WHYY-TV
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For the former channel 12 in Wilmington, see WVUE (Delaware).
| WHYY-TV / WDPB | |
|---|---|
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| WHYY: Wilmington, Delaware/ Philadelphia, Pennsylvania WDPB: Seaford, Delaware |
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| Branding | WHYY TV12 |
| Slogan | Wider Horizons Know WHYY |
| Channels | Analog: WHYY: 12 (VHF) WDPB: 64 (UHF) |
| Affiliations | PBS |
| Owner | WHYY, Inc. |
| First air date | WHYY: September 2, 1957 WDPB: December 4, 1981 |
| Call letters’ meaning | WHYY: Wider Horizons for You and Yours WDPB: Delaware Public Broadcasting |
| Sister station(s) | WHYY-FM |
| Former channel number(s) | WHYY: 35 (1957-1963) WDPB: none |
| Former affiliations | NET (1957-1970) |
| Transmitter Power | WHYY: 309 kW (analog) 337 kW (digital) WDPB: 186 kW (analog) 98 kW (digital) |
| Height | WHYY: 294 m (analog) 259 m (digital) WDPB: 195 m (analog) 196 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | WHYY: 72338 WDPB: 72335 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | WHYY: WDPB: |
| Website | www.whyy.org |
WHYY-TV, channel 12, is a non-commercial, PBS member station licensed to Wilmington, Delaware, and serving the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania television market. WHYY-TV's main studio and office facility is co-located with sister station WHYY-FM (90.9 MHz.) in Center City Philadelphia, and the television station maintains a secondary studio in downtown Wilmington. Both stations share a transmitter, which is located in the Roxborough section of Philadelphia.
WHYY-TV also operates WDPB (channel 64) in Seaford, Delaware, a full-time satellite which serves the Delmarva Peninsula.
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[edit] History
WHYY-TV signed on for the first time on September 2, 1957, on channel 35. It was the 23rd educational station in the country, and the second in Pennsylvania (WQED-TV in Pittsburgh had signed on three years earlier). It was owned by Metropolitan Philadelphia Educational Radio and Television Corporation. It broadcast from a studio on Chestnut Street in Center City, which had previously been home to WCAU-TV (channel 10).
The station found the going difficult at first, in part because television sets were not required to have UHF tuning capability. Then, in 1958, WVUE, channel 12 in Wilmington, went off the air. WHYY's owners applied for the vacant channel 12 allocation in Wilmington, which was the nearest available VHF allocation to Philadelphia. The FCC granted WHYY's request to move the station to channel 12 in 1963, and WHYY signed on channel 12 for the first time on September 12. It operated from WVUE's old tower in Glassboro, New Jersey.
As part of an agreement with Delaware officials and the FCC, WHYY-TV also opened a studio in Wilmington, and began producing a newscast focused on Delaware issues, "Delaware Tonight." Although it is licensed in Wilmington, WHYY is still a Philadelphia station for all intents and purposes; to this day it identifies as "Wilmington/Philadelphia" on-air. A similar situation exists in New York City; its flagship PBS station, WNET, is licensed to Newark, New Jersey.
Later in 1963, WHYY moved its main studio in Philadelphia to the former home of WFIL-TV (channel 6, now WPVI-TV) on 46th and Market streets. In 1979, channel 12 moved to its current home on Independence Mall, first in the old Living History Center museum and theatre (which was also used for Nickelodeon game shows such as Double Dare and the Bill Cosby revival of You Bet Your Life) before it was transformed into their current building in 1999 as part of the redevlopment of the Independence Mall area.
In the late 1970s, WHYY-TV moved its transmitter to the Roxborough tower farm, home to most of Philadelphia's television stations. The new tower provides at least grade B coverage as far west as Lancaster; as far south as Dover, Delaware and as far north as New Brunswick, New Jersey.
In 1984, WHYY bought WDPB and turned it into a full-time satellite of channel 12. WDPB had signed on in 1981.
[edit] Series produced
WHYY-TV presents four regular TV series for PBS stations: PBS's Hometime, and the syndicated Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen, Christina Cooks and Flavors of America with Chef Jim Coleman with MoneyTrack beginning in April 2005. These shows are produced by independent companies for WHYY. The station has also developed several TV specials, such as The Great Comet Crash and Trading Women.
Currently, WHYY-TV produces four original programs: the local nightly news show Delaware Tonight, with anchor Rob Stewart broadcasting from WHYY Wilmington studios; Radio Times on TV, a weekly version of its daily talk show with host Marty Moss-Coane; Experience shorts, about Philadelphia's cultural community; and Flicks, a three-minute movie review by film critic Patrick Stoner. The shorter version of Flicks, Quick Pics, is also shown on many PBS stations around the country. WHYY was also one of the first PBS affiliates to air Doctor Who.
[edit] Digital television
The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
Digital channels
| Channel | Programming |
|---|---|
| 12.1 / 50.1 | main WHYY-TV/PBS programming |
| 12.2 / 50.2 | Y Arts (arts and cultural programming) |
| 12.3 / 50.3 | WHYY Wider Horizons (news/public affairs) |
[edit] Post-analog shutdown
After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, which is tentatively scheduled to take place on February 17, 2009[1], WHYY-TV will move its digital broadcasts back to its present analog channel number, 12. [2]
[edit] References
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- WHYY website
- WHYY on PBS
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WHYY
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WDPB
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WHYY-TV
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WDPB-TV
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