Message

A Message from Bill Kelly

President and CEO of WVIA

Transformational change happens perhaps once in a generation, when the opportunities and timing converge perfectly.

For WVIA, timing, technology and talent have come together to create Your Vision - Your Voice. It’s time to imagine the possibilities.

The future is here; we call it digital high-definition television and radio and for WVIA, the result is ideas. Our Mission Statement guides us; we can indeed be the regional catalyst for change; the convener that brings together people who will celebrate our quality of life and work to make it better, and the educator that collaborates with colleges, teachers and students to make lifelong learning possible. We truly believe that "people change and lives improve when ideas challenge us." And, even a half-century after it was created by Congress, and despite a virtual proliferation of new channel choices, no one can perform this mission better than public broadcasting.

But WVIA is more than a broadcaster. We’re Public Media. Television radio, internet and more all owned by you. We’re wvia.org where you’ll soon access the best of our local programs at your convenience, and where teachers will find thousands of compelling instructional videos for students. Yes we're television and radio, in fact this region's only TV/Radio combination, but less visible are our community projects behind the scenes. We routinely collaborate with enlightened, hard working civic and cultural not-for-profits who make this a finer place to call home and together we multiply success. WVIA has only one purpose, public service, and we take it seriously. And WVIA is a business, measuring performance, preserving resources, routinely striving for excellence.

But all of these good intentions have little impact without people skilled and passionate enough to meet and master the opportunity. Never in our forty years has this region's Public Television and Radio institution had more gifted women and men calling WVIA their workplace. While the future we must embrace is one of dazzling new technology, that equipment is just the means by which talented people conceive of and create inspired programs with measurable outcomes. To all of us, this work is a privilege.

So the people of WVIA are ready, the technology is now being installed and the timing could not be better. But what more could be done? How could we bring together in one place the people, the technology, the ideas that could take WVIA to a new threshold of service to you?

We’re building this region‘s only High-Definition Television and Radio Studio/Theater. Soon in this new space we will help find answers to our region’s challenges and involve citizens like you in programs unique to WVIA. Here we will introduce you to the visions and voices of remarkable people of all ages. We’ll bring you political debates and singularly important citizenship meetings that illustrate our freedoms as Americans. Educators will bring their students here to make and use programs, and to interact with classrooms anywhere in the world. We’ll bring together leaders to stimulate a dialog unlikely to happen elsewhere, create archival video and audio for historic purposes, and encourage regional organizations with great ideas and energy to use the facility. Audiences at home and in the theater will see and hear high-definition concerts and enjoy premieres of programs that celebrate the beauty of our area and the achievements of our people.

Many of our new HDTV and Radio productions will be seen and heard by audiences across Pennsylvania and beyond. And for the first time in our forty year history, because of digital television and radio WVIA will have abundant airtime to do all of these things. Today we can portray regional challenges. Tomorrow, with timing, technology, talent and the studio/theater, WVIA can and will help solve them!

Thank you for making WVIA all that it can be!