West Virginia Public Broadcasting will launch a new television network on Jan. 1, geared to West Virginia programming, including extensive coverage of the 2016 legislative session.
"What a great opportunity this is to form a network that is for and by West Virginians," Beth Vorhees, WVPB news director, told the state Educational Broadcasting Authority Wednesday.
Vorhees will be executive producer for the West Virginia Channel, which will replace the WVPBS 2 channel on cable and satellite TV systems around the state.
The new channel will be much more geared to West Virginia coverage, with news, public affairs, educational programming, and more coverage of cultural and community events statewide, WVPB Executive Director Scott Finn said.
He said plans are to have at least two hours of West Virginia programming on the channel each evening. Currently, about half of all West Virginia households have access to the channel, and Finn said there will be a push to get more cable and satellite providers to add the revamped channel to their lineups.
One of the network's initial undertakings will be gavel-to-gavel coverage of state House of Delegates and Senate floor sessions, Vorhees said.
Plans are to broadcast one floor session live, immediately followed by a taped broadcast of the other house's session. Vorhees will moderate the telecasts, providing explanations and updates on the various bills and issues as they are being debated.
The format will be free of time constraints, allowing full coverage of floor sessions, which generally run longer as the 60-day session progresses, as well as coverage of evening floor sessions that are common in the closing days of each session, she said.
"We won't have something that, 'Sorry, our time has run out,'" she said.
Finn said there are also plans later on to launch a news/talk/interview show featuring state newsmakers and journalists. Also envisioned is live coverage of cultural and community events around the state, he said.
"There are great things going on in our communities every day," Finn said. "All we've got to do is point a camera at them."
To that end, the EBA on Wednesday appointed a committee to study the feasibility of obtaining a mobile TV production truck to make such broadcasts possible. That committee will present its recommendations to the EBA in December.
Also during Wednesday's EBA meeting:
n WVPB finished the 2014-15 budget year on June 30 with total revenues of $9.78 million, up more than $170,000 from the 2013-14 budget year, despite cuts in state funding of nearly $300,000.
Public Broadcasting offset the state cuts with increases in corporate underwriting, memberships, and contributions.
"It's causing us to be stronger and better," Finn said of the state funding cuts, saying the goal is to reduce reliance on state and federal funding to about 50 percent of Public Broadcasting's operating budget. Not long ago, state funding accounted for about two-thirds of WVPB's budget, he said.
n EBA members unanimously approved a salary increase for Finn, who was hired as executive director in January 2013, to $89,500.
n Tom Rhule, a representative of the Mountain Party, objected to a new EBA policy to determine when third-party and independent candidates will be allowed to participate in broadcast debates.
Adopted in June, the policy will be to invite candidates from parties that received at least 5 percent of the vote in the previous election for the office, as well as candidates who are polling at 5 percent or higher in independent media polls.
"My question is, who will chose the pollster?" Rhule asked.
He cited a poll in the 2010 special election for U.S. Senate that showed Mountain Party candidate Jesse Johnson polling 0 percent of the vote. He said it was later determined that Johnson was not included in the list of candidates for the survey.
"You guys own the microphone. You can stretch the debate out to include anyone who's a duly nominated candidate," Rhule said.
Reach Phil Kabler at philk@wvgazette.com, 304-348-1220, or follow @PhilKabler on Twitter.