[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1201-E1202]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

RECOGNIZING SERVICE BY WCTE-TV

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HON. BART GORDON

of tennessee

in the house of representatives

Wednesday, June 7, 1995
Mr. GORDON. Mr. Speaker, WCTE-TV in Cookeville, TN, provides a great
service to the television viewers of Putnam County and the Upper
Cumberland region of Tennessee. The enclosed article from the New York
Times shows how the small, but capable staff juggle many
responsibilities and produce quality local programming.
[From the New York Times, Apr. 17, 1995]

Where Public TV Is More Than a Political Football

(By Laurie Mifflin)

Cookeville, TN.--When people argue about public television
in Washington, Boston, New York or Los Angeles, they talk
about ``Sesame Street,'' ``Nova'' and ``Frontline''; about
whether the political programming is too partisan, about
whether opera and ballet are too elitist, and about slashing
station budgets of $100 million a year or more.
Here, too, in Cookeville, in the Upper Cumberland region of
Tennessee, public television means ``Sesame Street,''
``Nova'' and ``Frontline.'' But political programming means
covering monthly meetings of the Putnam County Commission.
Cultural programming means the Smithville Fiddlers Jamboree
and the Tennessee Tech Faculty Brass Quintet. The budget runs
a little over $1 million. And the station consists of three
rooms and a truck.
The boxy WCTE-TV truck is parked beneath the iron girders
and concrete risers of the Tennessee Tech football stadium,
the station's home. It is a ``remote truck,'' divided inside
into three cramped carrels lined with audio and video editing
equipment, the kind of truck television crews use when they
cover events away from the studio.
This remote truck does venture out--to cover Tech football
or basketball road games--but as soon as it is parked under
the stadium, thick hanks of blue cable are pulled out and
connected to other cables leading to the station's control
room, because the truck doubles as the station's main editing
facility.
So when Donna Castle and Rick Wells return from videotaping
teenagers in Cane Creek Park who are testing leaf and water
samples in a regional ``Envirothon'' contest, for example,
Mrs. Castle climbs into the truck and sits down to edit a Hot
Puddin' Cake recipe for that week's ``Cumberland Cooking With
Cathy'' show.
Mr. Wells heads to the ``studio'' on the other side of the
parking-bay wall--a windowless 20-by-30-foot room with
cinder-block walls and klieg lights sprouting from the
ceiling--to operate a camera focused on teams of jittery high
school students competing in the Upper Cumberland Academic
Bowl. And when that taping starts, Mrs. Castle will have to
stop editing because David Dow will need the truck's control
panel to direct the three-camera Academic Bowl production.
WNET in New York and WGBH in Boston may be the signature
stations of the Public Broadcasting Service because they
produce many of its best programs, but the mom-and-pop
stations of small-town America have deep roots in the public
television heritage, too.
The two dozen or so smallest PBS stations in the country
receive 30 to 40 percent of their budgets from the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, so eliminating Federal
financing could force them to close up shop. But ``zeroing
out'' now appears unlikely; when Congress returns from Easter
recess, the House and Senate will have to reconcile their
versions of bills to cut back financing, with the compromise
likely to be in the 10-to-15-percent range.
But for Donna and Richard Castle, the operators of WCTE,
Channel 22, in Cookeville, even a 10 percent cut will hurt
their bare-bones budget of $1.16 million (which includes 18
salaries). And because it would be cheaper simply to pick up
PBS's national programming, Channel 22 would probably cut
back the thing that makes it distinctive: its local
programming.
WCTE was founded in 1978 as part of the state Department of
Education, and Mr. Castle, 58, the general manager, still
calls it ``educational TV'' as often as he calls it ``public
TV.'' The station offers instructional programs used by local
schools and by parents who teach their children at home, as
well as programs informing the community about local
government, local schools, local cultural affairs and local
businesses.
``We're here for the public, and I try to remember it all
the time,'' Mrs. Castle said. ``If people around here want to
see the Smithville Fiddlers Jamboree instead of something
from the Theater of the Rhinoceros in San Francisco, that's
O.K.''
Mr. Castle pronounces himself ``stumped'' by the Washington
politicians who seem so down on public television. ``We've
never been partisan or played politics in any way,'' he said
of WCTE. ``And when they talk about public TV being for the
wealthy and the elite, well, that's sure not true here.''
Cookeville lies midway between Nashville and Knoxville, far
enough from each for the area to qualify for Federal money to
build an 840-foot television and radio transmission tower. To
the east, the countryside's rolling ridges become small
mountains; there, television reception requires either a
satellite dish or a huge antenna. Many people cannot afford
either.
``In our viewing area, 60 percent of the people don't have
cable,'' Mr. Castle said. ``In the mountainous parts, if you
don't have a dish, you can't even get ABC, CBS or NBC. In
some of the historically poor areas around here, the only
station people get is Channel 22.''
Channel 22, one of the smallest PBS stations in the country
in terms of both budget and viewership, is so small that it
falls ``below measurable standards'' for rating by the A.C.
Nielsen Media Research Company. Nielsen estimates WCTE's
cumulative weekly audience (house-holds
that tune in for at least 15 minutes a week) at 17,000 to
18,000.
The station gets its modest home rent-free from Tennessee
Tech, whose green campus graced by red-brick Georgian
buildings is the town's centerpiece. Of the station's $1.6
million budget for 1994-95, $393,254 comes from the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $498,315 from the
state.
Finding that level of financial support around Cookeville
would be unlikely. Membership in Channel 22, which costs $25
a year, accounted for $50,000 last year. An annual eight-
night auction at the town's Drama Center, run by 200
volunteers, added $72,000. There are no large corporations
here, and persuading local businesses to underwrite programs
instead of buying advertising on local commercial stations is
difficult.
``We charge $50 a program a week,'' said Tina Majors,
WCTE's director of development, ``whether it's for a local
program or one from PBS, but that's for a 13-week commitment.
Some businesses won't commit to that, but they'll spend $100
for two spots in a big local event like Horse Show Night at
the county fair.''
Ms. Majors is WCTE's newest employee, hired about 18 months
ago because of fears about losing financing. She is just
about the only one who doesn't work on programs. ``There's
nobody here who can't run a camera,'' Mr. Castle likes to
say.
Sue Gibbons, the traffic manager, said, ``Richard and
Donna's three boys grew up in the station, pulling cable and
helping out.'' Russ Castle, 23, now works for a local radio
station but still ``runs a camera,'' unpaid, on all Tennessee
Tech football games for WCTE. His 20-year-old twin brothers,
Art and Roger, attend the University of Tennessee at Martin
and run cameras (also without being paid) when they are home.
Steve Boots, the station's young assistant manager,
describes his job as ``anything from grabbing a broom to
hosting a show.'' He was the host for the Uppper Cumberland
Academic Bowl in early April.
Channel 22's director of educational programming, Becky
Magura, started out as a college intern in 1980 and has run
the camera on hundreds of football and basketball games by
now. She also produces the Academic Bowl shows and many
segments for ``Upper Cumberland Camera,'' a magazine-format
show that appears every Thursday night.
That program--``52 new shows a year; we don't repeat,''
Mrs. Castle says with pride--has done segments on the effort
to restore defunct movie theaters, on a conference offering
advice to women in business, and on a Tennessee Tech
professor using computer simulation in chemistry experiments.
The station also produces the ``Upper Cumberland Business
Profile,'' an interview program; ``Education in the Upper
Cumberland,'' and ``Cumberland Cooking With Cathy.'' ``When
she did her Christmas show, we stupidly said, `Send us an
envelope if you want recipes,''' Mrs. Castle said. ``We got
over 600 requests. Joyce Hunter and I sat there and stuffed
all those envelopes.''
WCTE's productions look and sound as professional on the
screen as most shows aired [[Page E1202]] on Channel 13 in
New York. Indeed, its one-hour special on the Smithville
Fiddlers Jamboree was offered nationally by PBS, and more
than 100 stations picked it up.
Teachers, parents and elderly residents watch the
instructional programming offered every weekday between 9:30
A.M. and 2:30 P.M., including some courses for college
credit. Mrs. Magura, the mother of a 4-year old, coordinates
the schedule with PBS and makes sure teachers get the guides
that go with it.
``A lot of our rural schools don't have VCR's,'' she said,
``so teachers watch our program guide very closely. If
something they want is on at 10:30 A.M., they put on the TV
in their classroom at 10:30 A.M.''
Mrs. Castle bristles at two frequent criticisms of public
television: that it serves only an elite and offers too much
provocative programming.
``People come up to me and say they watched `Upper
Cumberland Camera,''' she said, ``and some of them go on and
say, `Boy I sure enjoyed that mystery program you had on.' So
they watch us, and then maybe it leads them to watch
`Mystery' or `Nova' or Charles Dickens, too.''
As for programming, she points out that middle Tennessee
has a cultural heritage of its own. ``Our local programming
gives people around here a positive image of themselves,
too,'' she said. ``It gives people things to feel proud of.''

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