Local Productions

The Our Town series is a video scrapbook of the people, places, and happenings of local communities, as seen through the eyes of thier residents. Community members collect video footage and still photos to showcase their stories, and then talk about each of their topics with a WQLN producer in a casual on-camera interview.

Featured towns include Meadville, Oil City, Corry, North East, and Edinboro.

  Watch Full Episodes of Our Town

WQLN's community performance series, Sounds Around Town, is a free, open-air community summer concert series held in the picturesque setting of WQLN’s wooded pavilion. WQLN records these concerts live and airs them on WQLN TV and WQLN Radio throughout the following year.

  Watch Full Episodes of Sounds Around Town

WQLN shines the spotlight on our local community theatres! Have you always wondered what it would be like to tread the boards? Take a look! Support for “WQLN Spotlight” is provided in part by the Clarence E. Beyers Music Performance Fund of the Erie Arts Endowment.


Sponsored by:

WQLN PBS presents Trailblazers: Women's Fight for the Vote in partnership with the League of Women Voters of Erie County. Women have been making changes, making a difference, and making history for at least a century. This year we are celebrating that milestone. This is an unusual year and one that future generations will read about in the history books.

As part of Peril & Promise: The Challenge of Climate Change, we looked at how local scientists are studying the effects of climate change in our region.

Peril & Promise—from WNET: New York Public Media—presents the new four-part documentary series Sinking Cities, exploring how four global cities are coming to grips with the real-time effects of rising seas and extreme weather.

Learn more at www.pbs.org/peril-and-promise #SinkingCitiesPBS

Major funding for Sinking Cities was provided in part by The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.

While Alzheimer’s Disease affects people from all walks of life, recent studies have found that women are bearing a disproportionate amount of the Alzheimer’s burden.
Statistics to consider:

• Out of the 5 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s, 3.2 million are women.
• Women have a 1 in 6 chance of developing Alzheimer’s versus a 1 in 11 chance for men.
• Women in their sixties are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s than breast cancer.
• 60% of all Alzheimer’s caregivers are women.

This documentary will focus on families and caregivers, programs that offer hope, and research into a disease that has such life-altering consequences, particularly for women.

Sponsored by:
Highmark
WQED

Vietnam War veterans from the Erie region share their stories of service—including experiences in Vietnam and on the home front—and lessons they believe are critical for us today.

  Watch on WQLN|Passport

WQLN TV’s Shalom, Soldier tells the stories of several of Erie’s Jewish World War II servicemen. More stories are at PBS.org/GIJews and on social media using #GIJewsPBS.

  Watch on WQLN|Passport



Made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The number of seniors is rising dramatically in the United States. But the number of medical professionals and family members who can provide care for these older adults is seriously lagging. WQLN is proud to partner with Highmark Blue Cross, Blue Shield in this multi-platform project that includes a television documentary and digital-first content focusing on challenges for both the aging seniors and their caregivers.

  Learn More About Caregivers: For Our Aging Population

The Lake Erie Region has a story that must be told. A story of innovators, entrepreneurs, and business and community leaders who believe in the tremendous possibilities of the place that we call home. WQLN’s REACH INNOVATION Project aspires to tell that story, and to build upon a movement that has the potential to reshape our economic landscape.

  Learn more about Reach Innovation and Watch Full Episode

More people, from all across the Lake Erie Region are living with mental illness. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. experiences some form of mental illness every year. Yet fewer than one third of these people seek help or treatment.

Psychiatrist Dr. C.J. Rush joins Lisa Adams to explore new research and treatment for depression, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, schizophrenia, and anxiety disorders, while learning of the successes and challenges faced by four local people who are living with these mental illnesses.


Sponsored by:
Highmark
WQED

Visit historic sites in Albion, Corry, Edinboro, and Waterford – just a few of the towns along Pennsylvania’s historic Route 6 corridor. Then, look for the Route 6 hiStory Tours walking tours premiering this summer, a project of Erie Yesterday and the PA Route 6 Alliance. Support for the Route 6 hiStory Tours video project is provided in part by the Erie County Gaming Revenue Authority.

  Learn More about the PA Route 6 Alliance

Support provided by:

WQLN TV’s occasional series Perspective lends a local point of view to topics ranging from medieval European history to to Erie’s business environment, featuring local and nationally-recognized authorities on a variety of issues.

  Watch Full Episodes of Perspective

Erie Now, a WQLN TV Original Production, is an informative series of discussions featuring local journalists who interview local Erie Vital Signs experts about Erie County's well-being in eight topic areas. Erie Now aims to inform the public and inspire community action in key areas of greatest importance to the vitality of our region.

  Watch Full Episodes of Erie Now

WQLN supports PBS’s American Graduate initiative with Stories of Champions, a series of original televised shorts featuring local champions of children who are working hard to keep students on the path to graduation and college- or career-readiness. Local champions Jennifer Pontzer (Career Street), Mat Pundt (Central Career & Technical School), Rick Scaletta (General McLane School District), and Sonya Smith (Penn State Behrend Youth Education Department) tell how they’ve influenced students on the path to graduation.

  Visit AmericanGraduate.org

Our life stories are filled with many chapters. Weddings, hospital delivery rooms, scraped knees, celebrations, monthly bills, and balancing work and family are all mileposts that describe a life "well-lived". As time passes we can often find ourselves burdened or confused by topics of aging family members and loved ones. It can be difficult to have the conversation about finances, hygiene, safety, advanced-care planning, and end-of-life care.

If you're in your 50s, now is the time for you to think about what your life will be like in your 60s, 70s, and 80s. Life's Next Chapter will help you visualize those years, and give you the information you'll need to ensure that the next chapter of your life is the best.

WQLN presents Life's Next Chapter, a program designed to help you plan for your next chapter—the best years of your life.

Produced by WQLN and hosted by Cyndy Patton.

Presented by:
Pennsylvania Homecare Association
HVA Senior Living Alliance
Home Instead Senior Care
GECAC | Greater Erie Community Action Committee

Every woman has a story. A different stage of diagnosis. A different course of treatment. But there is something they all have in common, dealing with life with - or after - cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, getting the facts about cancer is an important step in taking care of your overall health. Women and Cancer introduces five remarkable Pennsylvania women who live with cancer, as it looks at the latest techniques in preventing, detecting, and treating some of the most common cancers affecting women: skin, ovarian, lung, and breast cancers. It also examines efforts to improve the quality of life for cancer patients after treatment. Hosted by Erie's own Cyndy Patton, the program offers new hope for cancer patients.

The Math Is Fun video series, from WQLN TV, is a quick, fun, and easy way to learn, teach, and reinforce fundamental math concepts. Find Math Is Fun lessons on addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, measurement, and more – geared toward kids ages 3 to 8 – here and every day on WQLN-TV 54.1!

Sponsored by:

Babies are amazing. When they enter this world, they are born with everything they need for a lifetime. The only thing missing is the owner’s manual! This film is your owner’s manual to your baby’s first year.

Perhaps no English-language works are more enduring than those of William Shakespeare, whose themes continue to be relevant in our daily lives. Enjoy WQLN TV's original “Behind the Bard” shorts, in support of the PBS series Shakespeare Uncovered II (February 2015 on WQLN-TV 54.1 and at pbs.org). WQLN, Gannon University’s Schuster Theatre, and the Erie Playhouse team up to share unique Shakespeare insights.

Support provided by: