WCET (TV) - History

History

WCET is the first licensed public television station in the United States. It was granted its license in 1951 and began broadcasting on July 26, 1954, from the third floor of Music Hall in Cincinnati, where it was located until 1959. In 1976, the station moved to its present location at the Crosley Telecommunications Center on Central Parkway, which it now shares with the market's two main public radio stations, WVXU-FM and WGUC-FM.

Like PBS members in many larger television markets, WCET partnered with the for-profit company Lakeshore Learning Materials to operate a retail store in the late 1990s. WCET took a 25% share in the Channel 48 Store of Knowledge, which went towards the station's endowment fund. The 5,300-square-foot (490 m2) store sold merchandise related to PBS shows at the Kenwood Towne Centre from November 23, 1996, until the chain's bankruptcy and liquidation in 2001. The Discovery Channel Store opened in its place the following September.

Once simply known as "Channel 48" and later as WCET48, the station rebranded itself as CET on September 16, 2003, moving away from its call sign to indicate its increasing focus on online services. It began an IP-based on-demand video service via its website, CETconnect.

On May 8, 2009, the Greater Cincinnati Television Educational Foundation and Greater Dayton Public Television (ThinkTV) formed the umbrella non-profit organization Public Media Connect. Both CET and ThinkTV operate as subsidiaries with separate branding and fundraising efforts. The merger resulted in the July 2010 transfer of WCET's master control operations to ThinkTV facilities in Dayton.