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|---|---|
| City | East Lansing, Michigan |
| Channels | |
| Branding | PBS WKAR |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| WKAR, WKAR-FM | |
| History | |
First air date | January 15, 1954[a] |
Former call signs |
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Former channel number(s) | |
| NET (1954–1970) | |
Call sign meaning | taken from WKAR radio |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 6104 |
| ERP | 376 kW |
| HAAT | 296 m (971 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 42°42′6.9″N 84°24′47.8″W / 42.701917°N 84.413278°W |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | tv |
WKAR-TV (channel 23) is a PBS member television station licensed to East Lansing, Michigan, United States, serving central southern Michigan. The station is owned by Michigan State University (MSU) and operated as part of WKAR Public Media, along with NPR members WKAR (870 AM) and WKAR-FM (90.5). The three stations share studios in the Communication Arts and Sciences Building, at the southeast corner of Wilson and Red Cedar Roads on the MSU campus in East Lansing; WKAR-TV's transmitter is located off Dobie Road near Kinawa Drive in Meridian Charter Township between East Lansing and Williamston.
WKAR-TV was the third educational TV station established in the United States and is the second-oldest still in operation, though its license history is not continuous. The station first broadcast on UHF channel 60 from January 1954 to June 1958, broadcasting from studios in a complex of converted Quonset huts on the campus of what was then Michigan State College in East Lansing. The vast majority of its programming was live and included educational programs, courses for Lansing city schools, and occasional sports telecasts. Its performance as an educational outlet was severely limited by the troubles of early UHF television, particularly small coverage areas and the inability of many sets to receive UHF channels without a converter. As channel 60 was going on the air, VHF channel 10 was assigned to Onondaga, 20 miles (32 km) south of Lansing. Michigan State filed an application opposite four commercial bidders. It then teamed with Television Corporation of Michigan, a group with close ties to Lansing commercial radio station WILS, to propose a shared-time operation. Believed to be the first of its kind, it called for Michigan State to air educational programming 38 hours a week and lease the transmitter facility for a commercial operation that would air for the balance of the time. The proposal met with stiff opposition, even after the Federal Communications Commission granted a construction permit. WKAR-TV ceased broadcasting on channel 60 in June 1958, and Michigan State—by now a university—resumed broadcasting as WMSB, sharing time with the commercial station WILX-TV, on March 15, 1959. The expanded coverage area increased the visibility and use of MSU's educational programs for schools.
Many of the circumstances that led to the WMSB–WILX-TV relationship had changed by the late 1960s, including new leadership at MSU; increased programming availability for public television; and the All-Channel Receiver Act, which required television sets built after 1964 to include UHF capability. In 1970, MSU filed for the educational channel 23 in East Lansing, which was built and began broadcasting once more as WKAR-TV on September 6, 1972. This ended the 13-year sharing of channel 10, whose facilities were sold to WILX-TV, and more than doubled the station's operating hours per week. Shortly before the move, the station debuted Off the Record, a long-running Michigan political program still in production today. In 1981, WKAR-TV moved out of the Quonset huts after 27 years and into purpose-built studios in the new Communication Arts Building.
WKAR-TV began broadcasting a digital signal in 2004 and debuted multiple subchannels of programming in 2007. It was the first public TV station in the U.S. to be authorized to build an ATSC 3.0 experimental station, in 2018. In addition to PBS and other public TV programs, the station continues to produce programs of local and state interest.
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- ^ "Facility Technical Data for WKAR-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.