KQED/KQET

KQED: San Francisco, California KQET: Watsonville/Monterey/Salinas, California
Branding	KQED
Channels	Digital: KQED: 30 (UHF) KQET: 25 (UHF)
Subchannels	9.1 HD 9.2 KQEH (SD) 9.3 PBS World
Affiliations	PBS (1970–present)
Owner	Northern California Public Broadcasting, Inc.
First air date	KQED: April 5, 1954 KQET: May 17, 1989
Call letters' meaning	Quod Erat Demonstrandum
Sister station(s)	KQED-FM, KQEH
Former callsigns	KQED: None & KQET: KCAH (1989-2007)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: KQED: 9 (VHF, 1954-2009) KQET: 25 (UHF, 1989-2009) Digital: KQET: 58 (UHF: 2007-2009)
Former affiliations	KQED: NET (1954-1970)
Transmitter power	KQED:777 kW KQET: 81.1 kW
Height	KQED:437 m KQET: 698.6 m
Facility ID	KQED: 35500 KQET: 8214
Transmitter coordinates	KQED: 37°45′19″N 122°27′6″W / 37.75528°N 122.45167°W / 37.75528; -122.45167 (KQED) KQET: 36°45′22.9″N 121°30′4.9″W / 36.756361°N 121.501361°W / 36.756361; -121.501361 (KQET)
Website	www.kqed.org

KQED is a Public Broadcasting Service-member public television station in San Francisco, California, broadcasting digitally on UHF channel 30 (Ex-Analog Channel 9). This channel is also carried on Comcast cable TV and via satellite by DirecTV and Dish Network. Its transmitter is located on Sutro Tower in San Francisco.

It is one of the most-watched PBS stations in the country during primetime.^{[1][non-primary source needed]}

Noteworthy KQED television productions include the first installment of Armistead Maupin's miniseries Tales of the City, Tongues Untied by Marlon Riggs, and a series of programs focusing on the historic neighborhoods in San Francisco, such as The Castro and The Fillmore District. Ongoing productions include Check, Please! Bay Area, Spark, This Week in Northern California and QUEST.^[2]

History[link]

KQED was organized and created by veteran broadcast journalists James Day and Jonathan Rice on June 1, 1953, and first went on air April 5, 1954. It was the sixth public broadcasting station in the United States, debuting shortly after WQED in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The station's call letters, Q.E.D., are taken from the Latin phrase, quod erat demonstrandum, commonly used in mathematics.^[3]

KQED's World Press was an hour-long weekly roundup of international news analyzed by a panel of political analysts debuted in 1963. Panel members, who were political science analysts, who specialized in each specific global area, each brought a newspaper for round table discussion. ^[4] It was founded by San Francisco Supervisor Roger Boas,^{[citation needed]} who brought his long-term interest in government, politics, television and business to the show. The program "summed up the foreign reaction to such events as the Kennedy assassinations, the Vietnam War, along with thousands of other events that have shaped the decade of the sixties."^[5] What started as a local public access program with no financial support became the longest lived continuous discussion program televised on on 185 stations.^{[citation needed]}

In its early days following sign-on, KQED broadcast only twice a week for one hour each day. Despite the very limited schedule, the station was still losing money, leading to a decision in early 1955 from its board of trustees to close down the station. Its staff got the board to keep the station on the air and try to get needed funds from the public in a form of a televised auction, in which celebrities would appear to auction off goods and services donated to the station. While the station still came a little short, it did show that the general public cared to keep KQED on the air. Since then, the auction became a fund-raising tool for many public television stations, though its usage waned in recent years in favor of increased usage of special pledge drives throughout the year.^[6]

Channel 9 had a sister station, KQEC, which broadcast on Channel 32. KQED had inherited the station in 1970 (as KNEW-TV) from Metromedia, but found they could not operate it without losing money. Various PBS and locally produced programs from KQED would air erratically and at different times of the day on KQEC. In 1988, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revoked KQED's license to operate KQEC, citing excessive off-air time, further charging dishonesty in previous filings with regard to the specific reasons. The alleged dishonesty was in reference to KQED's claim of financial woes for keeping KQEC off the air for most of 1972 through 1977, and again for several months in 1979 and 1980. After being revoked from KQED, the reassigned license was granted to the Minority Television Project (MTP), one of the challengers of the KQED/KQEC filing.^[7] The KQEC call letters were changed to KMTP-TV under the new license.

During the early 1990s, when the state of California reintroduced the death penalty, the KQED organization waged a legal battle for the right to televise the forthcoming execution of Robert Alton Harris at San Quentin State Prison.^[8] The decision to pursue the videotaping of executions was controversial amongst those on both sides of the capital punishment debate.^[9]

KQED was co-producer of the television adaptation of Armistead Maupin's novel, Tales of the City, which aired on PBS stations nationwide in January 1994. The original six-part series was produced by Britain's public-service Channel 4 Corporation with KQED and PBS' American Playhouse. The six-part miniseries featured gay themes, nudity and illicit drug use in this fictional portrayal of life in 1970s San Francisco. Although the program gave PBS its highest ratings ever for a dramatic program, PBS bowed to threats of federal funding cuts and announced it would not participate in the television production of an adaptation of the second book in the series, More Tales of the City.

On May 1, 2006, KQED, Inc. and the KTEH Foundation merged to form Northern California Public Broadcasting.^[10] The KQED assets including its television (KQED TV) and FM radio stations (KQED-FM) were taken under the umbrella of that new organization. Both remain members of Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR), respectively. With this change, KQED and KTEH are considered as sister-stations today. KTEH would change its call letters to KQEH and rebrand to "KQED Plus" on July 1, 2011 after research found that most viewers were unaware that KTEH was affiliated with KQED.^[11]

On November 11, 2010, KQED and NBR Worldwide, LLC, the owners of PBS' Nightly Business Report, reached into an agreement to open a bureau in the Silicon Valley in order to enhance coverage of NBR.^[12]

On January 4, 2011, KQED expanded its broadcasting areas to include both San Luis Obispo and Santa Maria,^[13] as then-PBS affiliate KCET left public broadcasting at the end of 2010.^{[14][15][16][17]} Those areas are currently available only via cable.

Programming[link]

KQED currently airs most of its programming on television 24 hours a day. On a typical weekday, the station is dominated by children's programming in the mornings and in the late afternoons, with news and other programming between noon and 4pm and after 6pm. Prime time programming includes programming carried by PBS. On Saturdays, several cooking shows and other home programming airs during the daytime, with movies or special programming during the evenings and overnight hours. On Sundays, children's programming airs during the morning, with reruns of popular shows during the daytime and prime time.

For many years, KQED has carried PBS Newshour ever since its debut. The program would eventually open its West coast studios at KQED in 1997 to extend coverage throughout the United States.^[18]

Children[link]

Although KQED and KQEH airs many children's programming distributed by other stations including WGBH and WNET, KQED did not distribute any children's programming until 2007, when Raggs became the first children's programming to be distributed by the station. Raggs would first be tested on ten public television stations, including KQED and its partners (but not counting its partners), and eventually in 2008, KQED would distribute the program nationally. However, Raggs was not distributed by PBS itself, but instead by American Public Television.^[19]

On May 11, 2009, PBS announced another show, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!^[20] with KQED as the presenting station.^[21][22] Unlike Raggs, Dr. Seuss's latest show is considered the first children's program not by American Public Television, but instead distributed by PBS.

Digital television[link]

All channels are available on Comcast;^[23] AT&T U-verse offers KQED and KQEH, but not KQED World.^[24]

KQET[link]

KQED's television programming is repeated in the Monterey/Salinas/Santa Cruz market on KQET analog channel 25 and digital channel 58, licensed to Watsonville.

KQET was first aired on May 17, 1989 as KCAH, a locally-owned PBS member station that served the Monterey area. In the late 1990s, San Jose PBS member station KTEH acquired KCAH, making it a satellite of KTEH.

KCAH changed its call letters to KQET on August 12, 2007, months after the merger of KQED and KTEH. On October 1, 2007, KQET switched programming sources from KTEH to KQED.^[25]

KQET terminated its analog transmissions on May 9, 2009, and has now moved its digital signal from its pre-transition UHF channel 58 back to UHF channel 25, its historic analog frequency.

The station broadcasts from Fremont Peak near San Juan Bautista. KQET's subchannels are multiplexed:

Radio[link]

Publishing[link]

In 1955, KQED began publishing a programming guide called KQED in Focus. The program guide began to add more articles and took on the character of a regular magazine. The name was later changed to Focus Magazine and then to San Francisco Focus.^[26] In 1984, a new programming guide, Fine Tuning was separated off from Focus, with Focus carrying on as a self-contained magazine.^[27] In the early 1990s, San Francisco Focus was the recipient of number of journalism and publishing awards, including a National Headliner Award for feature writing in 1993. In 1997, KQED sold San Francisco Focus to Diablo Publications in order to pay off debts.^[28] In 2005, San Francisco Focus was resold to Modern Luxury Media, who rebranded the magazine as San Francisco.^[29]

References[link]

External links[link]

• KQED Official website
• California Connected Official website
• This Week in Northern California Official website
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KQED
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KQED-TV
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KQET
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KQET-TV
• KQED-TV (analog) coverage map
• KQED-DT (digital) coverage map
• Forum discusses proposed changes to KQED's bylaws, which would eliminate members' voting rights.
• Results of Member Elections include the elimination of their voting rights
• KQED Workers Authorize Strike
• Programming information

Robbie Basho (August 31, 1940 – February 28, 1986) was an American composer, guitarist and pianist, and a proponent of the acoustic steel string guitar in America.

Biography[link]

Basho was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and was orphaned as an infant. Adopted by the Robinson family, Daniel Robinson, Jr. attended Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and went on to study at University of Maryland College Park. Although he played trumpet and sang in middle school and high school ensembles, his interest in acoustic guitar grew during his college years, as a direct result of his friendships with fellow students John Fahey, Ed Denson, and Max Ochs. In 1959, Basho purchased his first guitar and immersed himself in Asian art and culture. It was around this time that he changed his name to Basho, in honor of the Japanese Poet, Matsuo Basho.^[1]

Basho's vision was to see the steel string as a concert instrument and to create a Raga system for America. During a radio interview in 1974, promoting his album Zarthus, Basho discussed his music in detail. He described how he had gone through a number of "periods" related to philosophy and music, including Japanese, Hindu, and Native American. Zarthus represented the culmination of his "Persian period". Basho asserted his wish, along with John Fahey and Leo Kottke, to raise the steel-string guitar to the level of a concert instrument. He acknowledged that the nylon-string guitar was suitable for "love songs", but its steel counterpart could communicate "fire".

Basho credited his interest in Indian music to hearing Ravi Shankar, whom he first encountered in 1962. Basho died unexpectedly at the age of 45 due to a freak accident during a visit to his chiropractor, where an "intentional whiplash" experiment caused blood vessels in his neck to rupture, leading to a fatal stroke.^[2][3]

Guitar style[link]

Robbie Basho's dexterous, finger-picked guitar technique was influenced heavily by Sarod playing, and the studies he undertook with the Indian virtuoso Ali Akbar Khan. Basho employed unusual open tunings, including a number of variants on "Open-C" (CGCGCE) and played a 12-string guitar, in order to recreate the drone that is a notable feature of his beloved Indian Classical Music. Basho's guitar melodies were often created using Eastern modes and scales, but his work contains a broad range of noticeable influences, from European Classical Music to Blues (in his earlier period) and Ballad styles of America.

Discography[link]

• 1965 The Seal of the Blue Lotus (Takoma)
• 1966 The Grail and the Lotus (Takoma)
• 1966 Various Artists: Contemporary Guitar (Takoma)
• 1967 Basho Sings (Takoma)
• 1967 The Falconer's Arm I (Takoma)
• 1967 The Falconer's Arm II (Takoma)
• 1969 Venus in Cancer (Blue Thumb)
• 1971 Song of the Stallion (Takoma)
• 1972 The Voice of the Eagle (Vanguard)
• 1974 Zarthus (Vanguard)
• 1978 Visions of the Country (Windham Hill)
• 1979 Art of the Acoustic Steel String Guitar 6 & 12 (Windham Hill)
• 1981 Rainbow Thunder: Songs of the American West (Silver Label Recordings)
• 1983 Bouquet , MC (Basho Productions)
• 1984 Twilight Peaks , MC (The Art of Relaxation)
• 2008 Bonn Ist Supreme, CD Live! (Bo'Weavil Recordings)

References[link]

^{[1] [4]}

External links[link]

• Robbie Basho Archives, biography, discography, tunings, notes, articles, spotlights
• Robbie Basho Archives + [Steffen Basho-Junghans]
• Yahoo! discussion group
• Robbie Basho at Allmusic
• Robbie Basho tribute biography & music sample

Jackie Speier
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 12th district
Incumbent
Assumed office April 8, 2008
Preceded by	Tom Lantos
Member of the California Senate from the 8th district
In office 1998–2006
Preceded by	Quentin L. Kopp
Succeeded by	Leland Yee
Member of the California State Assembly from the 19th district
In office 1986–1996
Preceded by	Lou Papan
Succeeded by	Lou Papan
San Mateo County Supervisor
In office 1980–1986
Personal details
Born	(1950-05-14) May 14, 1950 (age 62) San Francisco, California
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Barry Dennis
Children	Jackson, Stephanie
Residence	Hillsborough, California
Alma mater	University of California, Davis; University of California, Hastings College of the Law
Occupation	Attorney, political assistant
Religion	Roman Catholic
Website	Congresswoman Jackie Speier

Karen Lorraine Jacqueline "Jackie" Speier^[1] ( /ˈspɪər/; born May 14, 1950) is the U.S. Representative for California's 12th congressional district, serving since 2008. She is a member of the Democratic Party. The district includes the northern two-thirds of San Mateo County (formerly part of the district represented by her political mentor, Leo Ryan) and the southwest quarter of San Francisco.

She is also a former member of the California State Senate who represented parts of San Francisco and San Mateo counties. On April 8, 2008, she won the special election for the vacated United States House of Representatives seat of late Congressman Tom Lantos.^[2]

Family[link]

Speier was born in 1950 in San Francisco and grew up in an apolitical, working-class family. Her mother, Nancy (née Kanchelian), was Armenian American, and her father, Fred Speier, was the son of a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany.^[3][4] Speier took Jacqueline as her confirmation name after Jackie Kennedy.^[5] She is a graduate of Mercy High School in Burlingame, which is where her daughter attended as a freshman in the 2008–2009 school year. She earned a B.A. from the University of California, Davis, and a J.D. from the University of California Hastings College of the Law in 1976.^[6]

Speier's first husband, Dr. Steve Sierra,^[7] died in a car accident in 1994 at the age of 53.^[8] At the time, she was two months pregnant with their second child, a daughter named Stephanie.^[8] They also had a son, Jackson Kent, to whom Speier gave birth in 1988^[7] while she was serving as a member of the California State Assembly, the first woman in that legislature to do so.^[8] Speier then supported her children as a widowed single mother before marrying Barry Dennis, an investment consultant, in 2001.^[7][9]

Congressional aide[link]

Congressman Leo Ryan

Speier served as a congressional staffer for Congressman Leo Ryan. Speier was part of the November 1978 fact-finding mission to investigate allegations of human rights abuses by the Reverend Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple followers, almost all of whom were American citizens who had moved to Jonestown with Jones in 1977 and 1978.^[5] Speier was one of only two members of the mission who were concerned enough about potential violence to make out a will before traveling to Jonestown.^[10] Several Peoples Temple members ambushed the investigative team and others boarding the plane to leave Jonestown on November 18. Five people died, including Congressman Ryan. While attempting to shield herself from rifle and shotgun fire behind small airplane wheels with the other members of the team, Speier was shot five times and waited 22 hours before help arrived.^[11] The murder of Congressman Ryan was the only assassination of a Congressman in the line of duty in the history of the United States.^[12] That same day, over 900 of the remaining members of the Peoples Temple died in Jonestown and Georgetown.

Political career[link]

San Mateo County[link]

Speier's political career began with an unsuccessful run to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Congressman Ryan (the seat she holds now).^[5] She lost the Democratic primary to another former Ryan staffer, G.W. "Joe" Holsinger, who went on to lose to the Republican candidate, San Mateo County Supervisor Bill Royer.

Speier won her first election in 1980, when she ran for the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors and defeated a 20-year incumbent. At the time, she was the youngest person ever elected to the board. She was reelected in 1984, and was later selected as chairwoman.^[11]

California State Assembly[link]

In 1986, midway through her second term on the Board of Supervisors, she ran for the California State Assembly from a district in northern San Mateo County. She won by a few hundred votes. She was reelected five more times, the last as the nominee of both the Democratic and Republican parties.^[13]

California State Senate[link]

Speier as a California state senator

California state term limits forced Speier to give up her Assembly seat in 1996, but in 1998 she was elected to the California State Senate. In 2002, she was elected to a second term with 78.2% of the vote.^[14] As a state senator, Speier was instrumental in securing $127 million funding for major service improvements to Caltrain, for which the commuter rail agency named a new locomotive (no. 925) for her. Speier also focused on representing consumer rights.^[15] Senator Speier was termed out of the California State Senate in 2006. Speier served as assistant president pro tempore of the California State Senate during her last term.

Caltrain Locomotive Named after Jackie Speier

Candidate for Lieutenant Governor of California[link]

In 2006, Speier ran in the Democratic primary for Lieutenant governor of California against insurance commissioner John Garamendi and state senator Liz Figueroa. At the June 6, 2006, elections, Speier was defeated by Garamendi in a close race. Garamendi received 42.9%, Speier received 39.3%, and Figueroa received the remaining 17.8% of the vote.

2008 presidential campaign[link]

Speier endorsed Hillary Clinton's bid for president.^[16]

Member of the U.S. House of Representatives[link]

On January 13, 2008, Speier announced she was running for the House seat being vacated by 14-term representative Tom Lantos, who announced on January 2, 2008, that he was not seeking re-election. Speier had spent much of 2007 building support to challenge Lantos in the Democratic primary.^[17]

On January 17, 2008, Lantos endorsed Speier as his successor. She also picked up endorsements from Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, Congressman Mike Thompson and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Lantos died February 11, 2008. Speier won a special primary election on April 8, 2008, to fill the remainder of his term, which ended in January 2009. She won an outright majority, avoiding a runoff that would have been held on June 3, coinciding with the regular primary election.^[18] Speier easily won the Democratic primary on June 3. The 12th is so heavily Democratic that this virtually assured her of a full term.^[19] She was elected to a full term in November with 75 percent of the vote.

On July 11, 2008, Speier introduced her first bill, the Gasoline Savings and Speed Limit Reduction Act, which would set a national speed limit of 60 mph in urban areas and 65 mph on less-populated stretches of highway.

Political views[link]

Earlier photo of Speier

Abortion[link]

Speier supports legal abortion. When she took the National Political Awareness Test in 2002, she answered, “Abortions should always be legally available.”^[20] The organization NARAL Pro-Choice America rated Jackie Speier as 100% on interest group ratings because she supported the choice of abortion in her voting for legislation.^[21] Also, in 2008 the Planned Parenthood Organization gave Speier a 100% on her actions regarding abortion.^[20] In a speech on the House floor on February 17, 2011, Speier said that she herself had undergone an emergency D&E procedure when complications developed in a wanted pregnancy.^[22][23]

Gun control[link]

Speier believes in a stricter view of gun control. According to her answers on the NPAT (National Political Awareness Test) she would like to require safety locks on all guns and background checks on prospective buyers as well as ban certain guns (other than for hunting) and strengthen state restrictions on buying and owning guns.^[20] To show that her legislation currently follows what she answered on the NPAT, when the Gun Owners of America graded Jackie Speier, they gave her an ‘F’ and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Jack Berman Advocacy Center gave her a 100%.^[20][21] Other organizations that gave Speier a low grade on loosening the restrictions on gun use include:\ the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of California.^[20]

Environment and energy[link]

Speier is concerned for the protection of the environment and wants to preserve the health of this planet. She lists as evidence the decline of salmon on the West Coast as proof of global warming.^[24] Speier believes global warming poses a growing danger and negatively affects the environment. When she spoke to the House on the subject of global warming and the environment, she expressed a desire “to craft a bipartisan and commonsense energy plan that makes polluters pay, provides for middle class energy tax credits, and creates a new industry and lots of good, clean, green jobs.”^[25] Jackie Speier is working to improve energy legislation with the Clean Air Rebate Act of 2009, the Home Star Act and the American Clean Energy and Security Act.^[26][27]

Congressional committee assignments[link]

• Committee on Homeland Security
  • Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence (Ranking Member)
  • Subcommittee on Transportation Security
• Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
  • Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending
  • Subcommittee on TARP, Financial Services and Bailouts of Public and Private Programs

Caucuses[link]

• Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (Associate Member)

Electoral history[link]

Books[link]

• This Is Not the Life I Ordered: 50 Ways to Keep Your Head Above Water When Life Keeps Dragging You Down, by Deborah Collins Stephens, Michealene Cristini Risley, Jackie Speier, and Jan Yanehiro, 2007, ISBN 978-1-57324-305-6

See also[link]

	Government of the United States portal
	Law portal
	Politics portal
	San Francisco Bay Area portal

• Armenian American Political Action Committee
• Armenian National Committee of America
• List of Armenian-Americans

References[link]

External links[link]

Find more about Jackie Speier on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Images and media from Commons
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource

• Jackie Speier official U.S. House site
• Jackie Speier for Congress official campaign site
• Biography at WhoRunsGov.com at The Washington Post
• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Congressional profile at GovTrack
• Congressional profile at OpenCongress
• Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
• Financial information at OpenSecrets.org
• Staff salaries, trips and personal finance at LegiStorm.com
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Campaign contributions at the National Institute for Money in State Politics
• Appearances on C-SPAN programs

Speeches

• Jackie Speier and Deborah Stephens Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders seminar mp3.

Media, press

• Speier seeks national speed limit to save gas, July 11, 2008, San Francisco Chronicle
• Jackie Speier– moving on, moving up: Survivor of Jonestown ambush plans run for lieutenant governor, November 16, 2003, San Francisco Chronicle
• Reforming California's Prisons: An Interview With Jackie Speier, Mother Jones (magazine), July 7, 2005

Honors

• Commencement Speaker, San Francisco State University, 2006
• Senator Jackie Speier one of honored guests at banquet, Armenian National Committee of America Western Region, October 2006.

Video

• This Is Not The Life I Ordered, preview of book, promotional video with Jackie Speier