WTVS (channel 56) is a

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

member

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the ea ...

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

, United States, owned by the Detroit Educational Television Foundation. Its main studios are located at the Riley Broadcast Center and HD Studios in Wixom, with an additional studio at the

Maccabees Building The Maccabees Building (sometimes called Wayne Tower) is a historic building located at 5057 Woodward Avenue in Midtown Detroit, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, and is currently owned by Wayne State U ...

Midtown Detroit Midtown Detroit is a mixed-use area consisting of a business district, cultural center, a major research university, and several residential neighborhoods; it is located along the east and west side of M-1 (Michigan highway), Woodward Avenue, nor ...

. The station's transmitter is located at 8 Mile and Meyers Road in Oak Park (on a tower shared with

independent station An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, marke ...

WMYD WMYD (channel 20) is an independent television station in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside ABC affiliate WXYZ-TV (channel 7). Both stations share studios at Broadcast House on 10 Mile Road i ...

, channel 20, and

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

owned-and-operated station In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...

WWJ-TV WWJ-TV (channel 62) is a television station in Detroit, Michigan, United States, owned and operated by the CBS television network. Under common ownership with CW affiliate WKBD-TV under the network's CBS News and Stations group, both station ...

, channel 62). WTVS partners with the Stanley and Judith Frankel Family Foundation in the management of classical and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

music station

WRCJ-FM WRCJ-FM (90.9 MHz) is a classical/jazz radio station in Detroit, Michigan. The station is the only classical music station in Detroit. The Detroit Educational Television Foundation, owners of PBS member station WTVS, operates the public radio sta ...

(90.9).

History

The station first signed on the air on October 3, 1955; WTVS began broadcasting in

color Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...

in 1968. Previously the studios were at 9345 Lawton in Detroit, along with the studios of

WRCJ WRCJ-FM (90.9 MHz) is a classical/jazz radio station in Detroit, Michigan. The station is the only classical music station in Detroit. The Detroit Educational Television Foundation, owners of PBS member station WTVS, operates the public radio st ...

, before later moving studios to the former

WJBK WJBK (channel 2) is a television station in Detroit, Michigan, United States, airing programming from the Fox network. Owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division, the station maintains studios and transmitter facil ...

studios in the

New Center New Center is a commercial and residential historic district located uptown in Detroit, Michigan, adjacent to Midtown, one mile (1.6 km) north of the Cultural Center, and approximately three miles (5 km) north of Downtown. The area ...

area of Detroit which are now served for its fixed satellite services. WTVS broadcasts its digital signal from the same tower as at a height of . Prior to the digital TV switchover, WTVS transmitted its signal from a tower located near the intersection of 11 Mile and Inkster Roads in Southfield, along with

(channel 20) and CW O&O

WKBD-TV WKBD-TV (channel 50) is a television station in Detroit, Michigan, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside CBS owned-and-operated station WWJ-TV (channel 62). Both stations share studios on ...

(channel 50). Today, only WKBD-TV and

Ion Television Ion Television is an American broadcast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented en ...

affiliate

WPXD-TV WPXD-TV, virtual channel 31 (UHF digital channel 24), is an Ion Television– affiliated station serving Detroit, Michigan, United States, that is licensed to Ann Arbor. The station is owned by Salt Lake City–based Inyo Broadcast Holdings. W ...

(channel 31) broadcast from that tower. On January 11, 2016, Detroit Public Television announced a partnership with WKAR, the PBS station serving Mid-Michigan operated by

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It ...

, in which they will jointly operate a 24-hour children's television service to be carried by both stations.

Programming

Locally produced programming on the station includes ''Great Lakes Now'', ''Get Up! Get Out'', ''In the Frame: Exploring the DIA'', ''Leaders on Leadership'', ''American Black Journal'' and ''Am I Right''. WTVS is also a leading producer of fundraising programs for PBS. In the 1990s this station produced '' Club Connect''. In addition to locally produced programming, Detroit PBS also is the sole creator of all

Il Volo Il Volo (; Italian for "The Flight") is an Italian operatic pop trio, consisting of baritone Gianluca Ginoble, and tenors Piero Barone and Ignazio Boschetto. They describe their music as "popera". Having won the Sanremo Music Festival 2015, t ...

(popular

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

singing group) concert

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

s and related CDs. The Detroit PBS Il Volo concerts were the October 2011 "Il Volo Takes Flight - Live from the Detroit Opera House", the March 2013 "Il Volo at the

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

Fillmore - We Are Love" concert, the March 2013 "Il Volo at the Miami Fillmore - Buon Natale" concert, the June 2015 "Il Volo - Live at

Pompeii Pompeii (, ) was an ancient city located in what is now the ''comune'' of Pompei near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area (e.g. at Boscoreale, Stabiae), was burie ...

" concert, and July 2016 Il Volo - "Tribute to the 3 Tenors - in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

" concert.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

: Many newer television receivers also list WTVS subchannels 43.177 and 43.193. These subchannels are artifact channels from the

UpdateTV Qterics (formerly Broadcast Data Corporation and later UpdateLogic Incorporated ) is a company which has developed a system for datacasting firmware upgrades to digital television devices. It appears that UpdateTV is the only product the company ...

service. WTVS also has plans for a Mobile DTV feed of subchannel 56.1.

Analog-to-digital conversion

WTVS became the first public broadcaster in the state of Michigan to offer a digital high-definition feed, launching their simulcast on UHF 43 in October 2000 (exact date not yet known). The station shut down its analog signal, over

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

channel 56, at noon on April 16, 2009; the switchover occurred after a presentation of the

national anthem A national anthem is a patriotic musical composition symbolizing and evoking eulogies of the history and traditions of a country or nation. The majority of national anthems are marches or hymns in style. American, Central Asian, and Europea ...

s of Canada ("

O Canada "O Canada" (french: Ô Canada, italic=no) is the national anthem of Canada. The song was originally commissioned by Lieutenant Governor of Quebec Théodore Robitaille for the 1880 Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day ceremony; Calixa Lavallée composed the ...

") and the United States ("

The Star-Spangled Banner "The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States. The lyrics come from the "Defence of Fort M'Henry", a poem written on September 14, 1814, by 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key after witnessing the ...

"). WTVS management cited repeated failures of the station's 28-year-old analog transmitter as the reason for ceasing its analog signal on April 16 rather than the June 12 transition date for full-power stations (the analog transmitter had failed seven times between January 1 and April 16 alone). The station's digital signal continued to broadcasts on its pre-transition UHF channel 43. Through the use of

PSIP The Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) is the MPEG (a video and audio industry group) and privately defined program-specific information originally defined by General Instrument for the DigiCipher 2 system and later extended for the AT ...

, digital television receivers display the station's

virtual channel In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...

as its former UHF analog channel 56, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition. On October 12, 2009, WTVS upgraded to a new 600 kW transmitter, tripling its effective radiated power and vastly increasing the coverage area of its signal. On January 13, 2017, WTVS re-organized its digital subchannels when it added

PBS Kids PBS Kids is the brand for most of the children's programming aired by the Public Broadcasting Service ( PBS) in the United States. Some public television children's programs are not produced by PBS member stations or transmitted by PBS. Inste ...

as a full-time 24/7 subchannel on 56.2, with PBS World moving to 56.4. This was in part of WTVS' larger plan of launching a statewide PBS Kids subchannel network in partnership with other PBS member stations within the state of Michigan, such as Lansing's

WKAR-TV WKAR-TV (channel 23) is a PBS member television station licensed to East Lansing, Michigan, United States, serving the Central Lower Peninsula of Michigan. The station is owned by Michigan State University and operated as part of its Broadcast ...

and Flint's

WCMZ-TV WCMZ-TV, virtual and UHF digital channel 28, was a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member television station licensed to Flint, Michigan, United States. It was a satellite station of Mount Pleasant-licensed WCMU-TV (channel 14) which is owned ...

. On March 8, 2017, WTVS announced it would be moving its digital broadcast frequency from UHF Channel 43 to UHF channel 20 (currently occupied by

WHNE-LD WHNE-LD (channel 3) is a low-power television station in Detroit, Michigan, United States, affiliated with TheGrio TV. Owned and operated by Bridge Media Networks, the station has studios and transmitter located in Oak Park, Michigan. Histor ...

Channel 14), which was assigned VHF channel 3 as a replacement frequency.

Cable coverage

WTVS is carried on most

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...

providers in

Southeast Michigan Southeast Michigan, also called southeastern Michigan, is a region in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan that is home to a majority of the state's businesses and industries as well as slightly over half of the state's population, most of whom are c ...

Southwestern Ontario Southwestern Ontario is a secondary region of Southern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario. It occupies most of the Ontario Peninsula bounded by Lake Huron, including Georgian Bay, to the north and northwest; the St. Clair River, Lake ...

and parts of the

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...

Southern Interior (WTVS is carried in that province despite the existence of

KCTS-TV KCTS-TV (channel 9) is a PBS member television station in Seattle, Washington, United States, owned by Cascade Public Media. Its studios are located at the northeast corner of Seattle Center adjacent to the Space Needle, and its transmitter i ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

, the PBS member station commonly found in that province). WTVS is one of five Detroit television stations available in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

on cable through

Shaw Broadcast Services Shaw Broadcast Services (French: Services de Radiodiffusion Shaw) is the division of Canadian telecommunications company Shaw Communications that is responsible for providing and managing the distribution of television channels to cable companies ...

and on satellite provider

Shaw Direct Shaw Direct is a direct broadcast satellite television distributor in Canada and a subsidiary of the telecommunications company Shaw Communications. As of 2010, Shaw Direct had over 900,000 subscribers. It broadcasts on Ku band from two commu ...

; it began to be distributed by Cancom (now Shaw Broadcast Services) in 1983 as the PBS station signal for Canadian cable television systems too distant to receive a border station over-the-air. Since then, it had developed a strong base of Canadian viewer support in all provinces and territories.

References

External links

WTVS official website
{{PBS Michigan Television channels and stations established in 1955 PBS member stations TVS 1955 establishments in Michigan