WKNO (TV)

WKNO is a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member public television station in Memphis, Tennessee, broadcasting locally on UHF digital channel 29. To viewers, it uses PSIP virtual channel 10, which was also its original broadcasting channel on its NTSC VHF analog channel until May 1, 2009.

The station is owned and operated by The Mid-South Public Communications Foundation, a non-profit organization governed by a board of trustees composed of volunteers. Unlike most of Tennessee's public TV outlets, WKNO has never had direct or indirect ties to state government, even though during its early years the station would identify as "Tennessee Educational Television" during in-school hours and "Tennessee Public Television" during off-school hours, including prime time.

History

WKNO began broadcasting on June 25, 1956 as Tennessee's first public television outlet and is one of several independent non-commercial stations in the U.S. still in continuous operation. Its studios were first located in midtown Memphis, but would move several years later to the main campus of Memphis State University (now University of Memphis); in 1979, the studios were relocated a few blocks to the south, to the southern annex of MSU on Getwell Road. That facility served the station for 30 years until November 2009, when the station moved into custom-designed all-digital studios, located in the Memphis suburb of Cordova. [1]

From 1968 to 1981, WLJT in Lexington repeated WKNO's signal for viewers in the remainder of western Tennessee outside the Memphis metropolitan area, but afterward began broadcasting separate programming.

MSPCF also operates two FM public radio stations; see WKNO-FM.

External links

• Official site
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WKNO
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WKNO-TV

References