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 The KAET studios at the Cronkite School building on ASU's downtown Phoenix campus | |
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| Channels | |
| Branding | Arizona PBS |
| Programming | |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| KBAQ | |
| History | |
First air date | January 30, 1961; 64 years ago (1961-01-30) |
Former channel numbers |
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| NET (1961–1970) | |
Call sign meaning | Arizona Educational Television[1] |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 2728 |
| ERP | 40kW |
| HAAT | 548 m (1,798 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 33°19′59.2″N112°3′51.2″W / 33.333111°N 112.064222°W /33.333111; -112.064222 |
| Translator(s) | see§ Translators |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
KAET (channel 8), brandedArizona PBS, is aPBS membertelevision station inPhoenix, Arizona, United States, owned byArizona State University and operated by ASU'sWalter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. KAET's studios are located at the Cronkite School's facility atASU Downtown Phoenix, and its transmitter is located onSouth Mountain on the south side of Phoenix. Its signal is relayed across Arizona on a network of 13translator stations.
In late 1959, as it was preparing to build new facilities for itself,[3] Phoenix commercial television stationKVAR offered to sell its old transmitter onSouth Mountain, valued at $150,000, to ASU for $30,000. The offer jumpstarted plans to build an educational television station in Phoenix and prompted theArizona Board of Regents to authorize expenditures for the transmitter and additional equipment in January 1960.[4]
On November 8, 1960, theFederal Communications Commission granted the construction permit to ASU.[5] Having found that the call letters KASU was already in use atArkansas State University, the call letters KAET was selected, for "Arizona Educational Television".[1] The station began broadcasting January 30, 1961, with a series of telecourses as well as programming fromNational Educational Television; the station's first local production was a Spanish 101 course.[6] By 1966, KAET broadcast 50 hours a week of programs.[7] It converted to color, first with network shows, with a grant for a color broadcast chain in 1967;[8] the station's lobbying for color conversion was aided when the staff delivered a color television set to university presidentG. Homer Durham.[6] In 1973, KAET moved from its original home in the Engineering Center to another location on the Tempe campus, the newly built Stauffer Hall communications building.[1]
Statewide expansion began in 1980 when translators on Mount Francis and Mingus Mountain, followed the next year by another on Mount Elden, were activated.[9] The decade also saw the establishment ofHorizon, the station's flagship public affairs show, in 1981; the world's first broadcast of open heart surgery in 1983;[10] and the station's wall-to-wall telecast of theEvan Mecham impeachment hearings in 1988.[1] Sister radio stationKBAQ signed on in 1993.
In June 1999, KAET was issued a permit to construct digital television facilities on UHF channel 29. KAET-DT went on the air in April 2001 and was licensed on June 12, 2001, becoming the fifth licensed digital television station in the state.
During thelate-2000s recession, fundraising efforts at KAET fell behind projections, resulting in two major rounds oflayoffs. The first round came in late October 2008, when the station, having missed its fundraising targets by hundreds of thousands of dollars, had to lay off six workers.[11][12] The second round of layoffs came in April 2009, when 13 workers were laid off.[13] The financial crisis also delayed KAET's move from its longtime home on the Tempe campus to its new headquarters in downtown Phoenix;[12] the move was completed at the end of 2009.[1]
Known for years as "Channel 8", the station began using "Arizona PBS" as a secondary brand in 2005. In 2006, KAET relaunched as "Eight, Arizona PBS" (stylized as "ei8ht" in logos); this brand was dropped in 2015 in favor of simply "Arizona PBS".
Previously under the supervision of the ASU public affairs office, though with a close association with the Cronkite School, operational control of the station was transferred to Cronkite itself in 2014.[14] KAET airs aCronkite News newscast produced by journalism students on weeknights (along with occasionalbreaking news coverage), and Cronkite also houses the western bureau of thePBS NewsHour, which opened in 2019.[15]
KAET produces several of its programs in-house, such as its current events programArizona Horizon, itsHispanic-focused current events counterpartHorizonte, and itsArizona Collection documentaries about the people, places and history of the state. The Emmy Award-winningOver Arizona, produced in 1995 withKCTS Seattle, is an aerial adventure over Arizona's diverse landscapes and was the first high-definition television program produced by an Arizona broadcast entity.
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8.1 | 720p | 16:9 | AZ PBS | PBS |
| 8.2 | 480i | Life | Arizona PBS Life | |
| 8.3 | World | World | ||
| 8.4 | AZ KIDS | PBS Kids | ||
| 8.5 | KBAQ | Dolby Digital5.1 simulcast ofKBAQ |
KAET's digital signal has been on the air since 2001, originally operating on UHF channel 29, and presently carries four subchannels under theArizona PBS Digital Broadcasting brand. The station shut down its analog signal, overVHF channel 8, on April 29, 2009. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transitionUHF channel 29 to VHF channel 8.[17]
Includes English-language stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Arizona | ||
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| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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