(chiming music) (bright music) - Welcome to Milwaukee PBS, "65 Years of Service: Looking Back and Moving Forward."

I'm Debbie Hamlett, general manager of Milwaukee PBS.

Milwaukee PBS has been serving southeastern Wisconsin for almost seven decades, bringing Wisconsin the best that public television has to offer and showing the world the best of Wisconsin.

We have one of the largest over the air viewing audiences in the public television system and a continuing partnership with the Milwaukee Area Technical College.

And most importantly, we have a community of members, donors, viewers, and volunteers who have supported public and educational television right from the start.

So let's go back to the beginning as we explore our archives and learn the story of public television in Milwaukee and southeastern Wisconsin.

Here is Milwaukee's mayor from 1948 to 1960, the Honorable Frank P. Zeidler.

(film reel whirring) - The way the educational television station, Channel 10, got started was through a letter which I received from Frieda Hennock, who was then an appointee of the president on the Federal Communications Commission.

I think I was one of the very few mayors in the country, and I can't think of any others, who took action to reserve such a channel.

In doing so, I got a committee formed.

- [Debbie] Here's the way Frank Zeidler remembered the fight for public television.

- There was such severe opposition that at one time a resolution was put in the Common Council calling for the dissolution of the Milwaukee Vocational School to prevent it from getting Channel 10.

The principal opposition came from two sources, one from Hearst Radio and the second source from the Milwaukee Sentinel.

Channel 10 came into existence because of the persistence of William Rashi.

Dr. Rashi was able to persuade his board and he was able by various kinds of arrangements to get the broadcasting channel equipment and even the location.

And it looked very precarious then, at the beginning, but it seems to be much stronger now, much more acceptable and plays a far more significant role, I think, than most people thought it would play back in those days.

- [Debbie] And those beginnings were humble enough.

Along with sewing classes, business training, beautician courses, the television production facility was just another department in the vast Milwaukee Vocational School, the institution which evolved into Milwaukee Area Technical College.

But it was a start, and the staff even produced a regular program.

Here's a sample.

(whimsical music) (bright music) - [Announcer] It is time now for a visit with "The Busy Knitter," a series of 10 programs featuring Elizabeth Zimmermann and her studio guests, Mrs. Charles Decker and Ms. Christy Schrader.

Now with some pointers on casting-on and swatch, here's Elizabeth.

- [Debbie] "The Busy Knitter" was just one of the early programs.

In fact, while Milwaukee was waiting for Channel 10 to come on the air, the Milwaukee Vocational School, now known as MATC, was already training students and creating programming as early as 1954.

Long time early general manager Otto Schlaak tells us more.

- [Otto] We set up studios in the newly renovated sixth floor area, and a single studio was set up up there.

And we began teaching young people the rudiments of television production.

Television production, television direction, film work, all kinds of things that would help a young person become useful in a television station.

We purchased a good deal of equipment, with the board's authorization, among which was a Kinescope recorder, which we see here.

And we began to do programs with some of the community agencies, training people to use the television medium properly and also to begin to put out some Kinescope-recorded programs, which would then be broadcast on the commercial stations, while we were waiting to secure our own channel and get it on the air.

This was a training period for people in the community, a training period for our students who were enrolling to learn the television business.

And we taught all phases of it with the small staff that we had at that time.

Our first class of students amounted to only about eight young people who were interested in becoming television producers and directors at that time.

But nevertheless, we went ahead working with them and they got a great deal of experience because there was much for them to do.

One of the first productions that the closed circuit operation turned out was a series called "Sportsmanlike Driving."

You see us here going out into the field with our film gear to film the 13 programs that went into making up this particular series, teaching people how to become better drivers.

This was a series that the vocational school and the closed circuit operation did together.

One of the first services that we had was producing Kinescope recorded programs with organizations in the city of Milwaukee, and the museum was one of the first organizations to work with us.

We see a scene here from "Let's Experiment."

Don Brazier was the talent.

Mr. Paul Taff was the director, even though he was the manager of the operation, he had to double and worked as a director of the show as well.

Another early program that we did was called "Milwaukee On Camera."

It was produced in cooperation with the Milwaukee Public Library.

Bruce Kanitz was the host on the program.

And on this particular series, we told Milwaukee's history through the eyes of some of its older citizens.

It was a good deal of innovation that went into some of our early productions.

We worked very hard to be innovative, and the producers from the library at one point came over with an idea to use life-size puppets or marionettes.

And this, I must confess, didn't work out as well as the producer had envisioned it might.

We had a good deal of trouble with these.

We did get one of the programs on using this technique but it was most difficult.

And I think we worked for a complete day and a half to get about a 15-minute program recorded.

We did a series of programs, also in the early days, with the Milwaukee Medical Society, the Tuberculosis Association, several other medical groups.

And this series of 10 programs was called "Lifetime."

It was telecast, eventually, on WISN.

Our station became a member of National Educational Television in 1957.

Here, Mr. Taff, the station manager, talks with Mr. Rashi, the director of the school in accepting at that time affiliation in the National Educational Television Center.

We were the 28th NET affiliate at that time.

We continued with children's programming and brought on some new television programs produced by our own students.

This particular group producing a series called "The Wee Weekly."

We'd like to have you have a chance to be introduced to the full cast of "The Wee Weekly."

So let's look in on them, shall we?

- Well, hi boys and girls.

My name is Jim Dandy, and I'm editor-in-chief of the Wee Weekly newspaper.

But right now, I'd like to have you look and listen to another member of our Wee Weekly staff.

So Doodles, take it away.

- Thank you, Editor Dandy.

Yes, I am Doodles, the cartoonist for the Wee Weekly, and I draw the cartoons of terrible-tempered Timothy.

If you'd like to find out what kind of a character Timothy is, let me tell you about an experience that Timothy had last Wednesday night just as "The Wee Weekly" was getting started on the air.

Timothy had settled back to watch the Wee Weekly on television.

When the television set began to act up, there was snow and fuzz and Timothy thought it was the television set.

So he went over and began to pound on the television set with all his might, but it only made the picture worse.

So then Timothy decided that it must be the antenna.

Well, the antenna of Timothy's television set was located on the roof of the house.

So Timothy put on his space helmet and found a ladder outside the house and climbed up the ladder to the roof.

Yes, and there he found the antenna and Timothy climbed the roof to the antenna and started to climb up the pole, the antenna pole, and he climbed some more and he climbed some more.

And pretty soon he was just about up to the top of the antenna.

But then Timothy looked down and everything was so small that Timothy became frightened and he began to cry and scream at the top of his lungs.

Poor Timothy.

Well, Timothy's father heard all the noise and he came up the ladder to find out what was going on.

He saw Timothy hanging on top of the television antenna and Timothy was scolded by his father who reminded Timothy that it's best to always leave the fixing of a television antenna up to a serviceman.

And that's what happened to Terrible Tempered Timothy.

- A painting I will go.

A painting I will go.

(vocalizing "A-Hunting We Will Go") - Mr. Boo Boo.

- Yeah.

- What are you doing there?

- Well, I'm painting the mail room of the Wee Weekly, can't you see?

I want to have everything ready for our weekly visit with the boys and girls.

- Hmm, so you want to have everything spic and span for the boys and girls, is that right, Mr. Boo Boo?

- That is right Mr. All.

- [Debbie] But in 1957, virtually all of the programming was black and white, local, live or on film or telescope and primarily oriented to classroom education.

Julia Child even applied her culinary skills to videotape.

- Videotape is it's brown like this.

It looks like chocolate.

- [Debbie] The early sixties were to bring big changes to Channel 10.

Here's Otto Schlaak for more.

- That was the year also, 1963, in which WMVT, Channel 36, went on the air.

Channel 36 was Milwaukee's second educational television channel, and we were one of the very few cities in the country that did provide two educational channels.

- [Debbie] Also, in 1963, Channel 10 began its tradition of broadcasting live the Great Circus Parade.

This outdoor event captured the fancy of Milwaukeeans for almost 40 years.

- [Announcer] There comes the first wagon, a swan bandwagon, number 87, built for Ringling Brothers Circus about 1905 by the Miller Brothers Wagon Works (indistinct) and used until 1919 when the circus stopped parading.

The swan bandwagon.

- [Announcer 2] This wagon is white and has sea blue background and gold carving.

- [Debbie] This was made possible by the addition of of Channel 10's remote truck, first black and white, and then color, which put WMVS and its sister station on the scene for Milwaukee's biggest events.

In 1965, Channels 10 and 36 moved to larger studios in MATCs new continuing education center on Eighth Street in Milwaukee.

There the stations launched the first regular color transmission schedule by any educational TV station.

- Well, I think one of the first landmarks that I recall was about in 1964 or early 1965, when through the donation of some used television film cameras, we were able to begin telecasting of color film broadcast on Channel 10.

We had been located on the sixth floor of the main building of the Milwaukee Area Technical College.

But in 1966, we did move to an entirely new plant.

In 1967, we had obtained a grant from the Department of Health Education and Welfare to obtain our first live studio color cameras as well as color video tape recording equipment.

- In 1968, the planning for the Great TV Auction began.

This community effort to support Milwaukee PBS ran for over 50 years.

Here's attorney Ernest J. Philip, the first president of Channels 10 and 36 Friends Organization.

- I recall in 1968 that we had grave misgivings about whether we should follow Chicago's successful auction enterprise here in Milwaukee.

And we decided in 1968, December I think, to proceed with that.

In the spring of 1969, it turned out to be a whopping success from top to bottom so to speak, of our society and from side to side.

In our society, people seemed to support educational and cultural TV.

- [Debbie] The Public Broadcasting Service, more commonly known as PBS, was established on November 3rd, 1969, two years after the passage of the Public Broadcasting Act, which was designated to promote and encourage diverse, non-commercial and educational programming.

Members of the National Educational Television Network, including Milwaukee's Channel's 10 and 36, join this effort to interconnect public television stations and distribute programming.

The next three decades featured many exciting milestones for Milwaukee public television like in 1970, "Hatha Yoga" with Kathleen Hitchcock was our first PBS national program.

- Think what happened primarily is that it helped to popularize yoga here in Milwaukee in Wisconsin, and not only Wisconsin but throughout the United States.

- [Debbie] "Outdoor Wisconsin" with Dan Small premiered in 1984 and became a national PBS series.

In 1985, we were the first Wisconsin television station to broadcast in stereo sound.

The Great Circus Parade taped in an experimental HDTV format in 1989.

In 1990 "Tracks Ahead" premiered and also became a national PBS series.

And in 1992, Channel 10 was used to conduct the world's first full power digital broadcast test in a partnership with the Zenith Corporation.

In 1998, ground was broken for our new 1,221 foot digital tower.

And in 1999 the Great Circus Parade was produced and broadcast as the first live high definition broadcast nationwide on PBS.

- [Announcer] And we, of course, are broadcasting this live and in high definition television all across the public broadcasting system.

And there is the MCO band, the 84th division.

- [Announcer 2] This is the United States bandwagon.

That was one of six wagons that were built for the Ringling Brothers Circus by the Bode Wagon Company in Cincinnati, Ohio.

This wagon, we have a lot of records on this.

It cost $1,500 when it was built.

It cost a little more than that now.

- [Announcer] So you think?

- [Announcer 2] Yeah, just a bit.

- [Debbie] The transition to digital TV in 2000 allowed multiple signals to be broadcast on the same bandwidth.

And Milwaukee PBS has made the most of that capability.

In addition to Milwaukee PBS Channels 10 and 36, today we also offer the World Channel, Create, PBS Kids 24 hours a day, and even our popular weather traffic channel, providing something for just about everyone.

In 2006, after five years in production, MPTV premiered the most ambitious miniseries in its history, "The Making of Milwaukee".

Based on the book by historian John Gerda.

- I'm John Gerda and welcome to "The Making of Milwaukee".

This time we'll go back to the city's deepest roots on this river and the lake it feeds.

We'll explore a comical bridge war, a soul stirring rescue, a tragic shipwreck and the juiciest political scandal in Wisconsin's history.

- [Debbie] Starting with the area's Native Americans, the series used reenactments and thousands of historic images.

When the series premiered, it garnered the highest ratings among all programs aired on all of the public television stations in the nation for three nights in a row.

Milwaukee PBS is known for its award-winning documentaries and specials, telling the stories and preserving the history of the heritage we share.

- We felt that we needed to further explore what was community activism from the lens of the Latinas themselves.

There are so many definitions of what community activism is but we really needed to hear from their own perspective of what that meant.

- [Debbie] Documentaries like "Crossing the Bridge".

"Freedom Walkers for Milwaukee" documents the Civil Rights Movement.

"A Braves New World" and "Diamonds in the Rough" highlight different aspects of baseball in Milwaukee.

"Milwaukee Between the Wars", "Veterans of the Forgotten War", "The Secret War" and "Behind the Pearl Earrings" salute our veterans.

Stories about our communities like "People of the Port", "Milwaukee's Black Churches" and in partnership with Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, "America's Dairyland".

Milwaukee PBS documentaries navigate tough issues like the pandemic and mental health challenges with teens, "Kids in Crisis".

And we also showcase the arts with "A Symphonic Celebration: Milwaukee Symphony's New Home".

Coming soon, two new specials from Milwaukee PBS, "Al Capone: Prohibition and Wisconsin" and this November, a look at our national historic landmark, "The Milwaukee Soldiers' Home: A Hallowed Home for Heroes".

Here's a preview.

- [Narrator] The Soldier's home is the most visible and the least recognized building probably in Milwaukee.

- President Lincoln in his second inaugural makes a very clear statement about the need to care for the veterans of the Civil War.

- When you have a jewel this intact in the heart of your city, save it.

Just save it.

- [Debbie] In addition to our award-winning documentaries, Milwaukee PBS has a long running history of local storytelling from series like "I Remember", "Tracks Ahead", "Outdoor Wisconsin" and everyone's favorite "Around the Corner with John McGivern".

- 'cause that used to be a quarry.

It used to be called Story Quarry.

Now it's the north parking lot of Miller Park.

Story Quarry.

- [Debbie] Today our storytelling continues with "Ten Thirty-Six", "Alante", "Black Nouveau", "The Arts Page", "My Wisconsin Backyard" and "Rhythm Cafe MKE".

Milwaukee PBS continues our tradition of providing local programming serving many diverse communities, showing up to tell the stories of the people we serve.

- What's up everybody?

I'm Earl Arms and I'm Alexandria Mack.

And we're at Milwaukee's 52nd Juneteenth celebration.

- Really, this is about education, life skills and development, character development, nutrition, parent engagement and those kind of life skills that will go beyond the baseball field.

- This is a sport the Hmong people play back in Laos long time ago and then now we bring it to America.

It is a new sport called tuj lub.

- Their families are with our families, their kids are with our kids.

You are part of us.

There should never have been a divide.

We should all be together - [Debbie] And we tackle important issues.

- I know what it's like to live a life where you have crime around you and you think it's normal.

- This is perhaps one of the biggest modern day public health crisis that we're facing here in our city, in our state, in this nation.

- All eyes are on our city.

We have been infamously noted as having the worst zip code in the nation, 52206, with racial and economic and social and criminal disparities.

- [Debbie] Working with community partners to broaden the conversation.

- From WUWM, Milwaukee Public Radio and Milwaukee Public Television, this is a special edition of "Lake Effects".

I'm Mitch Tyke.

- And I'm Joanne Williams.

And I'm glad you're hosting this kind of conversation, James, because this is, like you said, a topic that hasn't been talked about as much.

And if it is talked about, it's always, not necessarily what's going right, but what was what's been going wrong.

- African-Americans are contracting and dying of the virus at disproportionate rates.

Earlier this week, I co-moderated a Listen MKE program with five Milwaukeeans who contracted the virus.

- [Debbie] Sometimes a national production will invite a local spin out.

- [Narrator] World War II was the second major war of the 20th century and the deadliest.

Over 300,000 Wisconsin soldiers served during the war.

- We all knew we had to go to war.

We had, they took us right out of our class.

- Everybody, wow, wait till I can get, I can't wait till I'm 18 to go to the military and you know, fight.

- [Narrator] Wisconsin citizens actively participated in the war effort, facing the changes and challenges of everyday life.

- [Debbie] We also serve our youngest viewers with our yearly Daniel Tiger Be My Neighbor Day, our Annual Kids Writers' Contest, where local kids kindergarten through third grade write stories that we produce for television.

And of course, our slate of great educational programs not only on television, but on the PBS Kids app as well.

Today, the landscape of television is changing.

Viewers today and in the future will continue to look for more ways to use and view content and Milwaukee PBS continues to be a leader.

Many of our programs like "My Wisconsin Backyard" and our upcoming documentaries are launching digital first.

This past May, we premiered a digital only music series highlighting Milwaukee's vibrant music scene, "Rhythm Cafe MKE".

We've joined forces with PBS for live streaming on Milwaukee PBS Channel 10 and streaming our programming on Passport and the PBS app.

And in 2022, we began podcasting stories with our "Speaking of..." podcast, winning the NETA, National Education Telecommunications award for the nation's best public television podcast.

Planning is underway for a new podcast early next year.

Back in 2019, Milwaukee PBS's campaign "Plan to Scan" became a model for stations nationwide when the television broadcast spectrum was repackaged for HDTV.

Today we are preparing for the next wave of broadcast innovation, ATSC 3.0.

ATSC 3.0 is also known as Next Gen TV, which combines existing antenna technologies with the internet power tools to deliver the next generation of digital broadcasting.

We're getting ready with the purchase of 4K studio cameras, 4K field cameras and upgrading our transmitter to ATSC 3.0 standards, making us ready to begin testing in the future when approved by the FCC.

Milwaukee PBS remains on the forefront.

Getting ready now for the digital delivery for the next generation by training MATC students to thrive in the digital multicast world and by embracing the technologies of streaming, podcasting digital first series, 4K and ATSC 3.0.

Milwaukee PBS, preparing for the future, today.

Thank you for joining us and for all of your support of Milwaukee PBS during our first 65 years.

Today, we have just under 40,000 members who contribute to make public television in southeastern Wisconsin possible.

This support allows us to bring you all the great PBS programs, to purchase additional shows you love and to produce our award-winning documentaries and local programs.

For more information on ways to support Milwaukee PBS, please visit our website at milwaukeepbs.org.

On behalf of everyone at Milwaukee PBS, thank you again to all of our donors, volunteers, underwriters, members, and sustaining members.

You are the ones that make Milwaukee PBS possible.

Thank you.

(uplifting music)