Penn State Radio and TV to Remain Operating

Don’t touch that dial…it’s still Virtual Channel 3 in Clearfield and 91.5 FM in State College. And for the foreseeable future, it will remain that way.

Penn State’s Board of Trustees voted today to approve an earlier plan to transfer WPSU-FM and it’s same-named TV station to Philadelphia-based WHYY.

This new deal frees Penn State from having to pay an additional operating subsidy over the next five years to keep the stations operating, unlike a previous deal the board rejected just last month. That action also put the stations in eminent danger of going dark by the end of June.

Though the subsidy is now off the table, WHYY will have a month-long exclusivity period following its vote to raise funds of at least $8.4 million to keep the stations going.

WPSU’s current staff will have opportunities to interview for positions under the new ownership structure, though none of their jobs are guaranteed to be carried over.

WPSU-FM first went on the air in 1953 as WDFM, holding that call sign until 1984, when the WPSU call letters became available after Penn State’s Wilkes-Barre branch campus decided to shutter its own radio station. The newly-christened WPSU also gradually added NPR programming to its lineup, eventually becoming a full-fledged NPR affiliate by the mid-90’s, with little student-run programming. Today, student-run radio is confined to another campus radio station, WKPS “90.7 The Lion”.

WPSU-TV first went on the air as WPSX-TV in 1965, as a branch of the Penn State Cooperative Extension (hence the ‘X’ in the call letters). Though programming originates from Innovation Park on Penn State’s University Park campus, its transmitter is located some 45 miles east of State College in Lawrence Township, 7 miles north of Clearfield.

During the station’s analog years on VHF channel 3, and sandwiched between KDKA-TV and WTAE-TV, WPSX-TV was frequently viewable over-the-air in some Pittsburgh suburbs.

Though WPSX-TV was the de facto PBS network affiliate for the Johnstown/Altoona/State College market, it then relied more on locally-produced programs including in-school instruction. Lynn Hinds, best known as the co-host of WTAE-TV’s “AM Pittsburgh” in the 70’s, later joined the faculty at Penn State and was frequently seen on camera at WPSX-TV during some local segments.

In 2005, WPSX-TV assumed the call letters of its FM sister.

WPSU and Kellen Stepler of the Tribune-Review contributed to this report.