The name Vermont Public was unveiled on June 23, 2022.[4]
Television
History
The television service was established by an act of the Vermont General Assembly in 1966 as Vermont Educational Television (Vermont ETV), a service operated by the University of Vermont on behalf of all educational interests in the state.[5] This culminated six years of efforts to set up the service, including two defeats in the 1963 and 1965 sessions of the General Assembly.[6] Broadcasting began on October 16, 1967, from WETK (channel 33) atop Mount Mansfield.[7] Three more transmitters went on air in the months that followed: WVTB (channel 20) on Burke Mountain, serving St. Johnsbury, WVTA (channel 41) on Mount Ascutney, to serve Windsor and southern Vermont, and WVER, broadcasting from Grandpa's Knob to serve Rutland.[8] Delays in completing WVTA, which did not start until March 18, 1968, also held up the activation of WVER.[9][10]
In 1975, the network began fundraising from the community, having been initially financed 90 percent by the state and later also receiving federal funds.[11][12] 1979 saw a 57-day strike by production personnel;[13] the next year, the St. Johnsbury and Rutland transmitters narrowly avoided closure when the university voted to allow the installation of remote control equipment, allowing operators to control the facilities from the Mount Ascutney site.[14][15]
The 1989 session of the General Assembly authorized Vermont ETV's separation from the university.[16] However, funding continued to be a concern. In 1996, the Vermont Senate Appropriations Committee proposed cutting ETV's state funding to $1; ETV eventually was able to restore some of its allocation but still lost about half of its state grant. This was in contrast to Vermont Public Radio, which was not funded by the state and had more corporate contributors.[17]
In 1997, Vermont ETV began 24-hour broadcasting;[18] the name was changed to Vermont Public Television on January 1, 1998,[19] and again to Vermont PBS in 2014.[20] On February 17, 2009, the four main Vermont Public Television transmitters converted to digital broadcasting; in converting early, they joined most of the state's major commercial stations.[21]
On February 17, 2017, Vermont PBS announced that it had sold the WVTA broadcast license for $56 million in the FCC's spectrum auction. In a statement, the network said that its other signals would be upgraded to cover the area served by WVTA.[22][23] The WVTA license, which continued on the WVER multiplex, was then surrendered for cancellation on November 23, 2022.[24] $52 million of the auction proceeds constitute the majority of Vermont Public's endowment, which stood at $71.9 million in 2021.[25]
Shortly before the merger with Vermont Public Radio, Vermont PBS relocated from Fort Ethan Allen, where both organizations had maintained separate offices, to facilities in Winooski.[26]
Local programming
The flagship local television program from Vermont Public is the weekly Vermont This Week, which features a rotating panel of Vermont political reporters. Another regular local program is the outdoors program Outdoor Journal.[27]
Support in Canada
Public television in Vermont has had a long history with viewers in Montreal, where its signal is received and widely distributed on cable and has been since April 1968.[28][29] The large audience in Greater Montreal has been a major source of donations: in 1979, Vermont ETV received 60 percent of its donations from Quebec.[30]
In 1989, Vidéotron, one of Montreal's major cable providers, removed Vermont ETV from its channel lineup and replaced it with WCFE in nearby Plattsburgh, New York, to save on copyright fees; at the time, WCFE did not run the entire PBS schedule in order to provide a differentiated service from Vermont ETV. However, the move threatened the financial viability of Vermont ETV because, at the time, as many of 15,000 of the 40,000 Vermont ETV contributors were Montreal-area Vidéotron customers who represented 25 percent of the network's fundraising revenue.[31] Donations to Vermont ETV's March 1990 fundraising drive fell 27 percent.[32] Vidéotron restored Vermont ETV to its lineup in 1991 after a year's absence.[33]
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) revoked the status of the Public Television Association of Quebec, a charitable organization in Canada that had supported Vermont PBS's Canadian efforts, in 2013. The CRA decision was unsuccessfully appealed to the Federal Court of Appeal, which ruled in 2015 that the association had "failed to maintain direction and control over its resources as it did not devote all its resources to its own charitable activities" and was only used to generate charitable tax receipts for Canadian donors.[34]
In 1975, two groups—the Champlain Valley Educational Radio Association and Vermont Public Radio—were formed by local residents to seek funds to plan a new non-commercial radio station for Vermont. The Champlain Valley group proposed starting with one station in Burlington, while the Vermont Public Radio application focused on statewide coverage, in order to meet requirements from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for minimum population thresholds.[36][37] In October, Vermont Public Radio received a $25,000 CPB grant,[38] and two months later, the University of Vermont, which at the time administered Vermont ETV, approved the group to share some of its facilities.[39] The existing public television system also shared a founder with the radio network: Raymond V. Phillips, who was considered "the father of public television in Vermont".[40] While Phillips had long expressed interest in public radio, funding did not come until three local ministers objected to a local station's switch to a rock format; one of them later joined the Vermont Public Radio board.[41]
The first transmitter to go on air was WVPA-FM 89.5,[b] licensed to Windsor and broadcasting from Mount Ascutney, on August 13, 1977.[43] Serving northern Vermont took longer because Vermont Public Radio's application was placed into comparative hearing with several commercial applicants, having filed for the non-reserved frequency of 107.9 MHz.[44][45] The FCC approved VPR's request to move the frequency from Newport to Burlington despite opposition from a commercial broadcaster in Newport,[46][47][48] and WVPS atop Mount Mansfield was activated on October 31, 1980.[49] The Mount Ascutney and Mount Mansfield transmitters gave VPR coverage of 92 percent of the population—greater than Vermont ETV's reach at the time—as well as in northeastern New York, New Hampshire, and Montreal.[50]
Over the years, Vermont Public Radio added transmitters by construction as well as purchases of former commercial stations. WBTN-FM in Bennington was acquired as part of a package with its AM counterpart, WBTN, in 2000; the AM station briefly simulcast VPR programming with local news inserts and death notices until being sold and returned to commercial use.[51] In 2006, VPR purchased the former WJAN in Sunderland, transmitting from Mount Equinox; it is now WVTQ.[52]
In 2004, VPR started WNCH in Norwich, its first dedicated classical music station, and in 2007, it completed its split into two program services.[53] After VPR entered into discussions to purchase WWPV-FM in Colchester from Saint Michael's College in 2007, resistance from student and community groups led to the college refusing to sell.[54][55] Instead, VPR purchased WAVX, a Christian radio station licensed to Schuyler Falls, New York,[56] and relaunched it as WOXR.[57][c] When Saint Michael's obtained a low-power station construction permit in 2015, it then sold the high-power WWPV-FM facility to VPR for integration into the classical network as WVTX.[58]
The VPR studios at Fort Ethan Allen in Colchester were expanded in 2015, nearly doubling the size of the facility. $8 million was raised to finance the addition, which included a newsroom three times the size of the previous space—a converted storage attic—and a studio large enough to accommodate an audience.[59]
In December 2022, Vermont Public announced it would acquire WWLR, which had been the student-run station at Northern Vermont University's Lyndonville campus, for integration into the classical network. Trustees of the university had been attempting to sell the license for months and nearly surrendered it in 2021.[60] The purchase, at a price of $80,000, was consummated on April 25, 2023, and the station was taken silent; Vermont Public would rename the station WVLR-FM.[61] A report by VTDigger suggested that the university may not have been legally empowered to sell WWLR without General Assembly consent.[62] The statute in question was repealed weeks later by governor Phil Scott; in early August, the assembly's Joint Fiscal Committee granted the Vermont State Colleges system, to which Northern Vermont University belonged, retroactive approval to sell WWLR and for the 2019 closure of WIUV at Castleton University.[63]
Programs
The news service airs major public radio news programs from NPR and other producers, including All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Here & Now, and Marketplace. Four days a week, Vermont Public produces its flagship radio program, Vermont Edition; currently hosted by Connor Cyrus and Mikaela Lefrak, the show was hosted by Jane Lindholm from 2007 to 2021.[64]
The classical service offers blocks of classical music, some with local hosts and others from Classical 24.[65]
Transmitters
Transmitters are arranged alphabetically by call sign. All full-power transmitters broadcast in HD Radio, carrying the News and Classical services and the BBC World Service as subchannels.[66]A blue background indicates a low-power translator of the full-power transmitter preceding it or, at the end of the table, an HD Radio subchannel of a transmitter in the other network.
^The planned site 3, on Mount Anthony near Bennington, was removed before approval. Thus, the sites are numbered 1, 2, 4, and 5.
^Call sign changed to WVPR on February 6, 1978.[42]
^The call sign for WOXR is an homage to New York City classical music station WQXR.[57]
^In 2014, WOXM moved to 89.1 MHz;[72] interference with the Vermont Electric Power Company's emergency response radio system led VPR to reverse the move on October 12, 2015.[73]
^The translator serves Shelburne but not Burlington.
^"State ETV Blows Tube". Rutland Daily Herald. October 17, 1967. p. 3. Archived from the original on November 23, 2022. Retrieved November 23, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^"ETV Beam Comes from 4 Mountaintops". The Burlington Free Press. October 13, 1967. p. 5. Archived from the original on November 23, 2022. Retrieved November 23, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^"List Of Bills That Passed". Rutland Daily Herald. Rutland, Vermont. Associated Press. May 7, 1989. p. 8. Archived from the original on June 23, 2022. Retrieved June 23, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^"Vermont ETV Changing Name". Rutland Daily Herald. December 18, 1997. p. 20. Archived from the original on November 23, 2022. Retrieved November 23, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^Bishop, Bish (January 25, 1976). "Father of Vermont's Public Airwaves". The Burlington Free Press. p. Vermont This Week 1, 3. Archived from the original on November 23, 2022. Retrieved November 23, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^ ab"Vermont Public Radio Goes on Air". The Burlington Free Press. August 15, 1977. p. 3B. Archived from the original on November 23, 2022. Retrieved November 23, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^Maher, John (April 18, 1977). "FCC To Decide Fate of Vt. Public Radio". The Burlington Free Press. p. 3B. Archived from the original on November 23, 2022. Retrieved November 23, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^Eley, Rob (March 26, 1978). "Public Radio Proposal Advances". The Burlington Free Press. p. 2B. Archived from the original on November 23, 2022. Retrieved November 23, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^"Vt. Public Radio Frequency Announced". The Burlington Free Press. April 21, 1979. p. 19. Archived from the original on November 23, 2022. Retrieved November 23, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^Fybush, Scott (December 4, 2006). "WCRB, WKLB Make the Big Switch". North East RadioWatch. Archived from the original on November 24, 2022. Retrieved November 24, 2022.
^Wright, Leslie (February 6, 2007). "VPR to offer all-classical station". The Burlington Free Press. p. 7A. Archived from the original on November 24, 2022. Retrieved November 24, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^Fybush, Scott (October 1, 2012). "Boston TV Picks A "Plum"". NorthEast Radio Watch. Archived from the original on November 25, 2022. Retrieved November 25, 2022.
^Fybush, Scott (July 27, 2009). "Whither Pulse?". North East RadioWatch. Archived from the original on November 24, 2022. Retrieved November 24, 2022.
^Fybush, Scott (September 19, 2011). "Citadel Becomes Cumulus". NorthEast Radio Watch. Archived from the original on November 24, 2022. Retrieved November 24, 2022.
^Fybush, Scott (October 6, 2008). "WCOJ's Gone...Is Nassau Next?". North East RadioWatch. Archived from the original on November 24, 2022. Retrieved November 24, 2022.
