WPTD - History

History

WPTD began in 1972 as WOET-TV (for Ohio Educational Television), operated by the Ohio Educational Broadcasting Network Commission (OEB). Prior to that, Channel 16 was occupied by a commercial independent and sometime ABC-affiliated station, WKTR-TV. That station was owned by Kitty Hawk Television Corporation and licensed to Kettering when it began broadcasting in April 1967. It went dark in 1970, but returned to the air briefly in 1971 before giving up its license to the Federal Communications Commission, which reallocated the frequency as non-commercial.

WPTD's sister station, WPTO, began in 1959 as WMUB-TV, which was operated by Miami University. The call letters matched those of then co-owned WMUB (FM) radio, and stood for Miami University Broadcasting.

The stations joined forces in 1975 under the banner of University Regional Broadcasting, a consortium of Miami, Wright State and Central State universities. WMUB-TV was the primary station for a year until 1976, when WOET-TV became the primary station. In 1977, the stations were transferred to a new community organization, Greater Dayton Public Television, and received their current callsigns.

From the creation of University Regional Broadcasting onward, the secondary station operated as a semi-satellite of the primary station, only rarely airing different, usually local public-affairs type, programs. This situation existed until cable television began to become widely available in the community. Both stations were carried on Dayton-area cable systems. As cable availability rose, the stations' programming was increasingly differentiated by Greater Dayton Public Television, and the stations eventually achieved separate programming and scheduling.

The stations rebranded themselves as the ThinkTV Network in 1998, though the legal name remained Greater Dayton Public Television.

On October 31, 2008, Greater Dayton Public Television and the Greater Cincinnati Television Educational Foundation, owner of WCET, announced plans to merge their resources into one non-profit organization serving all of Southwest Ohio, while maintaining separate identities. The merger completed on May 8, 2009 with the formation of Public Media Connect, Inc. Both ThinkTV and CET operate as subsidiaries under the new organization. The merger resulted in the July 2010 transfer of WCET's master control operations to ThinkTV facilities in Dayton.