History of WHTJ PBS

Even before a national PBS system was approved by Congress, community leaders in central Virginia had a vision for educational TV. A group of inspired educators and business leaders in Richmond created the state’s first locally operated public broadcasting station in 1964.
 
Now known as Commonwealth Public Broadcasting Corporation (CPBC), the single station grew over the decades to become one of the strongest member stations in the national PBS system, delivering its signal to more than half of Virginia’s population, including more than 40 counties and nearly 50 public school systems.
 
But television reception in the Charlottesville area, dotted with the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, was often difficult and frequently disrupted by weather conditions.
 
To provide a more reliable and better quality signal to the Charlottesville area, in the mid-1980s, Commonwealth Public Broadcasting applied to the FCC and received the license for a PBS station in Charlottesville. The non-profit corporation then built a full-power television tower on Carters Mountain across from Monticello from which to broadcast its new station, aptly dubbed WHTJ PBS, whose call letters stand for the “Home of Thomas Jefferson.”
 
In 1989, the station began delivering a 10,000-watt, full-power signal to the Charlottesville area and to all of Albemarle, Greene, Fluvanna, Nelson and Orange counties, and parts of Madison, Culpeper and Buckingham.
 
For the first time, Charlottesville had its own PBS station. For cost efficiency, the programming stream and technical infrastructure were shared with WCVE PBS, the flagship station in Richmond that had been in operation since 1964. The two stations were jointly dubbed “The Community Idea Stations.”
 
Local corporations became program underwriters, local productions were created in partnership with community organizations, local leaders were selected for the board of directors and local individuals were invited to sit on the community station board to help guide WHTJ PBS through years of hard work and growth.
 
From the outset, WHTJ PBS produced a national-level public affairs series called For the Record in partnership with the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. After a fifteen-year run, that program was retired and WHTJ PBS launched a new weekly, local talkshow called Charlottesville Inside-Out, hosted by Terri Allard. To this day, WHTJ PBS continuously develops new local productions that reflect the best qualities of this region.
 
In 2007, WHTJ PBS launched its own locally branded program stream, including three digital channels.
 
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