11/03/1969 AD founded
PBS is established by Hartford N. Gunn Jr. (president of WGBH), John Macy (president of CPB), James Day (last president of National Educational Television), and Kenneth A. Christiansen (chairman of the department of broadcasting at the University of Florida).
In 1969, the CPB talked to private groups to start PBS, an entity intended by the CPB to circumvent controversies engendered by certain NET public affairs programs that aired in the late 1960s and engendered opposition by politically conservative public figures, potentially threatening the medium's future viability.
It began operations on October 5, 1970, taking over many of the functions of its predecessor, National Educational Television (NET), which later merged with Newark, New Jersey station WNDT to form WNET. In 1973, it merged with Educational Television Stations.
Immediately after public disclosure of the Watergate scandal, on May 17, 1973, the United States Senate Watergate Committee commenced proceedings; PBS broadcast the proceedings nationwide, with Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer as commentators. For seven months, nightly "gavel-to-gavel" broadcasts drew great public interest, and raised the profile of the fledgling PBS network.
Lattitude: 38.8802° N
Longitude: 77.1083° W
Region: North America
Modern Day United States
Subjects Who or What founded?
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Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) American publicly funded...
Objects To Whom or What was founded?
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PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) American public broadcas...
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