User:Sammi Brie/BEMC

The Broadcast Educational Media Commission (BEMC) is a state agency of the U.S. state of Ohio that provides coordination and services in support of public broadcasting.

Television
In 1961, the Ohio legislature voted to establish the group as the Ohio Educational Television Network Commission, though no funding for educational television stations was provided at the time. The nine-member board included gubernatorial appointees and the Superintendent of Public Instruction. The commission was empowered to run a television network and control programming, as well as to manage facilities used to interconnect systems for educational broadcasting. The board met for the first time in January 1962 and included representatives of the broadcasting industry and state universities. A 1963 plan contemplated ten main stations—six of which were already broadcasting plus four for Akron/Kent, Bowling Green, Cleveland, and Dayton/Xenia, Ohio—and another 19 rebroadcasters. In 1965, a major moment came when the eight stations in operation aired the same program, a documentary on the Civil War produced by Ohio State University, in prime time, though this was done by sending each station a tape of the program.

The 1967 Ohio legislature empowered the Network Commission to serve as a facilitator and distributor of federal funding for educational stations. Two years later, it approved a $5.5 million package for the construction of new transmitters, including one for Dayton, which was still unserved by educational TV. In conjunction with the Ohio Board of Regents, began assembling a consortium of universities to run the Dayton station, projected to broadcast on channel 45, with Miami University, Wright State University, and Central State University. The Network Commission itself applied for licenses in Bowling Green, Cambridge, and Dayton later that year. It also filed for a station in Youngstown, only for Youngstown State University to refuse to withdraw its own application; the Board of Regents had requested it to go into a consortium with Akron University and Kent State University, but the schools initially balked.

In 1971, the Network Commission successfully negotiated to purchase WKTR-TV, a failed commecial station at Kettering, near Dayton. Under new WOET-TV call letters, began broadcasting as an educational television station on April 24, 1972, by rebroadcasting WMUB-TV, the Miami University station at Oxford. The Network Commission intended to transfer the license to the consortium, but Wright State objected to the inclusion of Miami, which the network commission had insisted on because of its existing studios and previous television experience. Wright State believed it should be the sole operator of the station, though it ultimately relented and agreed to the tri-university consortium. The license was transferred to this group, known as University Regional Broadcasting, in 1975. Similarly, the Network Commission obtained construction permits for an upgraded WBGU-TV in Bowling Green as well as stations in Alliance, Cambridge, and Portsmouth, which were later transferred to other groups. Some of the channels were relocated at the commission's request.

In addition to holding and spinning off licenses, the Network Commission managed the interconnection of the state's educational TV stations and commissioned programs. One of the programs produced for the commission was the WBGU-TV-produced public affairs program Ohio This Week, which aired from 1972 to 1975. In 1976, a two-way microwave transmission facility was completed between all of the stations; the first program presented this way, The Ohio Connection, featured highlights from each station.

Expanded remit
In 1980, the commission's remit was expanded to include public radio, and its name was changed to the Ohio Educational Broadcasting Network Commission. Its name was revised again to the Ohio Educational Telecommunications Network Commission in 1985 or 1995;