The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

It goes off the air next month as the City Colleges gave up channel 20 in the FCC auction and don't plan to continue it as a subchannel of 11 or a cable-only channel. Hard to say it affects any of our lives but it's strange that we're watching over-the-air television channels just disappear as technology marches on.

It goes off the air next month as the City Colleges gave up channel 20 in the FCC auction and don't plan to continue it as a subchannel of 11 or a cable-only channel. Hard to say it affects any of our lives but it's strange that we're watching over-the-air television channels just disappear as technology marches on.

That's really too bad. They sometimes had decent programs on, particularly older programs WTTW stopped running. You can find most of that stuff on Youtube, but not all of it.

This is distressing. Their pledge drive programming was top notch--so much better than the endless crackpot doctors & Suze Orman on Ch. 11.

Now that's a get. They must have had to shoehorn him into Ron Onesti's 18 hour shift to get him on.

They did have the band Asia (or perhaps it was Air Supply) on once. That little Chinese lady helming the pledge drive was "excited" to have these "legends" in the studio.

On the brink of signing off after 34 years as Chicago’s “other” public TV station, WYCC-Ch.20 may have found a way to stay on the air.

The PBS affiliate, which is owned by City Colleges of Chicago, said Friday that it is exploring a deal to share a channel with WTTW-Ch. 11, allowing it to continue broadcasting after agreeing to vacate its own frequency in a Federal Communications Commission spectrum auction.

“CCC was recently approached by WTTW, a Chicago PBS affiliate, about the possibility of entering a channel-sharing agreement,” Katheryn Hayes, a City Colleges spokeswoman said. “CCC is exploring this opportunity, which will need to be approved by its board of trustees.”

Julia Maish, a WTTW spokeswoman, confirmed Friday that the stations are in discussions, but said “there are no firm agreements yet.”

WYCC received $15.9 million in the auction, which shifted a chunk of the broadcast airwaves for wireless mobile use. It was one of six Chicago-area TV stations, including Fox-owned WPWR-Ch. 50, NBC's Telemundo outlet WSNS-Ch. 44 and Univision’s WXFT-Ch.60, to sell their broadcast frequencies.

The “winning” stations had the option to channel share with another TV station or go off the air, with Jan. 23 the deadline for those pulling the plug.

WYCC sent a letter to members Sept. 13 informing them the station would be going off the air for good next month.

“The letter said we were going to cease broadcasting services as of Oct. 25,” Hayes said. “We will be following up with a new letter.”

Launched in 1983 with a dormant UHF license acquired by City Colleges, WYCC offered television courses to students and a public broadcasting alternative to the much larger WTTW. In addition to airing PBS content, WYCC produces local programming, such as “In The Loop,” a weekly public affairs show that launched in 2013.

WYCC had a staff of 26 and an annual budget of nearly $8.2 million last year, according to public filings, with City Colleges providing more than $5.7 million of the funding. Grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the state of Illinois and private donors were also part of the station’s nonoperating revenue, but it still lost nearly $732,000 last year.

Nationwide, 175 broadcasters sold their licensed frequencies, freeing up 70 megahertz of spectrum and netting just over $10 billion. That includes 30 stations that agreed upfront to switch from UHF to VHF frequencies, according to FCC spokesman Charlie Meisch.

Of the remaining 145 stations, 30 have filed an application with the FCC to implement a channel-sharing agreement, while 20 channels have committed to going dark, Meisch said Wednesday. The rest will have to pick a lane in the coming months.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

Now that's a get. They must have had to shoehorn him into Ron Onesti's 18 hour shift to get him on.

Actually WTTW is right now playing a show by a Pink Floyd cover band called Brit Floyd and they are astoundingly good. The highly skilled cover band is a very odd phenomenon.

That line up brings me back to riding around in my folks Oldsmobile wagon. Or maybe they chevy before it was wrecked.

Actually WTTW is right now playing a show by a Pink Floyd cover band called Brit Floyd and they are astoundingly good. The highly skilled cover band is a very odd phenomenon.