WTVP
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Peoria, Illinois United States |
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| Slogan | Public Television for Central Illinois |
| Channels |
Digital: 46 (UHF) Virtual: 47 () |
| Subchannels | 47.1 PBS 47.2 PBS Kids 47.3 Create/World |
| Owner | Illinois Valley Public Telecommunications Corporation |
| First air date | June 27, 1971 |
| Call letters' meaning | TV Peoria |
| Former callsigns | WTVP (analog, 1971–2009) WTVP-DT (digital, 2002–2009) |
| Former channel number(s) | 47 (UHF analog, 1971–2009) |
| Transmitter power | 190 kW |
| Height | 216 m (709 feet) |
| Class | Non-commercial educational |
| Facility ID | 28311 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 40°37′44.1″N 89°34′12.4″W / 40.628917°N 89.570111°W |
| Website | www.wtvp.org |
WTVP is the PBS station for Peoria, Bloomington, and Galesburg, Illinois. It operates on TV digital channel 46 and uses virtual channels starting with 47 to reflect its previous analog channel number. WTVP has 3 digital subchannels: WTVP HD, WTVP Kids, and WTVP Create/WTVP World. Its studio is located in Peoria and its broadcast tower is located in East Peoria. The station serves a radius of 50 miles (80 km), with viewers in 20 counties.
After World War II, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign hosted the National Association of Educational Broadcasters for the establishment of broadcast allocations (AM/FM radio and TV channels) for non-commercial education programming. The outcomes from these meetings established the foundation for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System.
Commercial broadcast television networks (CBS, NBC, ABC) and their local Peoria affiliates provided some educational programming for children in the 1950s and 1960s, but this program content disappeared by 1970.
Under the original FCC analog television channel allocations, channel 59 was reserved for public television use in Peoria; but when WTVP was established, it chose 47, the other, lower open channel in Peoria. The FCC later moved the official public television reservation to 47 to open 59 to commercial use, and channel 59 was eventually used by WAOE in 1999.
The callsign WTVP was used by channel 17 in Decatur, Illinois until that station changed its callsign to WAND in 1966, a few years before channel 47 came on the air and chose WTVP for its own callsign.
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