History
Wisconsin has a distinguished tradition in public broadcasting. WHA, UW-Madison's radio station and the current flagship for Wisconsin Public Radio's Ideas Network, is one of the oldest educational radio stations in the world. It was also one of the first states to interconnect two educational stations (in 1932) as well as one of the first to build a proper educational radio network (in 1948).
Despite this, however, Wisconsin was a relative latecomer to educational television, at least compared to other Midwestern states. WHA-TV first hit the airwaves on May 3, 1954 as the first educational station in Wisconsin, and one of the first in the nation. WHA-TV is the only public broadcasting television station in the United States which maintains a three-letter callsign, and one of only three analog era UHF stations altogether (along with WHP-TV and WWJ-TV) with a three-letter call. However, for most of the time from the 1950s through the 1970s, it was one of only three stations in the state that was a member of National Educational Television and its successor, PBS. The others were WMVS and WMVT in Milwaukee. The only other areas of the state with a clear signal from an NET/PBS member station were the northwest (from Duluth, Minnesota's WDSE-TV) and the southwest (from the Twin Cities's KTCA-TV).
In 1971, the state legislature created the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board, activating five stations as satellites of WHA-TV during the 1970s - WPNE in Green Bay in 1972; WHWC in Menomonie and WHLA in La Crosse in 1973; WHRM in Wausau in 1975 and WLEF in Park Falls in 1977. The stations adopted the on-air name of Wisconsin Public Television in 1986. Transmission and station identification is based out of ECB's Madison facility.
From 1960 to 2007, WHA-TV/WPT aired same-day tape-delayed coverage of some home games for Wisconsin Badgers football and men's basketball, which was produced in association with UW-Madison's athletic department. However, because of exclusivity agreements with the Big Ten Network that launched in September 2007, WPT no longer airs these broadcasts. The state network offers tape-delayed broadcasts of Badgers men's and women's hockey, women's basketball and volleyball throughout the year.
Read more about this topic: Wisconsin Public Television
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