Bude’s Mississippi Public Broadcasting affiliate, WMAU, was oneof only two television stations in the state and seven televisionnationwide to receive USDA Rural Development funding to help withthe necessary transition over to digital broadcasting, officialssaid.

“Mississippi Public Broadcasting was awarded $1.86 million fortwo projects to enable several counties in the HurricaneKatrina-damaged regions of Mississippi to upgrade coverage andreceive a digital public television signal for the first time,”said Mississippi’s USDA Rural Development Director JohnRounsaville. “The grants will go to upgrade stations in Greenwoodand Bude.”

USDA Public Information Coordinator Ken Stribling said thegrants are given out periodically and that MPB plans to workdiligently in the future to procure more for Mississippiaffiliates.

“There were seven grants given out nationally and we got two inMississippi,” he said. “We’re happy about that and we’d like to getsome more as time goes on. John (Rounsaville) worked very hard tomake sure we got our fair share, and Bude was the beneficiary ofthat.”

Stribling said a federal law requires stations to go to digitalsystems by 2009. USDA Rural Development awards the grants to helpabsorb the costs for more rural stations.

“Technology changes and the whole world is going digital,”Stribling said. “They’ve passed a law and set the deadline formidyear 2009. Everyone’s making progress and some of the smallerstations are having a hard time doing that.”

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