statewide Wisconsin (except Milwaukee) United States (additional coverage in portions of Eastern Minnesota and Iowa, Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Northern Illinois) |
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Slogan | A Place to Grow Through Learning |
Channels | Digital: see table below |
Subchannels | see table below |
Affiliations | PBS (1970–present) |
Owner |
Wisconsin Educational Communications Board, University of Wisconsin–Extension (Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System) |
First air date | WHA-TV: May 3, 1954 WPT network: 1972 |
Call letters' meaning | see table below |
Sister station(s) | Wisconsin Public Radio |
Former affiliations | NET (1954–1970) |
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: |
Public Television Profile Public Television CDBS |
Website | WPT.org |
Wisconsin Public Television is a state network of public television stations operated primarily by the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board and the University of Wisconsin–Extension. It comprises all of the PBS member stations in the state outside of Milwaukee.
The state network is available via flagship station WHA-TV in Madison and five full-power satellite stations throughout most of Wisconsin. As of April 5, 2009, all stations have converted to digital-only transmissions. WPT is also available on most satellite and cable television outlets.
Until the gradual move of instructional broadcasting to IPTV services, Wisconsin Public Television was the main conduit of educational television, GED preparation and instructional television programming produced by the WECB, which aired through PBS, Annenberg Media, those stations serving portions of Wisconsin without a WPT station, and other educational television distributors. As of October 2014, the WECB now distributes this programming exclusively online to allow Wisconsin Public Television to carry a full-time traditional PBS member network format.
WHA-TV signed on the air on May 3, 1954 as the first educational station in Wisconsin and the seventh in the United States. WHA-TV is the only public television station in the country that maintains a three-letter callsign, and one of only three analog-era UHF stations altogether (along with WHP-TV in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and WWJ-TV in Detroit, Michigan) with a three-letter callsign. For most of the time from the 1950s through the 1970s, it was one of only three stations in the state that was a member of National Educational Television and its successor, PBS. The others were WMVS (channel 10) and WMVT (channel 36) in Milwaukee.