Today marks the 40th Anniversary of the first broadcast of Sesame Street. The PBS show is the longest running children’s show on US television. It has been widely praised from the start, and is considered to be a pioneer of the contemporary educational television standard.

In honor of this celebration, I’d like to bring you back to your youth. Here’s a little Sesame Street classic for your enjoyment:

Congratulations Sesame Street!

Sesame Street – Wikipedia
SesameStreet.org 
PBS Kids: Official Site

The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN) celebrates its 30th Anniversary today, September 7, 2009. ESPN is known as the international standard for sports news and was the first 24-hour sports programming network.

Connecticut native Bill Rasmussen, a former sportscaster and public relations director for the Hartford Whalers, began working on a new start-up venture in the late 1970s. Along with his son Scott, Rasmussen hoped to establish a statewide satellite cable sports network that would feature University of Connecticut and Whalers events. When Rasmussen learned it wouldn’t cost him any more to use the satellite transponder for national distribution, he created ESPN.

What launched with a single cable network on September 7, 1979 is now ESPN, Inc., The Worldwide Leader in Sports, a leading multinational, multimedia sports entertainment company featuring the broadest portfolio of multimedia sports assets, including six domestic networks, 45 international networks and more than 50 business entities.

Today, ESPN delivers sports programming to more than 190 countries and territories on all seven continents across a variety of platforms — television, wireless, interactive, print, radio, broadband, event management and consumer products – all with the hopes of fulfilling its original mission of serving sports fans.

ESPN 30th Anniversary Official Site

It’s finally here… finally. The official DTV (Digital TV) switch is here. Congress has set June 12, 2009 as the final deadline for terminating analog broadcasts. All US television stations are required to broadcast in digital, and no electronic devices will be manufactured, or sold containing analog tuners.

So, I’m sure you already know; but let me fill you in if you don’t. This affects only those who receive their television signal using an antenna. Those with cable or satellite should have no issues with this switch. For those of you who are concerned, you simply need a digital tuner. You can buy a new TV with a digital tuner, or you can buy a digital converter box to use with your analog tuner. The converter boxes can be purchased with government issued coupon.

This day has been expected for a long time, and it has even been delayed more than once. It doesn’t seem very important anymore, but this really is a big day. Some day you will tell your kids “back in my day, TV was broadcast through an analog signal!” They’ll think you’re crazy. It also has a number of advantages: the picture, for one, is much, much better than analog, the digital signal can also be picked up better than any analog signal, and if you have an HD tuner, you can even pick up your favorite late night host in high definition.

Good luck with the switch; and enjoy some TV!

Digital TV Transition – FCC

Tonight at 8:30pm, the Big Ten Network will premiere a new reality series. The show follows a group of six UI students participating through the “Engineers without Borders” organization in the village of Adu Achi, Nigeria during the summer of 2008. The group worked on a project to bring safe drinking water to the village in Nigeria. The project is ongoing and involves designing a new water system.

Students and villagers worked side by side building cement water holding tanks, digging trenches and laying pipe for the new water system. Although team members returned to Illinois at the end of the summer, the village continues to work on the project with input from the students. The goal is for the water system to be operational in the spring of 2009.

In the documentary, the students reflect on the warm welcome they received in the village and the long hours of labor at the work site. They faced ongoing struggles to get supplies in a country with little infrastructure. Faculty Advisor Bruce Litchfield says the trip “was an outstanding opportunity to field test the student’s classroom knowledge of engineering and to help people in need.” Several students said it the trip was the fulfillment of a long time goal to work in a developing country.

The show is called It’s More than a Well and has been co-produced by the Big Ten Network, the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics and the University of Illinois Office of Public Affairs.

Check it out!

It’s More Than a Well debuts Thursday on BTN

Tired of studying? Want an opportunity to waste time? Looking for a holiday movie to get you in the mood? Well, here you have it. A TV guide listing all the holiday classics:

— “A Christmas Carol” (George C. Scott), 9 p.m. Today on AMC
— “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” 6 p.m. Monday on ABC Family
— “Cranberry Christmas,” 6:30 p.m. Monday on ABC Family. A girl and her grandmother try to save an old man’s cranberry bog in an animated special based on a book (and sponsored by Ocean Spray).
— “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” 7 p.m. Monday on ABC
— “Santa’s Funniest Moments,” 8 p.m. Tuesday on MyNetworkTV
— “Mickey’s Christmas Carol,” 6 p.m. Wednesday on ABC Family
— “Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too,” 6:30 p.m. Wednesday on ABC Family
— “Little Spirit: Christmas in New York,” 7 p.m. Wednesday on NBC. A special features the voices of Danny DeVito, Lucy Liu, Freddy Rodriguez, Brian Williams and Brenda Song.
— “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” 8 p.m. Thursday on ABC Family
— “Greatest Holiday Moments: Songs of the Season Countdown,” 7 p.m. Dec. 12 on NBC
— “A Miser Brothers’ Christmas,” 7 p.m. Dec. 13 on ABC Family
— “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” 8 p.m. Dec. 13 on Hallmark. Henry Winkler and Brooke Burns star.
— “Will You Merry Me?,” 8 p.m. Dec. 13 on Lifetime. Wendie Malick and Cynthia Stevenson battle over holiday traditions.
— “Snow 2 Brain Freeze,” 7 p.m. Dec. 14 on ABC Family
— “A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa,” 7 p.m. Dec. 17 on NBC. Kermit, Fozzie and the rest of the gang mistakenly prevent three letters from making their way to Santa Claus.
— “Christmas in Washington,” 7 and 10 p.m. Dec. 17 on TNT
— “Christmas in Wonderland,” 7 p.m. Dec. 20 on ABC Family
— “Our First Christmas,” 8 p.m. Dec. 20 on Hallmark. Dixie Carter and John Ratzenberger star.
— “A Very Merry Daughter of the Bride,” 8 p.m. Dec. 20 on Lifetime. Joanna Garcia and Luke Perry star in a romance about finding love at any age.
— “Hilarious Holiday Home Video Countdown,” 7 p.m. Dec. 22 on NBC
— “A Home for the Holidays With Faith Hill,” 7 p.m. Dec. 23 on CBS. Inspirational stories about adoption mingle with performances by Hill, Melissa Etheridge, Gavin Rossdale, Jamie Foxx and others.
— “Frosty the Snowman,” 7 p.m. Dec. 12 on CBS
— “It’s a Wonderful Life,” 7 p.m. Dec. 13 and Dec. 24 on NBC
— “Christmas in Connecticut,” 3 p.m. Dec. 13, 9 p.m. Dec. 19 and 6:30 a.m. Dec. 24 on TCM
— “Remember the Night,” 5 p.m. Dec. 13, 10:15 p.m. Dec. 24 and 5:15 a.m. Dec. 25 on TCM
— “A Christmas Carol” (Patrick Stewart), Dec. 17 and 20 on TNT

— “White Christmas,” 8 p.m. Dec. 23 and 11 a.m. Dec. 25 on ABC Family
— “Holiday Affair,” 11:45 a.m. Dec. 24 on TCM
— “24 Hours of ‘A Christmas Story,’” beginning at 7 p.m. Dec. 24 on TBS

Also note that the Hallmark Channel is stuffing this month with made-for-TV holiday movies, while ABC Family again offers “25 Days of Christmas” and Lifetime revisits “Fa-la-la-la-Lifetime.” And many great Christmas films from the past will air this month on Turner Classic Movies.

Thanks to Gail Pennington from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for compiling this list.

The Big Ten Network premieres tonight at 7:00pm with Big Ten Tonight. This new TV station will air Big Ten Sports for years to come. Tell your cable provider that you want to watch Illini Football and make sure you order this station.

The Big Ten Network is an exciting new television network that the Big Ten Conference is launching August 30, 2007 to nationally promote a wide array of Big Ten sports and academic programming, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. The new Big Ten Network officially launches in prime time at 7 p.m. Central Time on Thursday, Aug. 30, with the evening also marking the inaugural telecast of Big Ten Tonight, the network’s signature studio-based news, information and highlight show. The announcement was made today by Big Ten Network President, Mark Silverman. In addition, the network today achieved distribution commitments for more than 75 local cable systems serving communities in the eight states where Big Ten institutions are located. These commitments, which demonstrate the network’s broad appeal, account for hundreds of thousands of cable subscribers spanning Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all of whom will receive Big Ten Network on an expanded basic level of service.

The Big Ten Network