WHED-TV, Channel 15 in Hanover, NH, WEDB-TV, Channel 40 in Berlin, NH and translator station W59AB, Channel 59 in North Woodstock, NH left the air in the Summer of 1981. The stations were used to rebroadcast WENH-TV, Channel 11 in Durham, the public television flagship station in that state. WENH went on the air on July 6th, 1959, and for nearly a decade was the only noncommercial TV station in New Hampshire. WENH's owners (then and now), the University Of New Hampshire, wanted to expand WENH's reach in the mid 1960's to reach the 28% of New Hampshire residents (this was before cable) who could not watch WENH. So in 1967 and 1968, five additional UHF stations signed-on, each rebroadcasting WENH. Two of them, WEKW-TV/Channel 52 in Keene and WLED-TV/Channel 49 in Littleton, are still on the air today.

WEDB, WHED and W59AB "bit the dust" in 1981 during a time of severe financial crisis for New Hampshire Public Television, the UNH department that operated WENH and it's satellites. For the fiscal year that began on July 1st, 1981, NHPTV faced a major cut in state funding. The cut was so severe that NHPTV, in order to survive, had to: (1) Eliminate a nightly newscast it had produced each weeknight since 1972 (It would be replaced by "New Hampshire Journal", a weekly newsmagazine done on a much lower budget, the next year). (2) Shut down WEDB, WHED and W59AB (3) Lay off some employees. (4) Cut back on the broadcasting hours of the three remaining stations, WENH, WEKW, and WLED.

Even then, it was "touch and go" as to whether NHPTV would survive, but the network would. In fact, even as the station was undergoing through major budget cuts, one ambitious new local show scheduled to start on NHPTV in the fall of 1981 did premiere as scheduled: "New Hampshire Crossroads", a "soft" feature magazine. "Crossroads" went on the air because it's production costs were funded by outside underwriters. "Crossroads", by the way, is still on the air. Another major local NHPTV production that survived the funding crisis of 1981, again because production costs were funded by outside businesses, was NHPTV's live coverage of most UNH home hockey games.

Although NHPTV is today as strong financially as it's ever been, WEDB/Channel 40, WHED/Channel 15 and W59AB never returned to the air. But cable has grown to such an extent that viewers in the Hanover, Berlin and North Woodstock areas can get WENH on cable, so the expenses of running transmitters in these areas has been eliminated, and money that might have gone to keeping these stations on the air can be diverted to pay other expenses of running NHPTV.

History provided, in part, by Joe Gallant

EDITOR: Recently, WHED-TV has been revived, (in a matter of sorts) as W15BK, Hanover, NH. A major problem with the original Channel 15 was that it was located atop a remote hill in the Hanover area of New Hampshire which had no commercial electric power available. So, they improvised by using a diesel generator to provide the juice to run WHED-TV. Chances are, the electric problems that plagued WHED-TV in the past have been addressed.