July 30th, 2009 
joel It’s going to cost more each year, but Rogers Cable in London, ON will continue to show WQLN/Erie as it’s PBS channel, according to a Mike Maciag story in today’s Erie Times-News.
Late Tuesday, Rogers agreed to keep WQLN on their system, provided that the public station now provide a fiber-optic back haul to the Canadian cable giant’s network head end in Toronto. Price tag according to the article is $30-50,000 per year.
Such an investment is worth it to better serve the London community and retain the $200,000 per year the station receives in donations. However, it is an additional cost that comes at a time of great difficulty for funding the public media property. Station officials are quoted as counting on some $250,000 in state funding to be restored when the final PA budget is passed. Gov. Rendell’s original budget had no money for public media which precipiated several layoffs and pay reductions in staff.
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Deep Background for July 26-August 1, 2009
The death of Walter Cronkite generated a muted response in this space, even as the national media provided widespread coverage of his life and the funeral this week in New York. Meanwhile, what doesn’t seem muted is the Erie public’s growing concern that they are going to lose this summer due to the cold and rainy conditions. Because so much of our ability to endure 6 months of snowfall depends on 3-4 glorious months of warmth and sunshine, Erieites are getting at a minimum frazzled, all the way to the point of an ill-timed outbreak of Seasonal Affect Disorder.
Whether you are SAD about the weather, or want to celebrate the weather forecaster, you can talk about it here on our open forum. Your personal connections can be e-mailed at joel@nataliemedia.com, or via Twitter @pressandtower.
Embrace the clouds, I mean chaos!