KUHT

Houston, Texas United States
Channels	Digital: 8 (VHF) Virtual: 8
Branding	Houston Public Media PBS
Programming
Affiliations	8.1:PBS for others, see§ Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	University of Houston (University of Houston System)
Sister stations	Radio:KUHF
History
First air date	May 25, 1953 (71 years ago) (1953-05-25)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 8 (VHF, 1953–2009) Digital: 9 (VHF, 2001–2009)
Former affiliations	NET (1953–1970)
Call sign meaning	University of Houston Television
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	69269
ERP	64.6kW
HAAT	566 m (1,857 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	29°34′29″N95°29′38″W / 29.57472°N 95.49389°W /29.57472; -95.49389
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	www.houstonpublicmedia.org

KUHT (channel 8) is aPBS membertelevision station inHouston, Texas, United States. Owned by theUniversity of Houston System, it issister toNPR member stationKUHF (88.7 FM). The two stations share studios and offices in the Melcher Center for Public Broadcasting on the campus of theUniversity of Houston; KUHT's transmitter is located nearMissouri City, inunincorporated northeasternFort Bend County. In addition, the station leased some of its studio operations toTegna-ownedCBS affiliateKHOU (channel 11) from August 2017 to February 2019 when the latter's original studios were inundated byHurricane Harvey.

KUHT also serves as the default PBS member station to the neighboringBeaumont–Port Arthur andVictoriamarkets (the latter along withKLRN inSan Antonio) as they do not have their own PBS station. It is available oncable andsatellite providers in both markets, althoughLake Charles member station andLouisiana Public Broadcasting outlet KLTL-TV is carried by some cable providers in the extreme eastern areas of the Beaumont–Port Arthur market.

KUHT is notable as the first public television station in the United States.

The station was established by Dr. John C. Schwarzwalder, a professor in the Radio-Television Department at theUniversity of Houston (UH),^[2] and Dr. John W. Meaney, an English professor at UH, and was first signed on the air on May 25, 1953, as the first station to broadcast under an educational non-profit license in the United States, and one of the earliest member stations ofNational Educational Television,^[3] which was succeeded by PBS.^[4] KUHT, co-located with FM stationKUHF, originally operated from theEzekiel W. Cullen Building on the UH campus. Its dedication ceremonies were broadcast on June 8 of that year. The station's initial cost was an investment of $350,000, and had an annual operating budget of about $110,000.^[5] Originally licensed to both UH and the Houston Independent School District, UH became its sole licensee in 1959.

The station also offered the university's firsttelevised college credit classes. Running 13 to 15 hours weekly, these telecasts accounted for 38 percent of the program schedule. Most courses aired at night so that students who worked during the day could watch them. By the mid-1960s, with about one-third of the station's programming devoted to educational programming, more than 100,000 semester hours had been taught on KUHT.^[6]

In 1964, KUHT and KUHF moved into new studio facilities in the defunct Texas Television Center located on Cullen Boulevard, which were previously occupied byDuMont Television Network affiliateKNUZ-TV. When KNUZ-TV went dark,ABC affiliate (nowowned-and-operated station)KTRK-TV (channel 13) used the facility from KTRK's inception in 1954, until it moved to its current studios on Bissonnet Street in 1961. This studio would host both stations for the next 35 years, until the move across campus to the current Melcher Center for Public Broadcasting in 2000. KUHT purchased a new transmitter that not only enabled the station to broadcast beyondHarris County into its surrounding areas, but also to begin broadcasting incolor. Five years later, in 1969, the Association for Community Television was formed to fund KUHT.

In 1970, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), the successor network to National Educational Television, began service, combining televised educational lectures with popular programs such asSesame Street,NOVA andMasterpiece Theatre that remain PBS staples to this day. The station is also noted in Houston for many technical firsts at the local level. In 1981, KUHT became Houston's first television station to provideclosed captioning, and 10 years later, in 1991, it became the first station in Houston to offerDescriptive Video Service audio, and other services for the visually impaired as well as bilingual viewers via asecondary audio program feed.

In 1982, with assistance from KTRK and then-independent stationKRIV (channel 26, now aFox owned-and-operated station), KUHT began operating a new transmitter located near Missouri City – making it one of several television and radio stations that now broadcast from that location. KUHT was known on-air as "Houston Public Television" for many years before adopting the "HoustonPBS" moniker in the early 21st century. From 1993 into the early 2000s, KUHT's logo also did not include the number 8, but used a logo similar to the ones used byDetroit'sWTVS andSeattle'sKCTS-TV. These stations are members of Lark International, a public television production company, which owns the sunburst-on-square logo; however, they are not related to each other. KUHT's logo during this era was based on the sunburst portion of that logo.

On August 21, 2000, KUHT moved to its current studios in the LeRoy and Lucile Melcher Center for Public Broadcasting on the UH campus, where KUHT shares broadcast facilities with public radio stationKUHF—both owned by and licensed to the UH System—where the complex is located. The previous facility is now in use by the university's Texas Learning and Computation Center.

On March 3, 2014, KUHT, along with KUHF and 91.7 KUHA (owned by the university at the time, nowHope Media Group-ownedKHVU), were all rebranded into Houston Public Media. The station dropped the "HoustonPBS" name to assume the new name.

In late-August 2017,Tegna-ownedCBS affiliateKHOU (channel 11) temporarily moved its news and broadcasting operations to Melcher Center. KHOU'sNeartown facility had suffered catastrophicflooding duringHurricane Harvey. On November 16, 2017, KHOU announced it would not return to its former studios; the building would be subsequently demolished in May 2018.^[7] The station remained at the Melcher Center until their new facility at 5718Westheimer Road nearUptown Houston was completed in February 2019.^[8]

KUHT has an archive of almost 600 film reels—some more than 50 years old, along with 5,000 videocassettes—some dating back more than 30 years. However, the archive material is in various states of deterioration, with some films and cassettes already suffering fromvinegar syndrome. In September 2010, theTexas State Library and Archives Commission granted the University of Houston $25,000 for film preservation; however, the funding is only enough to transfer 25 films to digital format, with films related to Texas taking top priority.^[9]

KUHT has produced the following original national productions for PBS:

• Cucina Sicilia (2003–2004) – West 175 Productions
• InnerVIEWS withErnie Manouse
• Mary Lou's Flip Flop Shop
• Space Station (1999)
• The Story ofJesse H. Jones (2000)
• Weeknight Edition

The station's signal ismultiplexed:

KUHT's digital signal originally began broadcasting on VHF channel 9 on May 12, 2001. The station ended regular programming on its analog signal, overVHF channel 8, on June 12, 2009, as part of thefederally mandated transition from analog to digital television.^[11] The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition VHF channel 9 to channel 8 for post-transition operations.^[12][13]

In 2009, KUHT filed with the FCC for construction permits to build low-powered digital transmitters in Beaumont (K24KQ, channel 24)^[14] and Victoria (K29JI-D, channel 29),^[15] in order to provide over-the-air PBS service to both cities. Those two construction permits have expired and KUHT has no plans to attempt the build-outs at this time (2015).

• Houston Public Media
• University of Houston Buildings collection at theUniversity of Houston Digital Library
• John C. Schwarzwalder papers at theUniversity of Maryland libraries. Schwarzwalder and Meaney established KUHT in 1953.
• KUHT Film and Video collection at theUniversity of Houston Libraries
• KUHT video at the Audio/Video Repository,University of Houston Libraries

• PBS member stations
• 1953 establishments in Texas
• Television channels and stations established in 1953
• Television stations in Houston
• University of Houston System
• University of Houston

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