South Carolina ETV

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South Carolina ETV

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History of ETV

1957 - The General Assembly passes a concurrent resolution calling for a study of the use of television in public schools.

1958 - A study committee recommends a pilot project be set. A studio is built at Dreher High School in Columbia and the experiment begins. Henry J. Cauthen is selected as technical director and R. Lynn Kalmbach is selected as project director. Educational services are extended to five Columbia area schools.

1960 - The General Assembly creates the SC Educational Television Commission.

1963 - The closed-circuit network is extended to all counties, reaching 155 public high schools, 36 elementary schools, most state colleges, university extension centers and 10 hospitals. WNTV-TV 29 in Greenville signs on.

1964 - WITV-TV 7 in Charleston signs on.

1965 - Henry J. Cauthen becomes executive director of the network upon the death of R. Lynn Kalmbach.

1966 - WRLK-TV 35 in Columbia signs on.

1966 - The first SCENE member's magazine is published.

1968 - The groundbreaking series, "Jobman Caravan" premieres.

1969 - "Jobman Caravan" garners ETV its very first Emmy Award.

1971 - ETV becomes the presenting station for William F. Buckley's "Firing Line." The series runs until 1999.

1972 - ETV Radio is born, as WEPR-FM 90.1 in Greenville goes on the air, broadcasting the NPR Classical News format. "All Things Considered" is the first program aired.

1974 - WSCI-FM 89.3 in Charleston joins the ETV Radio network.

1975 - WRJA-TV 27 and WRJA-FM 88.1, both in Sumter, and WJWJ-TV 16 in Beaufort begin transmitting.

1976 - WLTR-FM 91.3 in Columbia signs on.

1977 - The brainchild of ETV volunteer Elaine Freeman, the ETV Endowment is born as the non-profit entity that supports the educational mission of ETV and ETV Radio. Freeman serves as the founding executive director of the Endowment, and runs it out of her home for the first few years. To date, the ETV Endowment has raised over $76 million dollars in membership contributions that directly support the programs that are seen and heard across the ETV network.

1977 - ETV begins broadcasting live from Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston.

1977 - ETV uses satellites for the first time to broadcast continuing Education content on Medical seminars to Charleston and Columbia

1978 - ETV joins the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) satellite system. WNSC-TV 30 and WNSC-FM 88.9, both in Rock Hill, sign on.

1978 - The first episode of "NatureScene" debuts on ETV. The program would have a 23-year run on ETV, and would make Rudy Mancke and co-host Jim Welch household names in South Carolina.

1979 - "Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz" is first produced by ETV Radio for national broadcast. The program is still going strong today, and has become the longest running cultural program on NPR.

1980 - WRET-TV 49 in Spartanburg signs on. WJWJ-FM 89.9 in Beaufort signs on.

1981 - WHMC-FM 90.1 in Conway signs on.

1983 - "Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz" wins the prestigious Peabody Award.

1985 - "NatureScene" goes national, with distribution all across the United States. Hosts Rudy Mancke and Jim Welch also start going international, visiting everywhere from Costa Rican rainforests to Chernobyl, the site of the catastrophic nuclear plant accident in the USSR.

1988 - ETV starts broadcasting "The Black History Teleconference," connecting South Carolina with communities in Detroit, Atlanta and Washington, DC.Â The teleconference continues to be aired each February.

1988 - The 18-state Satellite Educational Resources Consortium, under Henry Cauthen's leadership, receives a $5.6 million grant from the US Department of Education to implement the Star Schools project, providing via satellite live, interactive instruction in math, foreign language and science.

1989 - ETV and ETV Radio provide up-to-the minute coverage of Hurricane Hugo, assisting the Governor in distribution of press announcements.

1989 - ETV ranks as the busiest teleconferencing center in the nation.

1990 - WLJK-FM 89.1 in Aiken signs on.

1991 - Over ETV's closed circuit network, 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.

1991 - ETV partners with Bill Moyers and the "MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour" in broadcasting a live, impromptu national town hall meeting during the outbreak of the Persian Gulf War.

1992 - The Early Childhood Professional Development Network, a national initiative undertaken by ETV, is launched and delivers live interactive training seminars to Head Start teachers in isolated rural areas across the United States.

1993 - ETV enters state-of-the-art medical telecommunications when it establishes a two-way video link between the Medical University of South Carolina and Richland Memorial Hospital.

1994 - ETV enters into a partnership with Scholastic Productions, Inc., as the presenting station for the Magic School Bus.

1995 - ETV introduces its first World Wide Web site.

1996 - ETV Radio begins broadcasting 24-hours a day.

1998 - Paul Amos takes the helm as ETV's third president. ETV launches the READY TO LEARN service to help meet the state's challenge of preparing South Carolina's children for first grade.

1999 - Southeast Regional Emmy Awards, Outstanding Achievement: Interview/Discussion Program, Making It Grow!

2000 - ETV Radio starts broadcasting multiple formats, beginning with WRJA-FM in Sumter, which started airing the NPR News format. Previously all stations only aired the NPR Classical News format. ETV Radio also provides wall-to-wall coverage of Hurricane Floyd.

2000 - WRLK-DT becomes the first digital television station in the ETV network and in the state.

2000 - "Your Day" and "Walter Edgar's Journal" premiere on ETV Radio.

2000 - Telly Award, ETV Sumter, Making it Grow!

2000 - Telly Award, ETV Sumter, Best of Making it Grow!

2001 - Maurice "Moss" Bresnahan joins ETV as the new president.

2001 - Knowitall.org is launched. By 2005, it had reached 2 million page views, and just a year later, it surpasses 10 million page views. Today, that number has surpassed 16 million.

2001 - Telly Award, ETV Sumter, Best of Making it Grow!

2001 - Telly Award, ETV Sumter, Making it Grow! Heritage

2002 - ETV, in collaboration with the SC Partnership for Distance Education, creates, Desc.info, a web resource that consolidates all of the state's distance learning courses and places them at the fingertips of South Carolina residents looking to complete a GED, take a college course, home school their teenager or re-certify a credential.

2002 - ETV debuts new local series, "Southern Lens," which spotlights independent films that reflect life in the South and/or were produced by Southerners.

2002 - Telly Award, ETV Sumter, Making it Grow!

2002 - Telly Award, ETV Sumter, More Making it Grow!

2003 - The South Carolina Channel, the state's first 24/7 digital broadcasting service, launches at the State Fair.

2004 - The ETV Road Shows originated live broadcasts from dozens of South Carolina communitites for the first time.

2004 - ETV launches StreamlineSC, an educational technology resource that makes over 10,000 educational videos and corresponding lesson plans and quizzes available to every public, private and home school in the Palmetto State. In just over a year, it received its one-millionth page view.

2004 - Southeast Regional Emmy Awards, Outstanding Achievement: Scenic Design, Making It Grow!

2005 - Southeast Regional Emmy Awards, Outstanding Achievement: Scenic Design, More Making It Grow!

2005 - Telly Award, ETV Sumter, More Making it Grow!

2006 - New local series "Carolina Stories" launched. Programs focus solely on South Carolina, its history, people and places.

2006 - Southeast Regional Emmy Awards, Outstanding Achievement: Interactivity, Making It Grow!

2007 - New local series "The Big Picture" and "The Big Picture on the Radio" are launched.

2007 - Southeast Regional Emmy Awards, Outstanding Achievement: Scenic, Making It Grow!

2007 - Telly Award, ETV Sumter, Best of Making it Grow!

2008 - David Crouch becomes president of ETV. ETV Endowment Founding Executive Director Elaine Freeman retires.

2008 - ETV and ETV Radio provide the only SC statewide coverage of GOP and Democratic conventions.

2009 - ETV begins broadcasting solely in digital format. New programming options available to South Carolinians as ETV adds CreateTV programming lineup to the South Carolina Channel and launches a third channel, ETV World.

2009 - Coby Hennecy is named the Executive Director of the ETV Endowment.

2009 - ETV begins a year-long celebration of its 50-year history.

2010 - Linda O'Bryon became the President and Chief Executive Officer of ETV.

2010 - Southeast Regional Emmy Awards, Outstanding Achievement: Magazine Program, Making It Grow! - Scott's BBQ

2011 - Telly Award, ETV Sumter, Making it Grow! - Junior Master Gardeners at the Riverbanks Zoo