WMFE Finds a Buyer

Is it real this time? Will WMFE finally be sold?





The Daytona Beach News - Journal is reporting that the University of Central Florida Trustees have agreed to purchase the License of WMFE-TV. FCC Approval is still needed. The University currently operated WUCF out of Brevard. The purchase will extend the station's reach. If I am reading this right, after the deal is approved WUCF will no longer run the station owned by Brevard Community College (WBCC). The college will run the station and offer educational programs.

You can read the entire article here.

WDSC Leaves PBS

WDSC is dropping its affiliation with PBS. The Daytona State College station will focus on teaching students with a new degree program. The Daytona News Journal reports state and federal budget cuts resulted in the college ending its membership with the Public Broadcasting Service, which made up 25 percent of its programming. It not clear from the article what programming will be aired by WDSC.


WDSC is not the only Public TV station in Florida to change direction. In April of 2011 it was announced that WMFE, Orlando was up for sale. The FCC has not yet approved the sale of the license to Daystar, a religious broadcaster. 


Daytona Beach and Orlando are being served by WBCC-TV out of Cocoa, Florida. 


 

Good News for PBS in Orlando

The University of Central Florida and Brevard Community College (UCF and BCC) will be picking up where WMFE left off. The two educational institutions announced they will be picking up PBS programming.

WMFE notified PBS on April 1 that they were selling their TV operation to focus on public radio. The TV operation was sold to Daystar Television Network, an evangelical Christian broadcaster based in Dallas.

Another Florida PBS Station May Go Dark

A $250,000 funding cut from Daytona State College puts WDSC 15 at risk. The station serves the Daytona area and Central Florida including part of the area that was served by Orlando's WMFE. WMFE is being sold to a faith based organization.


According to the article in News Journal, "Administrators said the college has already cut the $250,000 it costs for the PBS programs for the next fiscal year and is also struggling to pay $1.5 million overall to run the WDSC 15 station, which includes production costs and other programming."


The college, the station and its board are looking for ways to save PBS for Central Florida. Once idea is an alliance with other Public TV stations - "a Central Florida Broadcast Partnership to "preserve public broadcasting in Central Florida." GM Bob Williams says, "if the board agrees, everything will need to be in place before July 1."


I seems clear that these PTV stations are not self-sustaining through their program offerings. Member support is not enough to keep them on the air. The funding puzzle for these stations is much more complex.

Demise of WMFE

A few things stand out here.

• The warnings about the business model for public TV being broken has been out there for quite some time. 
• The selling price of $5 million seems very low. 
• The comments. 
• http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2011/04/wmfe-sale-dallas-religious-broadcaster-is-the-buyer.html

I was involved in focus groups for public radio. One of the questions asked among those who were loyal listeners of public radio was, "would you miss it if it went away." For WMFE and public TV in Orlando, we're about to find out.

I'm interested in your thoughts.

WMFE Switches Formats

I heard a few days ago about the impending change to news and information at WMFE-FM. It's exciting news for those who have not had NPR style news consistently in Central Florida. The change will be felt deeply by classical music fans who will be forced to subscribe to a satellite service or get classical music from the web. The music is being offered on WMFE's HD2 signal. There are not many sets and the low power of the HD signal will not satisfy too many listeners. I'm not sure how the HD2 broadcast is going to sustain itself.

News coverage of the change has been scant. The word may not have gotten to the station's classical core audience yet. The station sent a mailing to its members yesterday. There will be more heat around this change after the classical audience becomes aware of the change. When we made the change at Connecticut Public Radio. most of our listeners could still get classical music from other radio stations in our coverage area. We still got over 2000 protests from our membership about the change. A quick search of the Orlando market did not reveal any other stations carrying classical music.

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