Bill W. Spiller

Who was Bill W. Spiller?

Billy Wade "Bill" Spiller was a public broadcasting pioneer in the U.S. state of Virginia.

A native of Tulia, Texas, Mr. Spiller was working as an engineer for KATC-TV, the ABC station in Lafayette, Louisiana, when in 1963, he was recruited to become the first general manager of WCVE-TV and Central Virginia Educational Telecommunications Corporation in Richmond, Virginia. The company became Commonwealth Public Broadcasting Company.

Beginning in January 1964, he worked to construct and establish the new public television station. WCVE-TV first went on the air September 14, 1964, and in the 27 years that followed, Mr. Spiller spearheaded the establishment of three additional public television stations in central and Northern Virginia, saved a financially troubled station, and stepped in to prevent public radio from disappearing from Richmond.

The community-owned public broadcasting company was established in 1961 by Thomas Boushall and a group of concerned citizens to employ television for educational purposes. The patron saints of public broadcasting in central Virginia were Spiller, Boushall, E. Claiborne Robins Sr. and Mary Ann Franklin. Mrs. Franklin first approached Boushall and Henry I. Willett, then Superintendent of Richmond City Schools, with the idea of establishing an educational television station. Boushall and Franklin then recruited Spiller, who was hired in December 1963 and began working for them in January 1964, three years before the establishment of the Public Broadcasting Service, of which WCVE-TV became a charter member.