KCTS-TV

KCTS-TV
Seattle - Tacoma, Washington
United States
City Seattle, Washington
Branding KCTS 9
Slogan InquisiTV
Channels Digital: 9 (VHF)
Virtual: 9 (PSIP)
Subchannels 9.1 KCTS
9.2 V-me
9.3 Create
Translators 18 K18AD-D Wenatchee
Affiliations PBS
Owner KCTS Television
First air date December 7, 1954 (1954-12-07)
Call letters' meaning King County Community Television Service[1]
Sister station(s) KYVE
Former channel number(s) Analog:
9 (VHF, 1954–2009)
41 (UHF, 1999-2009)
Former affiliations NET (1954–1970)
Transmitter power 21.7 kW
Height 249 m (817 ft)
Facility ID 33749
Transmitter coordinates 47°36′58″N 122°18′28″W / 47.61611°N 122.30778°W / 47.61611; -122.30778
Licensing authority FCC
Public license information: Profile
CDBS
Website www.kcts9.org
KYVE
Yakima, Washington
United States
Branding KYVE 47
Channels Digital: 21 (UHF)
Virtual: 47 (PSIP)
Subchannels 47.1 PBS
47.2 V-me
47.3 Create
Translators 17 K17IL-D Ellensburg
Affiliations PBS (1970-present)
Owner KCTS Television
First air date November 1, 1962 (1962-11-01)
Call letters' meaning Yakima Valley Educational
Sister station(s) KCTS-TV
Former channel number(s) Analog:
47 (UHF, 1962–2009)
Former affiliations NET (1962–1970)
Transmitter power 50 kW
Height 280 m (919 ft)
Facility ID 33752
Transmitter coordinates 46°31′58″N 120°30′33″W / 46.53278°N 120.50917°W / 46.53278; -120.50917
Licensing authority FCC
Public license information: Profile
CDBS
Website www.kcts9.org/about/kyve47

KCTS-TV, channel 9, is a non-commercial educational station licensed to Seattle, Washington, USA. KCTS-TV is the primary member station of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) for the Seattle-Tacoma television market. The station's offices and studios are located at the northeast corner of Seattle Center, and its transmitter is based on Capitol Hill in Seattle.

KCTS-TV also operates KYVE (channel 47) in Yakima, Washington, which serves as the PBS member station for the western portion of the Yakima/Tri-Cities market. KYVE has its own studio on Second Street in Yakima, though some support operations are based at KCTS' studios in Seattle.

History

KCTS studios at Seattle Center.
KCTS crew recording an interview with Dennis Kelso, then-commissioner of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, during the cleanup of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989.
KCTS logo used from 1999 until late 2006.

KCTS first went on the air on December 7, 1954, broadcasting from the campus of the University of Washington, the station's original licensee, and using equipment donated by KING-TV owner Dorothy Bullitt.

During the 1950s and 1960s, KCTS primarily supplied classroom instructional programs used in Washington State's K–12 schools, plus National Educational Television programs. Outside of schoolrooms, KCTS' audience among the general public was somewhat limited, and most programming was in black-and-white until the mid-1970s.

In 1970, National Educational Television was absorbed into the newly created Public Broadcasting Service. Under PBS affiliation, KCTS began offering a vastly enhanced scope of programming for the general public, including British programming. KCTS is perhaps best known for producing/distributing the popular PBS Kids show Bill Nye the Science Guy, as well as other programs such as Students by Nature (not a PBS-distributed program), The Miracle Planet, and the annual televised high school academic competition KYVE Apple Bowl, among other shows.

KCTS moved to its present location on the Seattle Center campus in 1986. A year later, UW spun off KCTS, and the station became a community licensee.

KCTS is seen throughout southwestern British Columbia on local cable systems, as well as across Canada on the Bell TV and Shaw Direct satellite providers, as well as on many other Canadian cable TV systems. According to KCTS, "over 800,000 viewers tune in every week" from BC.[2] KCTS receives substantial financial support from its far-flung Canadian audience as well as from viewers in Washington State.

In 1994, KCTS merged with KYVE, which has served central Washington since November 1, 1962. However, this wasn't the first time that the two stations had partnered together; during the early 1960s KYVE's engineers switched to and from KCTS' signal until the station's owners, the Yakima Board of Education, got enough funding for the station to be self-supporting. The station became a community licensee in 1984, but found the going difficult until its merger with KCTS.

During the mid- and late-1990s, some programs included a combined KCTS/KYVE visual bug in the lower-right corner of the screen, indicating they were simulcast to both markets. However, since the late 1990s, KYVE has largely been a straight simulcast of KCTS. Combined, the two stations serve 2.4 million people, including almost two-thirds of Washington's population.

KCTS also operates a cable television service called KCTS Plus, currently carried on Seattle area cable systems. KCTS Plus runs 24-hour Classic Arts Showcase programming.

On December 2, 2015, it was announced that KCTS would acquire and merge with local news websites Crosscut.com and What’s Good 206, under the proposed name "Cascade Public Media".[3][4][5][6]

References

  1. ↑ http://www.washington.edu/research/showcase/1954a.html
  2. ↑ http://kcts9.org/kcts-9-in-canada | KCTS 9 in Canada
  3. ↑ Hanscom, Greg; Power-Drutis, Tamara (December 2, 2015). "An Exciting New Chapter for Northwest Public Media". Crosscut.com. Retrieved December 2, 2015.
  4. ↑ Cullen, Hilda (December 2, 2015). "News Website Crosscut Merging into KCTS 9" (PDF) (Press release). KCTS-TV. Retrieved December 2, 2015.
  5. ↑ Tu, Janet I. (December 2, 2015). "KCTS-TV to absorb Crosscut and another local website". The Seattle Times. Retrieved December 2, 2015.
  6. ↑ Connelly, Joel (December 2, 2015). "KCTS-TV will merge with Crosscut". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved December 2, 2015.

External links

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