WQED Multimedia Pittsburgh, honored with the Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award for Station Excellence and twelve other Emmy Awards in 2006 and 2007, creates, produces and distributes quality programs, products and services to engage, inform, educate and entertain the public within its community and around the world. It is the parent company of WQED-TV (PBS); WQED-DT; The WQED Neighborhood Channel; WQED-HD; WQEX-TV (A Shop NBC affiliate); WQED-FM/Pittsburgh; WQEJ-FM/Johnstown; a publishing division that includes PITTSBURGH magazine; local and national television and radio productions; WQED Interactive (www.wqed.org); and the WQED Education Center.
As the nation's first community supported public broadcaster, every day for more than 53 years WQED Multimedia has been Southwestern Pennsylvania's electronic equivalent of the concert hall, the theater, the school-house and the public library, making available drama, ballet, opera, classical music, art, architecture, public affairs information, history and education to virtually every household in our four-state coverage area.
WQED Multimedia provides to all Southwestern Pennsylvanians -- regardless of their location or ability to pay, quality national programs -- American Experience, Frontline, Masterpiece Theater, NATURE, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Mystery, American Masters, NOVA, Antiques Roadshow, Ken Burns and Charlie Rose, to name just a few.
WQED exports our region nationally with projects like The War That Made America, The Pittsburgh Pops with Marvin Hamlisch, and the Doo Wop musical heritage programs known as the American Soundtrack; weekly national radio broadcasts of the Pittsburgh Symphony; America's Home Cooking; and a continuing series of local history projects that already includes Underground Pittsburgh, What Makes Pittsburgh Pittsburgh?, It's The Neighborhoods, Things We've Made, Happy Holidays in Pittsburgh, Something About Oakland, South Side, North Side Story, Kennywood Memories, Downtown Pittsburgh, The Strip Show, Wylie Avenue Days, The Mon the Al and the O, Houses Around Here, Holy Pittsburgh, The Bridge to Nowhere, The House on the Waterfall, and The Spirit of Pittsburgh.
As part of its mission, WQED commits almost 50% of its entire broadcast schedule to high quality children's programming parents can count on. Since 1968 WQED was the home of Fred Rogers and his Neighborhood; and has enriched the lives of children with Once Upon a Classic, WonderWorks, Where in the World (and Time) is Carmen Sandiego? -- not to mention Sesame Street, Arthur, Clifford, Dragon Tales, Between the Lions, Barney, and Reading Rainbow.
WQED is an educational resource for Pittsburgh that brings lifelong learning to homes, schools and workplaces -- with an educational commitment at all levels, preschool through adult. WQED preschool programming helps children enter school 'Ready to Learn.' Other WQED programs have addressed math and science education, employment and citizenship skills, teacher training, parental involvement, and violence and drug problems in our schools and community. WQED has also established its Education Center and a WQED Website to help provide effective lifelong learning to the entire region.
WQED is a valuable, neutral community problem-solving partner, examining critical issues like the Presidential, mayoral and county executive elections, the Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent search, youth violence, health issues, workforce development, welfare reform, and the regional tax question -- informing its diverse community about those issues and acting as a catalyst for decision-making and change. Through programming that informs and motivates, and community outreach activities that foster collaboration around many community concerns, WQED touches more lives each week than almost any other regional civic or cultural organization.
And conversion to digital technology will permit us to multiply the WQED service with at least four separate signals.
ONQ Magazine
A Nightly Presence on WQED. The centerpiece of the WQED programming service is a nightly program called ONQ Magazine. An inviting, entertaining forum for timely, in-depth response to important regional issues, this regular 1/2-hour program celebrates and showcases the strengths, diversity and richness of our region.
Programming for Children and Families
WQED continues its long commitment to children and families, providing nine hours every weekday and six hours every weekend, of high quality children's programs and series.
Pittsburgh History Series Programs With Rick Sebak
For 20 years now, WQED and Senior Producer Rick Sebak have been reminding people in and around Pittsburgh (as well as across the country) about how historic, fascinating, beautiful, unique and fun Southwestern Pennsylvania is, with high impact documentaries that celebrate the region, pointing out enticing places, historic sites, wonderful architecture, and good food, all the while talking to the people who live and work here. PBS has been broadcasting selected programs from this series to national audiences since 1999.
Telling America's Stories
Based on its tradition of telling Pittsburgh's stories, WQED has developed a set of national production initiatives under the umbrella of Telling America's Stories. Within this initiative are: Chris Fennimore's America's Home Cooking; The American Soundtrack Concert Series; and Rick Sebak's All-American scrapbook documentaries. And now, with The War That Made America, our growing local production capability has taken us one step toward regaining the prominence WQED and Pittsburgh once enjoyed as a national programming force.
Black Horizons
WQED continues its commitment to the African-American community begun almost 35 years ago with Black Horizons, the longest running minority affairs program in the U.S. A regular minority health segment has been added to the weekly program, and recent special programs have generated interest for national broadcast.
QED Cooks
WQED's local cooking marathons and spin-off weekly series over the last five years have generated more than 48,000 new members for WQED and contributed well over $3,000,000 in pledge dollars. The program's whole process of transforming participation into programming is an invaluable paradigm of public television's role in the local community. PBS has also seen the national impact of these programs and has been broadcasting them to a national audience since 2001.
WQED-fm
WQED-FM has been celebrating the region's rich cultural life since 1973. Live from the Carolyn M. Byham studio in the center of the Cultural District and from the Bayer Center for the Arts in Oakland, you'll hear enriching classical music, hourly NPR news updates, Pittsburgh weather forecasts, and over 200 feature interviews annually.
Every week WQED-FM toasts young musicians on From the Top. Our Multicultural Arts Initiative interns embrace the region's diversity. The Pittsburgh Foundation Performance in Pittsburgh brings western Pennsylvania music makers to the air daily, often in live broadcasts and through countless concert recordings. Every morning Jim Cunningham brings listeners the WQED Morning Show. Every Pittsburgh Opera production is broadcast, along with the Pittsburgh Symphony twice weekly and in 52 hours distributed nationally on Public Radio International.
WQED-FM helped to found the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble and has its own ensemble in residence, Chatham Baroque. Heard over a 150-mile radius with a separate transmitter in Johnstown for WQEJ, the station is sought after around the world on the internet with live streaming audio 24 hours.
The WQED Multimedia Education Center
Dedicated to lifelong learning: from early childhood literacy to workforce development and arts and culture, the Education Center at WQED Multimedia strives to enhance the lives of people in our region, and, in effect, make Southwestern Pennsylvania a better place to live. The Center's four areas of focus are: Literacy, Workforce Development, Arts and Culture, and Community Outreach. A sampling of WQED's current regional education activities: Ready To Learn, Ready To Grow, Teacher Line, Stories Start Action, Learning and Growing, Molding Minds in Manufacturing, Lessons for Life, and Look Out for the Arts. Each of these Education Center initiatives is designed to have a positive, lasting effect on lifelong learning opportunities for southwestern Pennsylvanians in their schools, homes and workplaces.
WQED's Ready to Learn uses the power of television to teach young children, while educating adults about the best practices for young children. So far, WQED has trained 1,100 professionals, 1,900 parents, and have reached more than 2,100 children. Each weekday WQED airs 9 hours of quality, educational, nonviolent, noncommercial children's programming that parents can trust. Breaks between programs also deliver educational messages designed to complement the children's series and help young people build the skills they need to become successful learners, and help build their confidence and self-esteem.
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