In April, 1952, the Federal Communications Commission ended a two-year freeze on allocations of television channels. Of the frequencies that were allocated at that time, fifty-one were assigned to Wisconsin. Twelve of these were reserved for educational broadcasting for a period of one year.
In response to this deadline, representatives of thirty-one agricultural, labor, civic, and service organizations met in May 1952 in Madison under the chairmanship of Milo Swanton, Executive Secretary of the Wisconsin Council of Agricultural Cooperatives, to discuss the creation of educational television in Wisconsin. At this meeting, the WCCETV was formed with Swanton as its first president.
From 1952 to 1954 the organization directed its growing efforts towards promoting the establishment of a twelve-channel, state-supported educational television network in Wisconsin. However, a November 1954 referendum calling for the creation of such a system was rejected by a wide margin.
From that time until the organization was dissolved in 1967, its activities were generally limited, except for one period, to the promotion of the two educational stations that were established in Wisconsin, channels 21 in Madison and 10 in Milwaukee. Beginning in 1959, WCCETV became active in attempting to secure the use of channel 9 in Wausau for use as an educational frequency, but this activity ended in 1963 when the FCC ruled in favor of the holders of the license for commercial use of that frequency.
