KEDT
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Corpus Christi, Texas United States |
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| Branding | KEDT |
| Slogan | Your Community-owned Station |
| Channels |
Digital: 23 (UHF) Virtual: 16 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | 16.1 PBS 16.2 Create |
| Affiliations | PBS |
| Owner | South Texas Public Broadcasting System |
| First air date | October 16, 1972 |
| Sister station(s) | KEDT-FM |
| Former channel number(s) |
Analog: 16 (UHF, 1972–2009) |
| Transmitter power | 50 kW |
| Height | 270 m |
| Facility ID | 58408 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 27°39′20.9″N 97°33′55.6″W / 27.655806°N 97.565444°W |
| Licensing authority | FCC |
| Public license information: |
Profile CDBS |
| Website | www.kedt.org |
KEDT is a full-service Public television station in Corpus Christi, Texas, broadcasting locally in digital on UHF channel 23 as a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member station. Founded in 1972, the station is owned by South Texas Public Broadcasting System.
KEDT began as a vision by a local businessman, Charles Butt, to bring the benefits of public television to south Texas. Butt, part of the family that founded the H-E-B supermarket chain, joined with Don Weber, another local businessman with similar vision, and the two approached the Corpus Christi business community with a proposal to start a local PBS television station. Others became interested, and soon formed a Board of Directors.
The station had humble beginnings. Its original equipment was a donation from KVVV-TV of Galveston, an independent station that had ceased operations in 1969. The original transmitter location was on a site donated by a local rancher. The original broadcast facilities were in an abandoned school building in town, and the original programming was provided by San Antonio PBS station KLRN via telephone cables. Overcoming all of the challenges, KEDT signed on the air on October 16, 1972. The station moved into its current facilities the following year.
KEDT was well received in the community, and with a strong energy-based local economy and the philanthropy that accompanies strong economies, the station prospered. In 1980, South Texas Public Broadcasting System, the station's owner, applied for a low-power repeater station for Victoria that would have expanded KEDT's reach in South Texas. In addition, KEDT began to produce its own programming, supplementing PBS fare.
The good times were not to last, as a community that is heavily dependent on one industry is subject to its fortunes and misfortunes. Corpus Christi was no exception, and the prosperity that enriched KEDT in the late 1970s and early 1980s quickly disappeared with the hard times in the energy industry in the mid- to late-1980s. Corporate and personal donations to the station all but vanished, and the locally produced programming, while critically acclaimed and in wide demand, did not generate enough revenue to meet the station's needs. Plans for a television station in Victoria were scrapped in late 1984. By the end of the 1980s, KEDT was deeply in debt.
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