News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
WCTE one of just two stations that will be a part of CBS Sunday Morning’s story on the 50th anniversary of PBS Sunday.
WCTE CEO Becky Magura said when they taped with CBS in August she did not know when it would air until this week. Now, Magura said a national audience will see first hand why public broadcasting is so important to the Upper Cumberland.
“We serve a rural region and there are a number of people who watch WCTE via antenna and we’re the only thing they get,” Magura said. “They don’t get another TV station… Many of them are isolated from even cell service, internet service, and I know that’s hard for a lot of people to imagine but it’s true.”
Magura said CBS wanted to highlight how many people still rely on public broadcasting for news, public safety and education for children. She said during the story, an Overton County viewer spoke to how local broadcasting gives a voice to the topics important to the Upper Cumberland.
“One of the ladies that we went to visit in Crawford, Tennessee… One of the questions that they asked her was, ‘why does it matter that it’s WCTE that’s here,’ and she said, ‘well, because they’re one of us, because they know our voice.”
She said WCTE is part of a bigger story on PBS, but that itself says a lot to be chosen. Magura said she believes the same message that resonated with CBS, will reverberate across the country Sunday.
“When we think about this belonging to the people of the Upper Cumberland, this asset that is public,” Magura said. “It is there television station, it really resonates and I think that resonated with them… That was a discovery for them, the team that came and visited with us.”
This segment will be told by CBS correspondent Martha Teichner on December 6. The segment will be called PBS turns 50.
