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KUHT
Houston, Texas
Branding	HoustonPBS
Slogan	"The Channel That Changes You"
Channels	Analog: 8 (VHF) Digital: 9 (VHF)
Affiliations	PBS
Owner	University of Houston
Founded	May 25, 1953
Call letters meaning	K University of Houston Television
Former affiliations	NET (1953–1970)
Website	www.houstonpbs.org

KUHT (Channel 8) is a PBS member television station serving Houston, Texas and the first public television station in the United States. Under the banner, "HoustonPBS", it is owned and operated by the University of Houston. It also serves as the default PBS member station for the Beaumont/Port Arthur market, which has no PBS station of its own. HoustonPBS is housed in the LeRoy and Lucile Melcher Center for Public Broadcasting along with KUHF, Houston Public Radio at the University of Houston.

History

The station commenced broadcasting on May 25, 1953 from the Ezekiel W. Cullen Building on the University of Houston campus as the first public television station in the United States, and one of the earliest stations of NET, National Educational Television, which eventually merged into PBS. Its dedication ceremonies were broadcast on June 8 of that year. Originally licensed to both UH and the Houston Independent School District, UH became its sole licensee in 1959.

The station also offered the university's first televised college credit classes. Running 13 to 15 hours weekly, these telecasts accounted for 38 percent of the program schedule. Most courses aired at night so that students who worked during the day could watch them. By the mid-1960s, with about one-third of the station's programming devoted to education, more than 100,000 semester hours had been taught on KUHT. ^[1]

In 1964, KUHT moved into new studios on Cullen Boulevard, which were previously occupied in order by KXYZ (now KTRK-TV) and later KHTV (now KHCW). It purchased a new transmitter that enables the station to not only broadcast beyond Harris County into its surrounding areas, but it also begins broadcasting in color. Five years later, in 1969, the Association for Community Television (ACT) is formed to fund KUHT.

PBS era

The LeRoy and Lucile Melcher for Public Broadcasting where HoustonPBS and Houston Public Radio is housed

By 1970, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) joined with KUHT and other stations to form PBS, which combined televised educational lectures with popular programs that remain PBS staples to this day, such as Sesame Street, NOVA, and Masterpiece Theatre. In 1982, with assistance from Capital Cities' ABC affiliate, KTRK and Metromedia's independent station, KRIV, KUHT launches on a new transmitter in Missouri City, making it one of several television and radio stations that now broadcast from that location.

On August 21, 2000, KUHT moved to its current studios at the LeRoy and Lucile Melcher Center for Public Broadcasting, where KUHT shares broadcast facilities with public radio station KUHF, both owned by the University of Houston, where the complex is located.

KUHT's digital signal, KUHT-DT (VHF channel 9), launched on May 12, 2001.

Branding

Logo as Houston Public Television, used until the early 2000s.

KUHT was known on-air as "Houston Public Television" for many years before adopting the "HoustonPBS" moniker in the early 21st century. From 1993 into the early 2000s, KUHT's logo also did not include the number 8, but used a logo similar to the ones used by Detroit's WTVS and Seattle's KCTS-TV. These stations are members of LARK International, a public-television production company, which owns the sunburst-on-square logo; however, they are not related to each other. KUHT's current logo is based on the sunburst portion of that logo.

Technical firsts

The station is also noted in Houston for many technical firsts at the local level. In 1981, KUHT became Houston's first closed captioned television station, and ten years later, in 1991, it became the first station in Houston to offer descriptive video services (DVS), and other services for the visually impaired as well as bilingual viewers via a secondary audio program (SAP). In 1997, it became the first broadcast station in the world to have a website.^[2]

References

1. ^ HoustonPBS History. HoustonPBS. Retrieved 16 November 2007.
2. ^ Archive of KUHF's original website. HoustonPBS. Retrieved 16 November 2007.

External links

• KUHT - HoustonPBS
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KUHT

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