WSEC

After World War II, the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign hosted the National Association of Educational Broadcasters (NAEB). The NAEB, based in Urbana, Illinois from 1951 until 1961 (when it moved to Washington, D.C.),[4] was created to establish broadcast allocations of AM and FM radio and TV channels for non-commercial educational programming. The Rockefeller Foundation funded two-week seminars in 1949 (Allerton I) and 1950 (Allerton II) for 22 educational broadcasters from across the United States.[5] The meetings established the foundation for National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).[6]

The University of Illinois applied for a television license soon after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lifted its freeze on new licenses (July 1, 1952). A bill which would have forced the university to withdraw its license application was narrowly defeated in the Illinois legislature. The Illinois Broadcasters Association (ILBA) later funded a suit by a restaurant owner in Evanston which claimed that the Illinois Constitution did not allow the university to operate a television station. The case went to the Illinois Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the university's license application. Educational broadcasting in downstate Illinois was delayed for fifteen years, while other states proceeded with development.

In 1970, west-central Illinois was one of the few areas in the United States without a PBS station. Although regional commercial broadcast television networks and their local affiliates had provided some educational programming for children during the 1950s and 1960s, it had disappeared by 1970. Parts of the region were served by WILL-TV in Urbana, WTVP in Peoria, Iowa Public Television outlet KIIN-TV in Iowa City, and KETC in St. Louis. Cable television systems in north-central and western Illinois, including Macomb carried Iowa Public Television or WTVP, and both WILL-TV and KETC-TV were provided by cable operators in Springfield. KETC was also carried in Jacksonville. When WTVP signed on from Peoria in 1971, Quincy (the second-largest city in west-central Illinois) had no access to public television.

Meetings were held with civic organizations, businesses, elected public representatives, and private and public educational institutions from 1970 to 1976, and the West Central Illinois Educational Telecommunications Corporation (a consortium of Bradley University in Peoria, Western Illinois University in Macomb, Blackhawk Community College in Moline, and Sangamon State University in Springfield) was incorporated on February 9, 1976.[7] Its mission was "to establish an educational television network, provide educational content, create local and public affairs programming to serve the residents and businesses of west-central Illinois". Bylaws for the corporation were approved on January 13, 1984.[7]

The name Convocom was adopted in 1978 for the corporation, and its offices were established on West Bradley Avenue in Peoria. Former UNC-TV (North Carolina's educational television network) general manager George Hall was appointed its first president that year.[8]

Initial engineering design and FCC application filings were performed in 1977 and 1978 by Gary Breed and Don Markley[9] in Peoria. Breed was a faculty member of Bradley University's Engineering department, and Markley grew up in Ipava.[10]

The original television network design for Convocom would encompass five broadcast transmitters. Peoria's WTVP would be the flagship station, with WQPT-TV in Moline, WIUM-TV in Macomb, WQEC in Quincy, and WJPT in Jacksonville (serving Springfield) as satellites. The master control would be located at Convocom headquarters in Peoria, at or near the flagship station of the proposed network WTVP, with three microwave interconnections (links) in the Quad Cities, Macomb–Quincy, and Jacksonville–Springfield.

The D. L. Markley design was a balance of engineering, economics, and the service region of the education institution members in the largely rural west-central Illinois region. Larger urban areas in the region were considered crucial for ongoing community support and sufficient financial support (grants, fundraising) to cover operational costs of the non-commercial educational network.[11]

West Central Illinois Educational TV Network (Convocom) was presented to regional representatives, educational institutions, major businesses, civic and community organizations in 1977 and 1978:[12]

Notes:

• 1. WJPT planned to use the 1,610-foot (491 m) WJJY-TV tower at Bluffs, Illinois. That tower collapsed on March 26, 1978, in an ice storm. A new 800-foot (244 m) tower site west of Waverly was selected and began broadcasting August 11, 1984.
• 2. WQEC was added to the original design in 1979 since the new WJPT tower at 800 to 1,000 feet (eventually located in Waverly) would not provide coverage to the Quincy and Hannibal market.

The first new Convocom station, WJPT in Jacksonville, planned to sign on in 1979 using a 1,610-foot (491 m) tower near Bluffs, Illinois, that had previously been used by ABC affiliate WJJY-TV. The station was intended to serve both Quincy and Springfield. However, the tower collapsed in a massive ice storm early on the morning of March 26, 1978.[13] Constructing a replacement 1,000-foot (305 m) tower at the Bluffs site by April 1979 would require $1 million, well beyond Convocom's original budget. Due to changes in the anticipated regional coverage from that location, Convocom sought and received a license for a fourth station, WQEC, to serve the Quincy/Hannibal market. In the summer of 1978, it also began surveying a replacement tower site for WJPT.

Since the 1960s, Western Illinois University had been surveying tower sites for a planned educational television station and relocation of the university's FM station, WIUM, a 250-foot (76 m) guyed radio tower erected in 1956. The tower was located next to Sallee Hall in the middle of the university's rapidly expanding campus. In 1976, after examining a number of sites south of Macomb, WIU selected a tower site on land bequeathed to the university by Jack Horn, regional Coca-Cola bottler. Then, in 1977, WIU and Convocom agreed to co-locate the television station, WIUM-TV, and supporting microwave relay network on this same tower. Construction of a new 500-foot (152 m) tower was completed in 1980 and WIUM's transmitters were relocated to the site in 1981. Two microwave relay towers were constructed in 1983 between Peoria and Quincy at Cuba, Illinois,[14] and Carthage, Illinois,[15] for master control, PBS program feeds, local program feeds, and TV studios at WIU in Macomb and at WGEM-TV in Quincy.

By 1983, a site west of Waverly was selected as the site for an 800-foot (244 m) tower for WJPT. However, for reasons that remain unknown, the FCC only licensed WJPT for 34 kilowatts of broadcast power at that specific location. As a result, WJPT only had a fringe (grade B) signal in Springfield, leaving it all but unviewable in the capital except on cable. A site east of Quincy owned by Blackhawk of Quincy, Inc. was selected for a new 500-foot (152 m) tower for WQEC.[16] Convocom had to raise $5.5 million to complete construction of these planned and unplanned replacement facilities.[17]

George Hall resigned as President of Convocom in 1982 to serve as Virginia's Director of Telecommunications under Governor Chuck Robb.[8] The consortium appointed Dr. Jerold Gruebel as the Executive Director of Convocom in April 1983. Dr. Grubel had previously served as the assistant director of Indiana Higher Education Telecommunications System (IHETS)—a statewide network of video, voice, and data networks connecting all 77 of Indiana's colleges and universities with headquarters in Indianapolis.[18]

WQPT in Moline signed on November 2, 1983, to serve the Quad Cities metropolitan area, east-central Iowa, and northwestern Illinois through a translator (channel 48) in Sterling, Illinois. WQPT, owned and operated by Black Hawk College, elected to develop its own brand identity for the Quad Cities market and never joined the Convocom microwave network and control facilities in Peoria as originally envisioned in the 1970s design. Western Illinois University-Quad Cities assumed ownership of WQPT in 2010 and began a series of capital improvements. On June 30, 2014, the master control for WQPT was migrated and centralized at WTVP in Peoria, as envisioned in the original 1970s D.L. Markley & Associates design.[19]

WJPT in Jacksonville signed on August 11, 1984, to serve the western portion of the Champaign–Springfield–Decatur market and south-central Illinois. This gave the central Illinois region the distinction of being served by two separately programmed PBS stations since WILL-TV in Urbana continued to serve as the PBS outlet for the eastern half of the market. Springfield is assigned to the Champaign–Springfield–Decatur market by Nielsen Designated Market Area (DMA) and the FCC Television Market Area (TMA) since the 1950s.[20]

WIUM-TV in Macomb signed on October 1, 1984, as the primary station serving Macomb, WIU, and west-central Illinois.

WQEC in Quincy signed on March 9, 1985, covering Hannibal and Quincy, western Illinois, northeastern Missouri, and southeastern Iowa.[21]

WTVP in Peoria, owned by the Illinois Valley Public Telecommunications Corporation (IVPTC), signed on June 27, 1971, targeted to the Galesburg, Peoria, and Bloomington television markets. IVPTC elected to keep its brand identity, board ownership structure, and broadcast operations in Peoria. Like WQPT, the station never elected to join the three newly built Convocom broadcast facilities in Macomb, Quincy, and Jacksonville outlined in the Markley plan.

Over the next ten years, regional, political, and consortium membership change led to revisions in financial support and a different mission statement. Convocom's service region in 1985 was smaller than the original 1970s D.L. Markley & Associates design. In 1989, Jerold Gruebel argued that Convocom offices in Springfield would permit access to Illinois legislators as well as the Illinois Board of Higher Education to further a new mission statement for Convocom: "To collaborate with people and enterprises in the communities we serve to bring quality programs, learning opportunities, and economic development to our region."

Relocation of offices from Peoria to Springfield was one of several changes during the 1990s. Western Illinois University's participation, as well as other founding higher education institutions, was reduced or eliminated. A new marketing and branding program changed the FCC call signs for two of the three Convocom broadcast facilities: WIUM-TV became WMEC and WJPT became WSEC.

On July 1, 1995, Governor Jim Edgar signed a bill which realigned the public higher educational structure in Illinois. The Board of Regents and Board of Governors were abolished. Sangamon State University was merged with the University of Illinois system as the University of Illinois at Springfield. Western Illinois University was expanded to a dual campus, single university structure with the creation of a new Western Illinois University-Quad Cities campus. John Deere, the Moline Foundation, IBM, and the Rock Island County Board provided land grants, facilities support, and resources for this new riverfront campus in Moline. Before 1995, the Quad Cities was the largest metropolitan region in the U.S. without a public four-year university.

In 1997, Convocom purchased 30 acres of land southeast of Colchester, near Fandon, for a new 430-foot (131 m) tower. The WMEC transmitter was moved to this new tower. This transmitter relocation ended WIU's co-location support for WMEC at the WIUM-FM tower location (1983–1997) on WIU's Horn Campus, south of Macomb.

In 1998, to address reception problems in Springfield from WSEC at Waverly, a 1,400-watt translator was built in the city, originally broadcasting on channel 65 as W65BV. Previously, Springfield viewers could only get an acceptable signal via cable and satellite. This translator was moved to VHF channel 8 in 2001 and became W08DP.[22]

On July 21, 2000, the FCC granted a new main studio waiver to relocate the master control and technical and engineering facilities from Peoria to Chatham, southwest of Springfield.[23] This effectively ended the original 1970s design and would have financial consequences in the next decade. WILL-TV in Champaign-Urbana is the recognized primary PBS member for Springfield, with WSEC as a secondary affiliate. The FCC, Nielsen, and PBS continued to recognize Macomb's WMEC as Network Knowledge's flagship station.

In 1998, the FCC mandated that broadcast stations migrate from analog (NTSC) to digital (ATSC) television transmission in the United States.[24] This had the effect of imposing an unfunded federal mandate on public television stations. Since 1993, auctions of former television spectrum to the wireless (cellular) telephone and broadband service companies by the FCC generated $52 billion.[25] That revenue was not used to mitigate the digital transition costs for the non-commercial, educational television stations.

For comparison, Iowa Public Television, which operates a statewide television and telecommunications network with nine high-power digital transmitters and eight translators, spent $47,000,000 to complete the digital television conversion. That capital expenditure was financially supported by the State of Iowa, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. More than 1,000,000 viewers watch IPTV each week. Contributing membership to the IPTV Foundation (Friends of Iowa Public TV) consists of approximately 55,000 households.[26]

This mandate required Convocom to review its engineering design, equipment, and operations in order to continue broadcasting to the West-Central Illinois service region after the digital television transition.

In March 2002, Convocom's technical support, the engineering office, and network master control were moved from Peoria to Chatham with the completion of a new digital master control facility and interconnection system. The WSEC transmitter site was moved from Waverly to a new 976 ft (297 m) tower in Franklin.

A new interconnection system composed of digital microwave (90 Mbs) and fiber-optic cabling was designed and implemented with the relocation of the master control. It extends from Chatham through Franklin (WSEC's transmitter site) to Golden, where it splits and sends a fiber signal to Quincy for WQEC and a microwave signal to Macomb for WMEC. There are also linkages to television studios in Quincy at WGEM (NBC affiliate) and in Macomb at Western Illinois University. The television tower for WQEC in Quincy, erected in 1984 by Convocom, was sold by Network Knowledge to Clearview Tower on January 5, 2011[27] On February 14, 2014, Clearview Tower sold this tower site to K2 Tower.[28]

In 2004, after completion of system changes and migration to digital broadcasting, the corporation adopted the brand name Network Knowledge and retired the Convocom brand name after 27 years of use.

The network's geographic service region is now defined by the three broadcast facilities at Franklin (Springfield and Jacksonville), Macomb, and Quincy.

As predicted in the 1970s, the smaller geographical service region of three broadcast facilities presented financial challenges for all participants.

In May 2001, the State of Illinois granted Convocom almost $1 million for the digital conversion.[29] Despite the early success, Dr. Jerold Gruebel, president and CEO of Network Knowledge said, "the organization first ran into financial trouble in 2002, due to unfunded federal mandates to convert to digital television". Network Knowledge raised more than $15 million to fund the conversion but was forced to borrow nearly $5 million to pay the rest of the bill.[24]

In January 2008, WTVP in Peoria faced financial difficulties after their digital television upgrade and studio relocation from Bradley University, an original member of the Convocom consortium, to a new Peoria riverfront studio and offices. A special campaign, Save Our Station, generated thousands of special contributions and led to an agreement with the bank.[30]

An experimental collaboration involving joint management and operational cooperation of WTVP with WILL-TV and the University of Illinois worked well enough that the WTVP Board of Directors voted in December 2013 to extend this cooperative agreement for an additional three years. The overall purpose of the agreement was to help both public broadcasting stations operate more cost-effectively in serving eastern and central Illinois.[31]

In July 2008, WQPT, owned by Black Hawk College, an original member of the Convocom consortium, lost financial support when the station was removed from the college's FY2009 fiscal budget.[32]

In May 2010, WQPT was sold to Western Illinois University-Quad Cities, with the primary objective to return WQPT to its original mission of creating more local and public affairs programming. The station moved from its longtime home on Black Hawk's campus to new studios and offices in Riverfront Hall on the WIU-QC Campus on July 1, 2014.[33] WQPT-TV was added to cable television systems serving Macomb and McDonough County after the WQPT transmitter was relocated to Orion, Illinois, in 2002 and later in 2010 when ownership changed to WIU-QC. The Macomb and McDonough County cable television systems have carried KIIN Iowa Public TV and WTVP in Peoria since 1969.

On June 30, 2014, WQPT centralized its master control at WTVP, in Peoria, as planned by D. L. Markley and Associates in the original Convocom network plan.

The smaller, three-station network relied heavily on corporate and government grant funding, instead of membership support (only six percent of the viewing audience donates to the three stations). In contrast, Friends of Iowa Public Television (Iowa Public Television Foundation Board) was created in 1970 for the development, growth, and support through building a strong statewide membership base. Its 65,000 member households across Iowa and bordering states contributed nearly 90 percent of the out-of-pocket costs for acquiring and producing general audience programming.[34]

In 2009, Network Knowledge also lost its grant support. The organization received an annual average of $750,000 from three foundations in Quincy and one foundation in Decatur. Due to their own economic shortfalls, Gruebel said, none of these organizations gave grants to the network.[24] The same year, Network Knowledge applied for assistance from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)'s financial distress program. Mark Erstling, senior vice president for CPB system development and media strategy, and Vincent Curren, CPB chief operating officer, traveled to Springfield to begin talks with the organization.

In 2016, the network announced major cutbacks in over-the-air broadcasting times to save money due to the Illinois state budget stand-off, along with other cuts from donors and production contracts. Starting on May 6, 2016, the network broadcast from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekends.[35] This broadcast schedule has not been seen for most stations since the 1960s and 1970s, when low popularity independent stations and some public television stations broadcast for limited hours. The station continued to maintain 24-hour, 7-days-per-week service over local cable providers and AT&T U-verse through a direct fiber optic link to Comcast (the major satellite services take the signal over-the-air), though since programs such as Sesame Street and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood air before the daily over-the-air sign-on, this effectively made half of the network's schedule cable only.

On November 29, 2018, West Central Illinois Educational Telecommunications Corporation announced that it had sold the three Network Knowledge stations to Southern Illinois University, which operates WSIU-FM-TV in Carbondale, as well as its associated satellites, for $1.5 million. The deal took effect on November 1; longtime network president and CEO Jerold Gruebel gave up station management on November 1 and switched from full-time to part-time work about a month later. The sale was part of a larger partnership between Network Knowledge and WSIU that had been announced on October 26 in hopes of preserving public television in western and central Illinois. A State Journal-Register story said that views wouldn't notice a difference in program quality, but that viewers in the Network Knowledge territory would gain access to more national PBS programming.[1]

By 2019, the former Network Knowledge stations had begun branding as "WSEC," with a logo similar to that of WSIU-TV. They also adopted the WSIU stations' slogan, "Powered by You," replacing the longtime Network Knowledge slogan "Watch. Click. Learn." As of May 2020, the old network website redirected to WSEC's schedule page on WSIU's site but the stations still maintained a slightly different schedule from WSIU-TV.

Network Knowledge produces several regularly scheduled programs each month, including:

• Cardia (monthly; hosted by Mark McDonald and Dr. Gregory Mishkel; produced by Mark McDonald)
• CapitolView (weekly; hosted by Bernie Schoenberg and John Patterson; produced by Scott Troehler)
• Illinois Stories (3 times per week; produced and hosted by Mark McDonald)
• InLife: Stories from Western Illinois (monthly; hosted by Becky Cramblit; produced by Scott Troehler and Becky Cramblit)
• Lawmakers (monthly; hosted by Mark McDonald; produced by Scott Troehler)

Special programming has included:

• Expedition United Kingdom (2005) (hosted by Becky Cramblit, produced by Scott Troehler)
• Expedition Scotland (2006)(hosted by Becky Cramblit, produced by Scott Troehler)
• Expedition United Kingdom (2007) (hosted by Becky Cramblit, produced by Scott Troehler)
• Building Stories (hosted by Dave Leonatti with Anthony Rubano, produced by Scott Troehler)
• Making Conversation; Downtown Springfield Inc. Annual Awards; Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce Annual Gala

The stations' digital signals are multiplexed:

During 2009, in the lead-up to the analog-to-digital television transition that would ultimately occur on June 12, Network Knowledge shut down the analog transmitters of its stations on a staggered basis. The dates each analog transmitter ceased operation as well as their post-transition channel allocations are:[40]

• WMEC shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 22, on February 17, 2009, the original target date in which full-power television in the United States was to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 21. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 22.
• WQEC shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 27, on February 17, 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 34. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 27.
• WSEC shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 14, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 15. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 14.