Wikipedia

WLRN-TV

WLRN-TV
WLRN-TV logo.png
Miami/Fort Lauderdale, Florida
United States
ChannelsDigital: 26 (UHF)
Virtual: 17 (PSIP)
BrandingWLRN Public Television
Programming
AffiliationsPBS
Ownership
OwnerMiami-Dade County Public Schools
(The School Board of Miami-Dade County, Florida)
WLRN-FM
History
First air date
September 7, 1962
Former call signs
WSEC-TV (1962–1979)
Former channel number(s)
  • Analog:
  • 17 (UHF, 1962–2009)
  • Digital:
  • 20 (UHF, 2003–2019)
Former affiliations
NET (1962–1970)
Call sign meaning
We LeaRN
Technical information
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID66358
ERP583 kW (STA)
870 kW (license)
1,000 kW (CP)
HAAT301 meters (988 ft) (STA and license)
301.7 meters (990 ft) (CP)
Transmitter coordinates25°58′47.9″N 80°11′45.5″W / 25.979972°N 80.195972°W
Links
Public license information
Profile
LMS
Websitewww.wlrn.org

WLRN-TV, virtual channel 17 (UHF digital channel 26), is a PBS member television station located in Miami, Florida, United States. The station is owned by the Miami-Dade County Public Schools district, alongside NPR member radio station WLRN-FM (91.3). WLRN-TV maintains studio facilities located on Northeast 15th Street and Northeast 1st Avenue in Miami, and it maintains transmitter facilities located at McTyre Park in Miami Gardens. WLRN-TV operates twenty closed-circuit educational channels for use by public schools within Miami-Dade County.

WLRN is one of two PBS member stations serving the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market, the other being WPBT (channel 2), owned by South Florida PBS.

History

Prior to the station's sign-on, the UHF channel 17 allocation in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale market was occupied by ABC affiliate WITV. It lost the ABC affiliation to newly signed-on WPST-TV (channel 10, now WPLG) in August 1957, and went off the air soon afterward. Currently, the WITV call letters reside in Charleston, South Carolina on a PBS state network affiliate of The South Carolina Educational Television Network.

WLRN-TV first signed on the air on September 7, 1962 as WSEC-TV; it was the second non-commercial educational television station in the market. Operating as a member station of National Educational Television (NET), WSEC was originally owned by the Dade County School Board, which had persuaded the Federal Communications Commission to reallocate the channel 17 license for non-commercial use.

At the time, the Dade County School Board was part-owner of the VHF channel 2 allocation in the market as part of a shared-time agreement with Community Television Foundation of South Florida, owners of WPBT. Under the original arrangement, the School Board operated the channel 2 frequency for five hours each day as WTHS-TV, carrying instructional television during the daytime hours, while the Community Television Foundation would take over the channel for two hours each evening to broadcast WPBT. Community Television Foundation had already begun increasing WPBT's operating hours, a process that accelerated with WSEC's sign-on. The 1970 formation of PBS brought a further increase in WPBT's broadcasting hours. By the late 1970s, PBS had grown enough that the split-time arrangement no longer made sense for a market of Miami/Fort Lauderdale's size. In 1979, the Dade County School Board returned the WTHS license to the FCC, while WPBT took over channel 2 full-time. Most of WTHS' educational programming moved to WSEC, which changed its call letters to the current WLRN-TV, to match its sister public radio station. Gradually, WLRN-TV evolved into a secondary PBS station for South Florida, alongside WPBT. WLRN began airing PBS’ journalism documentary series Frontline on October 14, 2018 after WPBT declined to air it.[1]

Digital television

Digital channels

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming[2]
17.1 1080i 16:9 WLRN-DT Main WLRN-TV programing / PBS

Analog-to-digital conversion

WLRN-TV terminated its analog signal, on UHF channel 17, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[3] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 20. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display WLRN-TV's virtual channel as 17.

References

  1. ^ http://www.wlrn.org/post/frontline-comes-wlrn-tv
  2. ^ RabbitEars TV Query for WLRN
  3. ^ List of Digital Full-Power Stations

External links

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