NTIA Grants $8 million to Public Broadcasters for Radio and Nonbroadcast Projects and $6 Million for Analog to Digital Conversion

The Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), on September 30, 2003, announced the award of $14 million in FY03 funding from the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program (PTFP) to assist public radio, public television and nonbroadcast (distance learning) projects across the country.

Six million dollars of the $14 million awarded by PTFP went to 23 grantees to assist in the digital conversion of 36 public television stations. Earlier in the year, PTFP awarded $25 million for the conversion of public television stations to digital broadcasting, bringing the total amount awarded for digital television conversion projects during the year to $31 million. These 79 digital television conversion grants will be matched by $51 million raised by the recipients.

The September awards also include $4.5 million for 66 radio grants, $1.6 million for nine television equipment replacement grants, $1.4 million for eleven nonbroadcast (distance learning) grants, and one grant to the University of Hawaii for $488,977 for the PEACESAT (Pan-Pacific Educational and Cultural Experiments by Satellite) project.

PTFP also awarded four emergency grants during the year, totaling $1.7 million, so that stations in Colorado, Guam, Indiana and Montana could maintain public broadcasting service.

The total amount awarded by PTFP in FY 2003 is $40.7 million for 170 grants.

More information and a complete list of the FY 2003 PTFP grant awards are available on the PTFP Web site at http://www.ntia.doc.gov/otiahome/ptfp/Projects/2003/index.htm or by calling NTIA at 202-482-5802. A fact sheet on the awards is at http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ptfp/Projects/2003/ptfpfactsheet_9302003.htm

In addition to projects mentioned above, NTIA awarded $2.6 million to two stations in New York City, WNET-TV and WNYC-FM, from a special supplemental appropriation to re-establish the stations' transmission facilities destroyed by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.