'''National Educational Television''' ("'''NET'''") was an educational [[television]] network in the [[United States|USA]] from [[1952]] until [[1969]]. It was the predecessor of [[PBS]].
NET was founded in [[1952]] by a grant from the [[Ford Foundation]]. OriginallyIt itwas wasoriginally a limited service for exchanging and distributing educational programs produced by local television stations to other stations. In [[1954]] it expanded its goals, becoming a [[network]] and airing 5 hours of programming a day. Initially, many of the stations were not linked by coaxial cable, and much of the programing was shipped on film. The programing was noted for treating subjects in depth, including hour long interviews with people of literary and historical importance. The programming was also noted for being dry and academic, with little consideration given to entertainment value, in marked contrast to commercial television. Many of the shows were designed as adult education, and NET was nicknamed "The University of the Air".
In [[1958]] National Educational Television headquarters was moved from [[Ann Arbor, Michigan]] to [[New York City]], and more aggressive programming was undertaken to secure for NET the role of the USA's fourth television network (with [[CBS]], [[NBC]], and [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]]). At this time NET also started importing programing from the [[BBC]].
In [[1968]] the [[Corporation for Public Broadcasting]] and the [[Ford Foundation]] threatened to withdraw their funding to the NET network if it did not merge with [[Newark, New Jersey]] public broadcaster WNDT-TV Channel 13 (now [[WNET|WNET-TV]]) and so in the beginning of [[1969]] NET and WNDT-TV completed their merger and the National Educational Television Network permanently signed off the air and was replaced with the more government-friendly [[Public Broadcasting Service]] which featured former NET programming such as ''[[Sesame Street]]'' and ''[[Mister Rogers' Neighborhood]]''.
