Innovate | Century Foundations
Special | 2mVideo has Closed Captions
A celebration of WKAR's century of service to the people of Michigan.
A look at all the ways WKAR has grown its technology in radio, television and digital spaces, all in an effort to inform, educate and inspire the community. Featuring interviews with Susi Elkins and Gary Blievernicht.
Innovate | Century Foundations
Special | 2mVideo has Closed Captions
A look at all the ways WKAR has grown its technology in radio, television and digital spaces, all in an effort to inform, educate and inspire the community. Featuring interviews with Susi Elkins and Gary Blievernicht.
How to Watch WKAR Specials
WKAR Specials is available to stream on pbs.org and the free PBS App, available on iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, Android smartphones, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Tablet, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, and Vizio.
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WKAR Century of Service
On Aug. 18, 1922, WKAR first took to the air waves from Michigan State University
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Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship(upbeat music) - WKAR was innovative from the beginning simply because it existed.
- [Narrator] You're in tune to Michigan State University radio at WKAR FM in East Lansing.
- Radio was in its complete infancy.
The educational applications of WKAR radio were just incredible at that time.
- [Susi Elkins] Some of the earliest broadcasts were about and for farmers.
- [Art Burroughs] This is Art Burroughs, farm radio editor on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan.
- [Susi Elkins] To have the ability to share that information out was really something special that has informed what we do even today.
The key then becomes how do we provide even more access to others and innovating in technology is the way to do that.
Moving from AM to FM, moving from analog to digital, both in TV and radio has required us to change the way we operate.
- This is a challenging and an exciting and a really, a very exhilarating job.
- [Gary Blievernicht] If you wanted to see in color, you had to buy a color TV.
If you wanted to get the digital channels you had to get a new TV or a converter box.
- [Susi Elkins] With all of these innovations it's necessary to educate and bring audiences along.
Probably nobody does that better than the public broadcasters.
(group cheers) - [Susi Elkins] When we applied to the FCC for an experimental license and got the first and only one for public broadcasters to experiment in ATSC 3.0 or NextGen TV the next iteration of a digital standard for television.
- [Gary Blievernicht] It's a big change that will allow for signals to be both more robust and to have more data capability.
- [Susi Elkins] It really builds on what digital did for us.
When we moved from analog to the digital space we were able to utilize our spectrum more efficiently.
With this convergence we can broadcast to any connected device.
Folks can watch our content in a NextGen world on demand without buying or paying for extra services.
The uses of this are really only limited to our imaginations.
(upbeat music)
