Link: http://wgsf.oldgleaner.com/

Part 1 - The Early Days
(A Multi-page History)

The station had a very rough early history, including some of these facts:

Several people, including the director of what was then called "Audio/Visual" wanted to develop a means of bringing the technique of Instructional Television into the classrooms of the Newark City Schools. Newark had over 10,000 students at that time, needed to pass a school levy, and were very short on teachers in the arts, but looking for any help possible in all areas of education.
They looked at both Cable TV (CATV) and Microwave systems. Both of these delivery systems were being developed, and installed, in the larger cities.
Nationally, this was the time universities were setting up vast lecture/viewing halls, with closed circuit TV. (CCTV)
Several TV stations were built in Ohio and other states on the new educational television allocations.
The Columbus City Schools were heavily into local ITV production at this time and teamed with WOSU-TV in Columbus.
However, the signal from WOSU_TV 34 was not adequate to be useful off-air in Newark.
The Federal Government and the Ford Foundation were making facilities and equipment grants to school and community organizations to develop Instructional/Educational broadcasting.
Locally, several people endeavored to bring a station to Newark, including the Games Slayter family. The reasoning was that open-channel television would have the added benefit of adding public access, called Educational Television (ETV) as well as Instructional/ (classroom) television (ITV) by mail on video tape and film. Nationally, an organization developed called National Educational Television (NET) headquartered in New York. Programs were distributed on both video tape and film. Any station wishing to participate had to have equipment to play these formats.
The Newark group pushed ahead, truthfully believing they would be able to obtain funding. They managed to obtain enough to build a building, and to purchase a transmitter and antenna system.
The license for the broadcast station was set up in the name of the Newark City Schools. The community group that had managed the station up to this point had to relinquish all control to the schools. Not everyone was happy with this arrangement, but they went to work with what they had available.
In addition to the transmiter/tower/antenna, there was a reel-to-reel audio recorder, microphone, and a borrowed videcon television camera.
Videcon Camera
Existing equipment was not made eligible for reimbursement when the federal funding process was finally established. The station project was under-funded. It took the development of a special fund - The Licking County Fund for Public Giving - to pay it off.
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