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| Channels | |
| Branding | ThinkTV 16 |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| WPTO, WCET | |
| History | |
First air date | March 20, 1967[a] |
Former call signs |
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Former channel number(s) |
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Call sign meaning | Public Television in Dayton |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 25067 |
| ERP | 250 kW |
| HAAT | 345 m (1,132 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 39°43′16″N 84°15′0″W / 39.72111°N 84.25000°W |
| Translator(s) | W25FI-D Maplewood |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
WPTD (channel 16) is a television station in Dayton, Ohio, United States, serving the Miami Valley as a member of PBS. The station broadcasts from studios in downtown Dayton and a transmitter near South Gettysburg Avenue in the Highview Hills neighborhood in southwest Dayton. Its signal is relayed by translator station W25FI-D in Maplewood, Ohio, which broadcasts to Celina, Lima, and Wapakoneta.
WPTD and WPTO (channel 14), licensed to Oxford but primarily broadcasting to greater Cincinnati and providing secondary public TV service in the Dayton and Cincinnati areas, form ThinkTV (stylized as ThinkTV). ThinkTV, legally Greater Dayton Public Television, and WCET in Cincinnati are separate subsidiaries of Public Media Connect; master control for all three stations is located in Dayton.
Channel 16 in Dayton was originally allocated for educational use, but this changed in 1965. A commercial station—WKTR-TV, owned by Kittyhawk Television and licensed to nearby Kettering—was built on channel 16 in 1967. It operated as a money-losing independent station for nearly all of its four-year history, with one major exception. On January 1, 1970, in a surprise, WKTR was announced as the new ABC affiliate for Dayton. This was vigorously contested by WKEF (channel 22), which had been airing most of ABC's programming in the market and was widely expected to become the full-time affiliate. Less than two months later, it was revealed that Kittyhawk management had bribed an ABC official in exchange for affiliation with the network, a scandal that led to a conviction; the resignations of two other network employees; and a federal investigation into bribery at the major networks. ABC also moved to revoke the affiliation agreement with WKTR-TV effective that August. In May, a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit filed by WKEF ordered ABC to supply its prime time programming to that station; WKTR-TV aired ABC's daytime shows until August 31, 1970, when all ABC programming moved to WKEF. Facing a challenge to its broadcast license and a petition by television program distributors to force it into involuntary bankruptcy, Kittyhawk took WKTR-TV off the air beginning February 27, 1971.
Plans already existed at that time to activate an educational television station in Dayton. The Ohio Educational Television Network Commission, a state agency coordinating educational broadcasting activities, used funds initially intended for new station construction to acquire the WKTR-TV license and transmitter; channel 16 began broadcasting again on April 24, 1972, as WOET-TV. WOET-TV initially served to simulcast WMUB-TV (the now-WPTO) in Oxford. In 1975, the commission transferred the license to University Regional Broadcasting—a consortium of Miami University, Central State University, and Wright State University. The station changed its call letters to WPTD in 1977; University Regional Broadcasting renamed itself Greater Dayton Public Television in 1982. After previously having offices spread in multiple locations, the station consolidated into new downtown Dayton studios in 1988. WPTO became a separately programmed secondary station in 1992.
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- ^ "Facility Technical Data for WPTD". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.