statewide South Carolina United States |
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Branding | ETV |
Channels | Digital: see table below |
Subchannels | (see article) |
Affiliations | PBS (1970–present) |
Owner | South Carolina Educational Television Commission |
First air date | September 29, 1963 |
Sister station(s) | South Carolina Public Radio |
Former affiliations | NET (1963–1970) |
Transmitter power | see table below |
Height | see table below |
Facility ID | see table below |
Transmitter coordinates | see table below |
Licensing authority | FCC |
Public license information: |
Carolina Educational Television Profile Carolina Educational Television CDBS |
Website | www.scetv.org |
South Carolina Educational Television is a public television network serving the U.S. state of South Carolina. It is operated by the South Carolina Educational Television Commission, an agency of the state government which holds the licenses for all of the PBS member television stations licensed in the state. The broadcast signals of the eleven television stations cover almost all of the state, as well as parts of North Carolina and Georgia.
The network's primary operations are located on George Rogers Boulevard in Columbia, across from Williams-Brice Stadium; SCETV operates satellite studios in Spartanburg, Beaufort, Sumter and Rock Hill.
The state network traces its history to 1957, when the South Carolina General Assembly authorized a study in the use of television in the state's public schools. A studio was opened in the library of Dreher High School in Columbia. The first telecourses (a French course taught by Madame Lucille Turney-High and a geometry course taught by Cornelia Turnbull) aired on September 8, 1958 via closed circuit television. The South Carolina ETV Commission began operations on June 3, 1960, and by 1962 it extended closed-circuit television service to all 46 South Carolina counties.
In 1963, the Commission launched the first open-circuit educational station in South Carolina, WNTV in Greenville. One year later, WITV in Charleston signed on. Two years later, the state network's primary station, WRLK-TV in Columbia, made its debut. Over the years, the state network has grown to comprise eleven full-power stations. After years of receiving NET and PBS programs on tape delay, it entered PBS' satellite network in 1978. In 2000, SCETV broadcast the first digital television program in the state. Since 2003, the state network identifies on-air as simply "ETV."