WXEL-TV

WXEL-TV

Boynton Beach–West Palm Beach, Florida United States
City	Boynton Beach, Florida
Channels	Digital: 29 (UHF), shared with WPBT and WURH-LD Virtual: 42
Branding	South Florida PBS WXEL
Programming
Affiliations	PBS
Ownership
Owner	South Florida PBS, Inc.
Sister stations	WPBT, WURH-LD
History
First air date	July 8, 1982; 42 years ago (1982-07-08)[a]
Former call signs	WWPF (CP, 1980–1982) WHRS-TV (1982–1985)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 42 (UHF, 1982–2009) Digital: 27 (UHF, 2004–2018), 18 (UHF, 2018–2019)
Call sign meaning	Excellence
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	61084
ERP	1,000 kW
HAAT	306 m (1,004 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	25°57′31″N 80°12′43″W / 25.95861°N 80.21194°W / 25.95861; -80.21194
Translator(s)	W31DC-D Fort Pierce
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	www.wxel.org

WXEL-TV (channel 42) is a PBS member television station licensed to Boynton Beach, Florida, United States, serving the West Palm Beach area. Owned by South Florida PBS, it is a sister station to Miami-based flagship and fellow PBS member WPBT (channel 2) and low-power station WURH-LD (channel 13). The three stations share transmitter facilities on Northwest 199th Street in Andover; WXEL's studios are located on South Congress Avenue in Boynton Beach. WXEL, WPBT, and WURH-LD are also broadcast by a translator in Fort Pierce.^[2]

The launch of a public television station to serve the West Palm Beach area gained steam in the late 1970s, after the Palm Beach County School Board abandoned its permit for channel 42. A group eventually known as South Florida Public Telecommunications won the construction permit in 1979 after a settlement with WPBT, which long claimed the Palm Beaches as part of its service area and had also sought channel 42. However, the construction process for what eventually launched as WHRS-TV was protracted, primarily by environmental issues with the tower site. WHRS-TV launched on July 8, 1982, and changed its call sign to WXEL-TV at the start of 1985; for its first 25 years, it was co-owned with WHRS (90.7 FM). Originally broadcast from the school board's former instructional television studios, WXEL moved to its present studios in 1990. It was still dwarfed by WPBT, which continued to have more members in Palm Beach County alone than WXEL had total.

In the early 1990s, an employee revolt that resulted in the resignation of the station president was followed by high turnover, a lightning strike on the transmitter, and financial issues. Barry University, a private Catholic institution in Miami Shores, successfully fought proposals forcing it to cede part or all of the WXEL stations to Florida Atlantic University and became the sole owner in 1997. Barry University brought much-needed financial stability and led the digitalization and professionalization of WXEL. However, after a change in president, Barry started what would be an eight-year-long station sale process that ended with the station's president leading a group to buy WXEL-TV.

In 2015, WXEL merged with WPBT, its longtime competitor for viewers and members. The station's spectrum was sold at auction in 2016; as a result, WXEL-TV is broadcast from WPBT's transmitter facility, south of the West Palm Beach market.

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