Tight Pennsylvania state budget could hurt Public TV
June 7, 2009
An article in Sunday’s Erie Times-News focused on all of the state funding cuts proposed by Governor Ed Rendell. The article focuses on things like state parks, libraries the U.S. Brig Niagara and Public TV. While WQLN is mentioned, the drastic state funding cuts could have a huge impact on all of Pennsylvania’s Public TV stations. The impact on WQLN could mean a loss of $800,000 as well as layoffs of 11 office employees according to WQLN President Dwight Miller. (These cuts would be in addition to 3 TV Engineer / Master Control Operator positions being eliminated in October for automation.) WQLN has been working on a campaign to have the state funding restored. Without it, the station would only air programs from PBS and would have to eliminate any independent or locally produced programs from its schedule. This could also mean even more TV pledge drives in an attempt to make up the difference.
