WILL-TV begins a year-long celebration of its 50th anniversary this month by looking back at the station’s history, and by looking ahead to the digital era.
The station kicks off the celebration the week of Aug. 7 with an open house and special programming.
Later this year, the station will begin simulcasting digital and analog signals. One of its two digital channels will broadcast a standard-definition signal that will duplicate the programming on WILL-TV’s analog channel; the other will broadcast the Public Broadcasting System’s high-definition programming.
Before WILL-TV could go digital, however, $800,000 worth of repairs and renovations had to be made to its 40-year-old tower near Monticello. That work will be completed this fall.
When the tower went into service in 1966, WILL-TV doubled its viewing range to a 70-mile-radius. Today, the station’s coverage area includes western Indiana on the east, the Springfield-Jacksonville areas on the west and extends as far north as Kankakee County and as far south as Effingham. The station’s most popular programs – such as “Mystery!” and “Antiques Roadshow” – attract audiences from 11,000 to 17,000 viewers.
Currently more than half of WILL-TV’s $4 million operating budget comes from Friends of WILL, which comprises more than 13,500 families, individual donors and businesses. Seeking alternative funding sources to replace dwindling federal funds is a perennial challenge for WILL-TV and other PBS stations.
WILL staff members produce programs that include “Illinois Gardener” and “Prairie Fire,” as well as documentaries and public affairs shows.
In the early years, WILL’s daytime broadcast schedule consisted primarily of instructional programming, in particular UI lecture courses. But WILL-TV also produced original children’s shows, including 15 episodes of a science program called “Tell Me Why” that were shown on educational TV stations across the U.S. Viewers learned how to cook and garden from UI home economics professor Jesse Heathman in a program called “Your Home and Mine.” During the 1980s, the WILL-TV crew produced “Country Music Hall,” a show that featured local performers.
Don Mullally, who retired at the end of July after 32 years as director of the Division of Broadcasting and general manager of WILL AM-FM-TV, said that broadcasting “moved at a glacial pace” up until the 1960s.
Mullally, a veteran of commercial television and a College of Communications faculty member, took the helm of WILL in 1973.
“I was hired to make things happen, to bring some excitement to the screen and airwaves, and I really enjoyed that. The idea of creating something that was new and helpful to the community was very important to me. Ideally, we would be running programs that would excite people, or even enrage them, and make them question their own values,” Mullally said.
And create excitement he did. Mullally’s decisions to air programs on controversial topics, such as gay rights and the public execution of a Saudi princess suspected of adultery, drew angry phone calls and threats of violence from some disgruntled people.
“But we reported it to the UI police and ran the programs anyway,” Mullally said.
Mullally was instrumental in spearheading construction of Campbell Hall for Public Telecommunication at Main and Goodwin in Urbana so that the WILL-AM-FM-TV studios and offices could be consolidated in one location. He also increased the number of hours the WILL radio stations broadcast and helped secure better salaries for WILL staff members.
When the university decided to found a public television station in the mid-1950s, commercial television operators in the area were opposed to the competition, and the UI had to contend with a bill that was introduced in the Illinois Legislature and battle a lawsuit that went all the way to the Illinois Supreme Court.
WILL-TV’s first studio was a makeshift affair underneath the west stands of Memorial Stadium, its transmitter had a radius of just 25 miles and the station was on the air from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Monday through Friday only.
WILL-TV’s first broadcast on Aug. 1, 1955, was inauspicious: Its equipment blew seven fuses and caused viewers to miss the first 15 minutes of a film called “The Finder.”
In 1958, the station began broadcasting during daylight hours, and in 1987 went to 24-hour programming.
“Maintaining and strengthening its broadcast service is WILL-TV’s top priority,” said Carl Caldwell, station manager. However, recent proposals to cut federal funding have threatened this service, including locally produced programs. A bill that was proposed by a committee in the U.S. House of Representatives in June, but was later modified by the full House, would have meant drastic funding cuts for public radio and TV stations had the original version been ratified. WILL and other stations are keeping their eyes on the bill, which is now wending its way through the U.S. Senate.
“One of the things we need to do is to continue to look for ways to develop new funding opportunities because of the uncertainty of tax-based revenue,” Caldwell said. “The political climate is such that we need to be very sensitive to where we are going to turn in the future for the money we need to broadcast the programs we air and to continue educational outreach.”
Educational outreach is one of WILL-TV’s top priorities, Caldwell said, and the station is applying for federal grants and reallocating funds internally to continue its commitment to children’s programming and educational outreach.
Special events commemorate anniversary
A week of special events, beginning with an open house at the WILL-TV studios, is planned to commemorate the station’s 50th anniversary.
Cookie Monster, a walk-around character from the long-running children’s program “Sesame Street,” and Mr. McFeely (actor David Newell), the “Speedy Delivery” messenger from the PBS series “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” will greet fans and pose for pictures during an open house from 2-5 p.m. Aug. 7 at Campbell Hall for Public Telecommunication.
Music fans can fiddle around with Exorna, a Celtic band from Springfield. The versatile trio, known for its lively jigs and reels, plays various styles of Celtic music and incorporates many instruments – including the fiddle, banjo, accordion, spoons and bodhran – into its shows.
Guests also can talk with WILL on-air personalities, register for prize giveaways, tape a promotional spot for WILL-TV and tour the studios.
WILL-TV also will mark the anniversary with a week of special programming Aug. 8-12. “Channel 12 Classics” will start off at 9 p.m. Aug. 8, with the “WILL-TV 50th Anniversary Special,” a half-hour retrospective on the station’s history and the colorful personalities and programs that have been its hallmark. The special will be produced and hosted by Alison Davis Wood, producer-host of “Prairie Fire.”
Other classic programs in the schedule include a 1983 performance by the UI Jazz Band at the Jazz Club (9 p.m., Aug. 9); “Against the Wind,” a documentary about wheelchair athlete Jean Driscoll (9 p.m., Aug. 12); and episodes of “Country Music Hall” featuring the Central Illinois bands Pork and the Havana Ducks and Sunny Norman and the Drifting Playboys (9 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., Aug. 10).