WNED TV Channel 17

Downton Abbey.
Need I say more?
«to enlighten, inspire, entertain and educate» — that’s their goal.
Seriously, this is Buffalos Public TV station. Channel 3 on Time Warner Cable. It used to deliver Sesame Street to the house. Then along came Doc Martin. Now it delivers Downton Abbey. And so much more. BBC America. Charlie Rose.
It has the TV station, but the public radio stations are under the same umbrella. Given the proximity to Canada there are many Canadian viewers as well, and they support the station too. Because its member supported, not commercially supported. So those membership drives have to happen.
They do both national programming and local programming. So you will see topics that are relevant to you here in Buffalo. 1812 on the Niagara Frontier. Frank Lloyd Wrights Buffalo.
All in all, we are lucky to have this station in Buffalo. Its one of the most watched in prime time public tv stations, so there are lots of WNED viewers in the area.

Apparently the station management has decided to stay the course and not listen to the outraged fans of Sherlock. It is a moot point now, of course, because last night was the third and last episode of the season. I imagine that in February WNED will be offering DVDs as gifts to those who give to the station donations above certain threshold amounts. (There; don’t I sound like a lawyer with that sentence?) Anyway, for what it’s worth, WNED, you might not have a lot of success raising money from the Sherlock fans. You are probably number 987 on their lists of places to give money, and at last check «tossing the money on a bonfire» clocked in at number 942. Just saying…

WNED has some of the highest viewership of any PBS station, due in part because it serves not only Buffalo, but Toronto as well. They’re pretty savvy in the way they court Canadian viewers and members; back when the Canadian dollar was lower, they accepted membership dollars at par as an incentive (in other words, you didn’t have to spend as much to get one of those snazzy tote bags).
There isn’t always overlap in the digital and (soon-​to-​be-​obsolete) analog or standard-​definition programming; The News Hour with Jim Leher is broadcast at 6:30 on SD and at 7 on HD, to cite one example.
The people they have making the membership drives at WNED are so endearingly dorky. But when PBS showed the Queen Rock Montréal film a few weeks ago, it was interesting to see that they had different, (comparatively) younger and hipper people on during the breaks asking for money.