WASHINGTON: Public TV stations in Michigan are the latest recipients of federal DTV transition grant money. Central Michigan University’s public TV stations received $750,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development fund, according to The Michigan News. The money was secured by Michigan Democratic Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin.
The grant money will go toward digital production equipment including cameras, editing, mixing and storage equipment. The coverage area of this grant includes the digital stations serving central and northern Michigan. CMU’s PBS member stations include WCMU-TV, WCML-TV, WCMV-TV and WCMW-TV.
Grant money continues to flow to PBS member broadcast TV stations through a couple of federal agencies even as a third is considering reassigning broadcast spectrum for wireless broadband applications. WVUT-TV in Southwest Indiana received $596,000 for DTV gear from the Ag department earlier this month. WOUB-TV in Athens, Ohio, received a $255,000 matching grant from the Commerce Department, and Iowa Public Broadcasting netted $47,000 in September.
More on federal DTV grants:
October 15, 2009: “WVUT-TV Scores $596,000 DTV Grant”
BS member station WVUT-TV in Southwest Indiana is the third public station in recent weeks to receive federal monies for digital broadcasting.
October 13, 2009:“WOUB-TV Receives $225,000 DTV Grant”
PBS member station WOUB-TV received a $255,283 federal grant for its high-definition upgrade.
September 22, 2009: “Iowa Public Broadcasting gets $47,000 Federal Grant”
The funds will be used to buy “help purchase and install digital closed captioning equipment.”
