Advocates for the overlap stations once distributed buttons to support their case. If you walked into public TV for the first time in July 1996, you could easily get the idea that, unlike the rest of the media world, it's dashing toward a single -channel future. An extra public TV channel in the nation's largest city, WNYC, has been sold off and left the air June 30, and the FCC is supposed to decide this week whether the operator of two channels in Pittsburgh can cash-in one of them.
National policies encourage the trend.
A consensus of public TV stations supports legislation that would let second stations be sold off. And a new CPB rule supported by many stations will cut next year's total Community Service Grants given out in a market if there are two or more stations. Maine Public Broadcasting announces, as the result of another CPB rule change, it's closing down the second channel it created in a much-hailed 1993 consolidation. The losses are temporary ones, pubcasters assure themselves. The fuss surrounds a few dozen stations that happen to share their large and medium-size markets with other public TV outlets.