posted by prof_improbable #
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WQED is a public television station that was founded in 1954 as the brainchild of the Pittsburgh mayor, David L. Lawrence.
A friend and supporter of President Harry Truman, Lawrence wanted to have 12% of television programming dedicated to educational television. At the time, the FCC had put a freeze on issuing licenses since there were so many applicants. After much arm-twisting and corporate-wrangling, WEQD began broadcasting on April 1, 1954.
Among the notable productions to come out of WEQD is Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, the iconic and radical children's program that featured Fred Rogers as the soft-spoken and profoundly compassionate story-teller/moral paragon. The show ran from its initial start in 1966 until 2001 (through repeats and syndication).
The WEQD call letters refer to the latin phrase Quod erat demonstrandum which means "what has been shown."
Clever broadcasters, that group...
