Remembering WNYC-TV

New York City has changed in many ways during my lifetime, much of it in the physical infrastructure of the city itself: old buildings torn down and new shiny ones put up, neighborhoods gentrified from poor to rich, pedestrian plazas and new parks, bike lanes -- you name it, this town has transformed dramatically since the turn of this century. If a time-traveller from thirty years ago was to stroll the city streets today, he or she would be like Marty McFly in Back to the Future II, looking in wonder at how the old town had become techy and neon.

And they'd also discover that the city's old public TV station, WNYC-TV, is no longer around. 

Today we live in the age of the Internet, streaming shows, and literally thousands of cable channels. We drown in content from all over the world. But it wasn't always like this. Once upon a time, and not so long ago, television was three and a half-networks, local stations, and a bunch of cable channels showing repeats, old movies, and news. Here in NYC any "alternative" programming was reserved for public television stations like Channel 13 which, then and now, mostly showed documentaries, British TV, and children's shows.

WNYC-TV was different.

Owned by the city, a sister broadcaster to WNYC radio (which is bigger and more popular than ever today), and located on Channel 3, WNYC-TV was a bizarre hodgepodge of programming. It was a cross between PBS and public access, a true oddity. WNYC-TV would show local public affairs shows, coverage of the United Nations General Assembly, foreign news from Japan and Italy, soccer games, and music videos.

Like the city itself, the station had a gritty, street-level vibe but also an international flavor. It was intensely local and extremely global. 

It also showed a lot of very weird and off-beat British TV, the kind of stuff you didn't see on Masterpiece Theater.  During the week, the station would show episodes of the working class British soap opera EastEnders. Very popular in the UK (and still on), the show basically consisted of lots of cocky-accented people yelling at each other in pubs and dreary houses. On Saturday nights, there was The Diary of Adrian Mole, about an English teenager dealing with the miseries of his home life and school (being a teenager at the time, I identified with him except that he had a cute girlfriend named Pandora and, uh ... well, anyway). There was The Fall and Rise of Reginal Perrin, about a food company executive who hated his life so much that in basically every scene he was trying to kill himself, only to get interrupted. There was The Young Ones, an extremely raunchy show about a bunch of university pals living together in a messy house. And there was Shelley, about an overeducated and unemployed man living in London, spending the entire time making fun of people who are more sucessful than him. It's also where I discovered Blackadder!

These shows were like nothing else on regular American TV at the time, and they did quite a number on my impressionable teenage mind. I felt lucky to live in a city where we had a station like this.

And then I went to college. And WNYC-TV vanished. 

In 1996, the city sold off WNYC-TV and radio. A foundation was started to buy and run the radio station, and today it's a broadcasting and podcasting powerhouse. But WNYC-TV was sold off to some commercial broadcaster who just leased out its airwaves. Any trace or connection to the city was gone. All that is left of WNYC-TV are various clips on YouTube, some of which you can see below, including the final signoff in 1996.

This is a part of the city that is gone today but whose spirit still lives on.