In 1954, no one knew how to get to Sesame Street, Mister Rogers didn't have a neighborhood and people couldn't fly anywhere without the Reading Rainbow.
But all that changed when WKAR-TV broadcast its first test pattern for East Lansing.
WKAR-TV, known for its educational children's, sports, public affairs and arts programs, welcomed the start of WKAR-DT's digital channel on Thursday at 11:07 a.m., at the precise time the station first hit the airwaves 50 years ago. About 70 former employees and MSU officials welcomed the start of the WKAR-DT digital age inside the Communication Arts and Sciences Building.
Steve Meuche, the former general manager of the station, briefly accounted the history of WKAR-TV, which was originally stationed on the site occupied by the Breslin Center and moved to the Communication Arts and Sciences Building in 1981.
"Television has come a long way to diverge public and commercial TV and expand that service beyond the TV station," Meuche said. "We are about to launch into the incredible technology of digital TV that will allow multi-channel capabilities."
General manager DeAnne Hamilton said the new station has many benefits.
"Digital television is an opportunity to offer more and better quality television," Hamilton said. "We will be working with the community to find content that everyone can enjoy."
The new digital station will be airing weekly presentations in the future that recap vintage programming that was produced throughout the past 50 years.
Beany Tomber, a WKAR-TV employee for the past 22 years, said she has seen the station technology change from her first job with corporate fund raising to her current work with the social outreach program Ready to Learn.
"When I first started here I was working on underwriting credit and I would have to run from the control room to the tape room just to see how everything looked," Tomber said.
"It really looked like the dark ages and now the station has become digital which I don't know a whole lot about how it works - but I know that it is fantastic."
