SC Educational Television-Fifty Good Years

South Carolina Educational Television is celebrating fifty years of broadcasting this year, and I would like to acknowledge publically the excellent work they do bringing the very best programming available on television into our homes.  From locally produced documentaries to those that bring us the world, ETV is the most useful tool to opening your mind to what is going on in the world.  There are currently five TV stations in the ETV network that produce shows as far ranging as the quirky Making It Grow to the informative The Big Picture.  In addition to the programs ETV produces, they also bring us shows from around the globe via PBS.

Being new to cable, I previously received my television through rabbit ears, and the channel my TV stayed on most of the time was ETV.  You will see a wider range of programming, a richer mix of interests presented on that one channel than on the three big networks combined (with half a dozen cable channels thrown in).  If you want to see the best music around, don’t turn on MTV, but turn to ETV on Saturday nights or any of the specials they run from Evening at the Pops to In Performance at the White House.  For fifty years they continue to not only bring us the best that is available, but to continue to grow.

There is a lot more to this organization than just television.  Over 150 higher education courses are distributed statewide for college credit.  A single teleconference produced and transmitted statewide for the Department of Corrections trains more than 1000 law enforcement and correctional officers for approximately 39 cents per officer.  In addition, now teachers can log onto ETV’s website and take classes that will help them in the classroom, providing them with valuable training to make our schools better.  Knowitall.org, a site geared towards children, was launched in 2001.  By 2005, it had reached 2 million hits, and just a year later, it surpassed 10 million.  Today, that number has surpassed 16 million.  With the recent change to digital broadcasting, they are capable of providing an even wider array of programming and educational assistance not only to those of us here in South Carolina, but around the nation and the world.

There have been those in the past who have frowned on some of the shows ETV and PBS have broadcast, calling for the government to stop funding these institutions (though it is mostly supported by viewers) and I am sure that there will be more in the future.  I don’t really understand such narrow viewpoints, but I will suggest that it is only because of public television stations around the country that we are able to have such an open forum.  You’re sure not going to get it on network television and cable has become so niche oriented that they add nothing at all to the education and exploration of the culture in America.  I personally believe that there are some topics that should make people squeamish, uncomfortable, otherwise, journalists and documentarians just aren’t doing their job.  Should we go through life with only blinders on?  No.  America is a rich and diverse nation, and there is no better place where this diversity is presented than on PBS stations.

Does this mean that you should let your children watch every show that is presented?  Not at all, parental discretion is a wonderful tool.  But your children would receive a much wider and deeper view of not only their own state, but the entire world by watching ETV.  As I am getting closer to fifty myself, I am sometimes disappointed with how much of the world I have left to see, but ETV’s shows from The PBS NewsHour to BBC World News to Globe Trekker to Frontline documentaries, you cannot get a better picture of the world and what is going on in it.  If you haven’t done it lately, take a look at them on the tube or see what they have to offer on the web.  Chances are, you will find something you like.