Cooperative Living August 2023 - 21

MEMBER FYI
Over the Mountains
and Through the Valley
by Susan Cameron, Cardinal News
Nation's first all-digital PBS station will serve Powell Valley area
T
he studio for the nation's first
all-digital public TV station,
dedicated to covering Southwest
Virginia, will be built at the Hard Rock
Hotel & Casino in Bristol rather than
in Abingdon, as originally announced
more than a year ago.
PBS Appalachia Virginia can currently
be watched in its service area through
local cable providers, livestreamed via
the website: pbsavirginia.org or the
mobile app: pbs appalachia virginia,
and accessed on demand at pbs.org or
through the mobile app.
" Partnering with Hard Rock is a
perfect fit for PBS Appalachia because
we are both community-minded
companies that want to help move the
region forward, " says Julie Newman,
general manager of PBS Appalachia.
" We are grateful for their partnership
and support. "
The planned studio will be about
4,000 square feet of space and is
expected to be completed by July 2024.
It will be enclosed in glass and there will
be an adjacent control room so people
can watch productions as they happen
or watch shows playing on a virtual
wall when the studio is not being used.
Originally, the plan was for the
new station's studio to be built at the
Southwest Virginia Cultural Heritage
Center in Abingdon. Those plans were
first announced in July 2022.
Newman says the change was made
once those involved realized how
complicated it would be to join two
nonprofit organizations under the
same roof.
" We're not moving forward with
a partnership with the Southwest
Joshua Deel (right), a senior
producer for PBS Appalachia,
films H. " Bill " William Smith for
an episode of " Storytellers of
fifififififififififi " in Big Stone Gap
Virginia Cultural Center. But there's
no bad blood there. It simply was a
matter of ... once we started trying
to piece together a partnership, the
marriage of the nonprofits started
to get a little messy because the
cultural center has several layers of
partnerships, " she says.
The mission of PBS Appalachia
is to serve an area that is not currently
receiving PBS and its content, which
includes segments of the Powell Valley
area.
Until the new station is built, Blue
Ridge PBS, headquartered in Roanoke,
is serving as a parent station to PBS
Appalachia. Southwest Virginia viewers
can now watch the full offerings of
PBS from news to kids' programming,
as well as local content focusing
on Southwest Virginia residents and
their stories.
Newman says those at the station
are working hard to make sure the
" production quality is better, the
content is better and it serves the
mission of what we say we're going to
do, which is celebrating Southwest
Virginia. " 
Scan this code to
learn more about
Cardinal News.
This article comes from Cardinal News,
an online nonprofit news agency based in
Southwest Virginia.
co-opliving.com
August 2023 ● Cooperative Living ●
19
PHOTOS COURTESY PBS APPALACHIA
http://www.pbsavirginia.org http://www.pbs.org http://www.co-opliving.com
Cooperative Living August 2023

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