WHUT-TV

ATSC 3.0 station
Washington, D.C. United States
Channels	Digital: 33 (UHF) Virtual: 32
Branding	WHUT
Programming
Affiliations	32.1:PBS 32.2:PBS Kids
Ownership
Owner	Howard University
Sister stations	WHUR-FM
History
Founded	June 25, 1974 (1974-06-25)
First air date	November 17, 1980 (44 years ago) (1980-11-17)
Former call signs	WHMM (CP, 1974–1980) WHMM-TV (1980–1998)
Former channel numbers	Analog: 32 (UHF, 1980–2009)
Call sign meaning	Howard University Television
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	27772
ERP	416 kW
HAAT	254 m (833 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	38°57′1″N77°4′46″W / 38.95028°N 77.07944°W /38.95028; -77.07944
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	www.whut.org

WHUT-TV (channel 32) is the secondaryPBS membertelevision station inWashington, D.C. The station is owned byHoward University, ahistorically Black college, and issister tocommercialurban contemporary radio stationWHUR-FM (96.3). WHUT-TV's studios are located on the Howard University campus, and its transmitter is located in theTenleytown neighborhood in thenorthwest quadrant of Washington.

WHUT airs a variety of standard PBS programming, as well as programs produced by Howard University, and international programs focusing on regions such as theCaribbean andAfrica.

On June 25, 1974, Howard University was granted a construction permit to build a new television station on channel 32 in Washington, D.C.^[2] It was more than six years before the station signed on November 17, 1980.^[3] WHMM-TV (whose call letters stood for Howard University Mass Media^[4]) turned Howard, owner of the only radio station owned by an HBCU at the time, into the owner of the first Black-owned public television station.^[5] At the outset, the station suffered from some problems with its antenna and the need to train staff on the job.^[6] It also faced issues carving out an identity for itself and its mission, with standard PBS fare airing during much of the day; in 1983, its budget was one-third that ofWETA-TV.^[7] However, within its first decade, it produced 1,000 Howard graduates trained in television production.^[8] The long-runningEvening Exchange public affairs program, which debuted with the station,^[4] became a station staple; it was hosted byKojo Nnamdi between 1985 and 2011.

Budget cuts at Howard in the late 1980s and 1990s prompted staff cuts in operations. Even as the station tried to significantly step up fundraising,^[8] its treatment as another academic department, requiring a different style of management, often hurt WHMM-TV. Staff levels were cut from 90 in 1988 to 65 five years later, when a blue-ribbon panel was convened by PBS to discuss the station's problems; that year, it had to suspend production ofEvening Exchange for four months because it had lost revenue from the rights to produceD.C. Lottery drawings.^[9] In 1996, the station stopped running pledge drives when they became too expensive for the funds they raised—and would not try again until eight years later.^[10]

The call letters were changed to the present WHUT-TV in 1998 to increase channel 32's identification with the university. At the time it had signed on, the WHUT call letters belonged toa radio station in Anderson, Indiana and were not available to Howard.^[11]

Soon after the start of preparations for the2016-17 spectrum reallocation auction, Howard University announced that it was considering the sale of WHUT-TV's channel 33 allocation in the auction in order to alleviate longstanding financial issues at the university. The station was entered into the auction when it began in March 2016. Because of WHUT-TV's status as the only Black-owned public television station in the United States, the decision attracted sustained opposition from faculty and community members who feared the loss of a rare minority voice in public media.^[12] Howard announced WHUT-TV was withdrawn from the auction on February 16, 2017; the official reason was that the station's asking price had become low enough through thereverse auction process that it was apparent selling would not produce sufficient proceeds to justify ending operations.^[13]

The station's ATSC 1.0 channels are carried on themultiplexed signal ofWJLA-TV:

WHUT began broadcasting in digital in 2007. In July 2009, Washington, D.C. TV stations became a test market forMobile DTV, and WHUT was one of the participating stations.^[15]

WHUT-TV shut down its analog signal, overUHF channel 32, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United Statestransitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 33,^[16] usingvirtual channel 32.

WHUT-TV commencedATSC-M/H (Mobile DTV) broadcasting on February 27, 2011. WHUT-TV was the last remaining Washington-market broadcaster to broadcast an M/H signal. The signal nominally contained a feed of its main programming in standard definition on 32.1 and an audio feed ofWAMU on 32.2, although neither stream contains audio or video data.^[17]

Subchannels of WHUT-TV^[18]

Channel	Res.	Short name	Programming
4.1	1080p	WRC	NBC (WRC-TV)
5.1		WTTG	Fox (WTTG)
7.1	720p	WJLA	ABC (WJLA-TV)
7.10	1080p	T2	T2
7.11		PBTV	Pickleballtv
9.1	1080p	WUSA	CBS (WUSA)
32.1		WHUT	PBS

WHUT became the Washington market's secondATSC 3.0 lighthouse station on December 15, 2021, joiningSinclair Broadcast Group'sWIAV-CD (channel 58). WHUT's ATSC 3.0 signal carries its own main programming feed as well as those of Washington's four major network affiliates. As required by FCC rules, WHUT's two subchannels relocated to the signal of Sinclair's WJLA-TV (channel 7) to continue ATSC 1.0 service to existing receivers.^[20] In advance of the conversion, a more powerful transmitter was installed. The ATSC 3.0 facility will also be used in distance learning datacasting applications involving the university's own Howard University Middle School of Math and Science.^[21]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toWHUT-TV.

• Official website

• 1980 establishments in Washington, D.C.
• African-American television
• ATSC 3.0 television stations
• Howard University
• PBS member stations
• Television channels and stations established in 1980
• Television stations in Washington, D.C.

• Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from February 2024
• Coordinates on Wikidata
• Articles using infobox television station
• Commons category link is on Wikidata