Jeff Korbelik / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Monday, October 25, 2004 7:00 pm
What Ron Hull saw on his television made him do a double take.
A triple take even.
Having settled in to watch the Rose Bowl parade on NBC on New Year's Day 1976, Hull and millions of people around the country were introduced to the network's new logo a geometric shaped letter "N."
"They took our logo," remembered Hull, former program manager of the Nebraska ETV Network.
Jack McBride, Nebraska ETV Network's former general manager, had the same thought.
"It was an exact duplicate," he said. "There were no two ways around it."
As Nebraska Educational Telecommunications celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, the logo controversy has resurfaced as one of many anecdotes.
And why shouldn't it? It's a heck of story.
The following Monday, Hull called NBC. The big network downplayed the issue, telling Hull "it didn't matter" that both were using essentially the same logo.
"I told them it was our logo, we like it, and we're going to keep it," he said.
Meanwhile, McBride was in conversation with attorneys in Washington.
"You could hear them drooling over the telephone," he remembered. "It was such an open-and-shut case."
The Nebraska Educational Telecommission filed suit against NBC for trademark infringement.
The national press salivated. How dare this tiny educational station from a state known more for its corn and football take on a broadcasting giant?
"It was a David-and-Goliath situation promoted nationally," said McBride, recalling that the station was flooded with phone calls from all over the country.
NBC eventually settled out of court. Nebraska ETV gave up the logo in exchange for nearly $1 million in equipment, including a color mobile unit, which was used until 1990.
The funny thing is, Nebraska ETV almost didn't use the logo in the first place. It was one of five in-house designs the staff voted on to use. "It was the first choice by a small margin," McBride said.
* * *
KUON-TV went on the air Nov. 1, 1954.
It was the result of a savvy deal brokered between Midwest media tycoon John Fetzer and University of Nebraska chancellor Clifford Hardin.
Fetzer had acquired channels 10 and 12 in Lincoln, but federal law prevented him from owning both, so, in a move to eliminate competition, he offered channel 12 to the university.
KUON-TV became only the ninth public station in the country.
The station had no microphones, cameras or studio of its own. For the first three years, until it moved into the basement of the university's Temple Building, it shared space and equipment with KOLN-TV, broadcasting from 9 a.m. to noon Monday through Friday.
The station paid university students $1 an hour to serve as crew, managing the floor and running the cameras and audio.
"It was a strange, unique and wonderful situation," said McBride, who had been hired by the university the year before to package programs for commercial stations designed to broaden the university's mission.
Early programs included "Yesterday in Nebraska," "House and Home," "Your Unicameral" and "Backyard Farmer," which is still around today as the longest-running locally produced program in the country.
Those early shows paved the way for others such as the Emmy Award-winning "Reading Rainbow" and the Peabody-winning and highly watched "In Search of the Oregon Trail" and the recent Peabody winner "Monkey Trial."
NET was then and is today a pioneer in public and educational broadcasting, becoming one of the most respected, most revered telecommunications systems in the country.
A big reason for its reputation has been its emphasis on education.
McBride knew in order for KUON to succeed it had to offer something the commercial stations didn't.
"We knew educational programming was important for the general audience, but it also was important for classroom instruction," he said.
By 1955, KUON, in cooperation with NU, the Nebraska Department of Education and Lincoln area schools, began experimenting with instructional telecasts, ranging from Spanish and French to English composition. One of the station's early proponents was State Sen. George Gerdes, who told McBride his granddaughter learned French from a KUON telecast.
In 1956, the Federal Communications Commission granted the NU Board of Regents control of the KUON-TV channel 12 license.
Two years later, six nearby Nebraska school districts were incorporated as the Nebraska Council for Educational Television (NCET)and worked with KUON to extend instructional television for use in their classrooms.
Buoyed by the support of school districts, colleges and educational association across the state, NCET petitioned the FCC for additional stations, and in 1961, KUON and NCET were awarded the largest block of stations ever eight total for a statewide television network.
The Nebraska Television Act in 1963 authorized development of the statewide network, created a new state agency (the Nebraska Educational Television Commission) and appropriated funding for the nine-station network.
It also resulted in a unique collaboration between the university and the commission still the only such collaboration today. The university holds the license for KUON-TV in Lincoln, while the commission holds the license for the remaining eight stations.
With the network progressing, McBride turned his attention to facilities. The station used 14 separate places on campus to shoot, including beneath the stands of Memorial Stadium, where McBride banged trash can lids to scare away birds.
"We needed a production facility to produce programs a better way," he said.
In 1969, land was acquired at 1800 N. 33rd St. to build the Nebraska Educational Telecommunications Center, later renamed after State Sen. Terry Carpenter, who had been instrumental in getting funds for the building passed.
The staff moved into its new headquarters in 1971.
The new facility allowed KUON to step up its program production quality. As the station moved into the 1970s and 1980s, it churned out such national headliners as the "Mark Twain Series" and "Anyone for Tennyson?"
Hull remembered that when KUON decided to produce "Tennyson," a program featuring celebrities such as Ruby Dee, Vincent Price and William Shatner reading poetry, it approached the New York City public station for assistance.
"They told me, When we decide to do poetry, we will do it,'" he said. "That's when we decided to do it ourselves. We had three seasons of wonderful programs."
It also led to bigger and better things.
* * *
The Emmy Awards are in a box.
Even when NET finds display space for them after the current renovations, some will have to remain in a box.
There are just too many.
It's a good problem to have.
"Reading Rainbow," the acclaimed PBS children's program co-produced by Nebraska ETV, has won 20 daytime Emmys, including eight for outstanding children's series.
Contributing producer Nan Schweiger said winning the 20th was as exciting as winning the first.
"Everybody loves the positive reinforcement," she said.
"Reading Rainbow" is the brainchild of former Lincolnite Twila C. Liggett, a former reading consultant for the state Department of Education. The series targets children ages 4 to 8, featuring a book in each episode and recommending several others.
It is hosted by LeVar Burton, known to an older generation as Kunta Kinte on "Roots" and to a younger one as the visor-wearing Jordy on "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
Since the show is filmed in New York City, many people are unaware of Nebraska ETV's connection to the series, but the network's role is significant.
As co-producer, Nebraska ETV handles promotion, distribution and marketing.
"Younger people tell us, Don't ever change,'" Schweiger said. "They say, I haven't had kids yet, and I want to make sure they see Reading Rainbow.'"
* * *
NET has had a knack for being on the cutting edge of technology.
Sometimes it was natural occurrence video tape in the 1960s made it easier to produce and distribute educational programming. But sometimes it wasn't.
Federal deregulation of AT&T in the late 1980s brought about a new problem. Phone service, McBride said, was going to increase from $250,000 a year to $750,000 a year.
NET found its solution in space a satellite.
McBride credits former Gov. Kay Orr for helping NET reach this stage in its progress. Besieged with funding requests for distance learning from state education agencies, Orr encouraged the groups to work together to come up with a plan.
The result was NEB*SAT, which established a comprehensive network of satellite originating and receiving sites across Nebraska to serve both public and private education from kindergarten through postgraduate levels.
With legislative and gubernatorial support, NET was able to lease a satellite transponder for programming and eventually purchase one, becoming the first state to do so.
"One way or another, we were able to stay abreast of the latest technological developments," McBride said.
It benefited people all over the state.
* * *
Like the winners from Minden.
In response to the success of "Extreme Makeover" on ABC, Nebraska ETV's "Backyard Farmer" decided to run a contest to make over somebody's yard.
The show's producers expected only a handful of entries; they got 284.
Brad Mills, an executive producer from UNL's Institute of Agricultural & Natural Resources, was surprised. He didn't think viewers would put forth the effort entries required pictures as well as an essay totaling no more than three pages.
"They all did it," he said. "That's pretty cool."
Before there was HGTV, there was the "Backyard Farmer." The self-help program, now in its 51st year (it started on KOLN-TV), remains one of the jewels in NET's crown.
It demonstrates the connection NET has made between itself and its viewers. Over the years, the show's emphasis has changed, but its popularity has not.
Hull, who programmed the show for years, knows why. It was because of hosts George Round and Wayne Whitney. They were funny, charming and, most of all, entertaining. "The subject matter was important," Hull said. "But it was the people. And people are always interested in people."
* * *
Although a 50th anniversary is a reason to celebrate, not everyone is in a festive mood.
General manager Rod Bates said morale is low since NET's budget has been slashed by the state and the university in each of the last three years.
In addition, revenue from multimedia sales, grants and corporate and individual donations has declined or failed to meet projections.
To date, NET has experienced $8.4 million in cuts since fiscal year 2002.
The cuts have affected all departments and resulted in the elimination of programs serving the education community and state citizens.
Impact on TV viewers and radio listeners includes:
* Broadcasting hours reduced by about two hours per day.
* Elimination of five local TV series ("Q+A," "Backstage Pass," "Roger Welsch &," "Capitol View" and "Next Exit"); a sixth, "Outdoor Nebraska," was axed by the Game and Parks Commission as part of its own budget cuts.
* Elimination of such popular programs as "Nightly Business Report" (TV) and "Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz" (radio) because of acquisition costs.
Not all is lost, however. NET will spend a projected $44.3 million on federally mandated conversion from analog to digital technology, with $30.7 million coming from the state.
In 2002, the Nebraska Legislature forked over another $15 million for renovations to the 30-year-old Terry M. Carpenter Nebraska Educational Communications Center. Bates said the renovations were necessary because the building's infrastructure was unable to handle the conversion.
Bates said he hears the criticism. "(People say) we care more about bricks and mortar than people," he said.
Despite the setbacks, Bates believes NET continues to be a leader in public and educational programming.
"We're still way ahead of the rest of the country," he said. "Really, there is no place like Nebraska when it comes to public telecommunications."
In 2003, NET won a George Foster Peabody Award, television's most prestigious honor, for the documentary "Monkey Trial," produced by NETV for the PBS series "American Experience."
The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded NET $500,000 to produce an "American Masters" biography on Willa Cather, which will air in 2005.
"Our staff has really toughened up here," he said. "We're doing more work with fewer people. We have the equipment and the talent, but we've lost a lot."
The plan now is to build the endowment fund from $3 million to $30 million, so when the economy tanks again NET will be prepared.
"It's a new strategy for us," he said.
But Bates is confident. NET, after all, has an incredible 50-year track record as a selling point.
Reach Jeff Korbelik at 473-7213 or jkorbelik@journalstar.com.
Celebration Friday
NET is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a special event Friday.
Bob Kerrey, former Nebraska governor and U.S. senator, will be the keynote speaker.
The celebration will include the premiere of Nebraska ETV's new documentary, "Willa Cather The Road is All," which will be broadcast nationally next year as part of the PBS "American Masters" series.