Recent from talks
Arkansas PBS
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Arkansas PBS
Arkansas PBS (sometimes shortened to AR PBS) is a state network of PBS member television stations serving the U.S. state of Arkansas. It is operated by the Arkansas Educational Television Commission, a statutory non-cabinet agency of the Arkansas government operated through the Arkansas Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which holds the licenses for all of the public television stations based in the state. The commission is managed by an independent board of university and education officials, and gubernatorial appointees representing each of Arkansas's four congressional districts. Along with offering television programs supplied by PBS and various independent distributors, the network produces public affairs, cultural and documentary programming as well as sports events sanctioned by the Arkansas Activities Association (AAA).
The broadcast signals of the six full-power and five low-power translator stations that make up the Arkansas PBS network cover almost the entire state, as well as portions of the neighboring states of Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana that have overlapping access to PBS programming through locally based public television stations; its programming is distributed via a thirteen-site microwave interconnection relay system around the state, which covers most of Arkansas, as well as parts of surrounding states.
Arkansas PBS also provides online education programs for classroom use and teacher professional development through ArkansasIDEAS (in collaboration with the Arkansas Department of Education), livestreams of state government and board proceedings and other government activities through the Arkansas Citizens Access Network (AR-CAN), and audio reading services for the blind and visually impaired through the Arkansas Information Reading Service for the Blind (AIRS); it also maintains the state's Warning, Alert and Response Network (WARN) infrastructure to disseminate emergency alerts to Arkansas residents. The main offices, production facilities and network operations of Arkansas PBS are based out of the R. Lee Reaves Center for Educational Telecommunications, located adjacent to the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.
Arkansas PBS traces its history to June 4, 1954, when the Arkansas Educational Television Association (AETA) was created as a voluntary committee representing 90 organizations lobbying the Arkansas General Assembly to fund and develop a non-commercial educational television service and to file applications with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reserve broadcast television frequencies in selected cities throughout Arkansas for non-commercial use. Following a two-year legislative study to assess the need for educational television programming in Arkansas, on March 8, 1961, the Arkansas General Assembly approved Act of Arkansas, Acts 1961, No. 198 (as amended under Arkansas Code § 6-3-101 to 6-3-113), which created the Arkansas Educational Television Commission as an independent statutory corporation and aimed to develop a statewide public television service that would "provide instructional, educational television for schools and the general public […] and to help with the preservation of the public peace, health and safety." The legislative language indicated that such a service was necessitated to help prevent the spread of communism in the state, as "counter-measures to such subversive influences [were] necessary to the continued existence of constitutional democracy." The bill—signed by Governor Orval Faubus—tasked the commission with providing educational television programming to Arkansans on a coordinated statewide basis, with the cooperation of the state's educational, government and cultural agencies, and allocated funding for the planning and operation of an educational station to serve Little Rock and other areas of Central Arkansas.
Longtime State Senator R. Lee Reaves (D–Warren) was appointed to serve as founding executive director of the Arkansas Educational Television Commission, Arkansas State Teachers College president Dr. Silas Snow was appointed as the commission's chairman, and Fred Schmutz was appointed as program director. The commission board was to have eight members appointed by the governor for a seven-year term, including two members from the state education system (one of whom must be a public education official, and one of whom employed with an Arkansas college or university), representing each of the state's congressional districts. The process of bringing public television to Arkansas began on May 22, 1963, when the AETC applied for a construction permit to build an educational television station on VHF channel 2 in Little Rock; the FCC granted the channel 2 permit to the commission on July 28, 1965. Subsequently, on September 23, 1963, Donrey Media donated the construction permit for defunct NBC affiliate KFOY-TV (channel 9) in Hot Springs to the AETC for $150,000, funded in part through a $100,000 gift from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. The permit was not used, but the channel 9 allocation was relocated to Arkadelphia and designated for noncommercial use in 1965.
KETS in Little Rock was finally able to sign on the air over channel 2 on December 4, 1966; it was the first educational television station to sign on in Arkansas, and the nation's 124th non-commercial educational television station to sign on. (The station operated under special temporary authority until the FCC granted the AETC a permanent license for KETS on June 22, 1967.) Channel 2 operated from studio facilities located at the Arkansas State Teachers College (now the University of Central Arkansas) in Conway, which leased the land near the campus on which the broadcast facilities were built; construction funds were appropriated to the commission through the Arkansas General Assembly and by a grant from local public utility provider Conway Corporation. (The building, which was dedicated to Reaves on December 5, 1981, underwent expansions in 1994, to provide expanded storage, tape library and office space, and in 2001, to provide expanded studio space and digital services.) KETS's transmitter and broadcast antenna were located two miles (3.2 km) west-southwest of Redfield, per an agreement with ABC affiliate KATV (channel 7), which leased use of its 2,000-foot (610 m) transmission tower and former transmitter to the AETC for a nominal annual fee.
For its first four years of operation, KETS carried programming from PBS forerunner National Educational Television (NET). Despite color television broadcasts becoming the norm, KETS had initially broadcast its programming exclusively in black-and-white. The station maintained limited hours of operation, exclusively airing Monday through Friday, during its early years; its initial programming, through a cooperative agreement with the Arkansas Department of Education, was focused primarily on instructional telecourse lectures and course subjects for use in Arkansas schools and attributable for college credit during the morning and afternoon from August through May; NET programming also aired during the late afternoon and early evening year-round. On October 5, 1970, KETS—like the full-power repeaters it would sign on in later years—became a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which was founded the previous year as an independent entity to supersede and assume many of the functions of the predecessor NET network. In 1972, the station upgraded its equipment to become capable of broadcasting programs in color. From KETS's sign-on through the 1980s, the network acted as an educational resource for public school and college educators through the use of instructional videos with teacher guides and supplements for grade school classrooms, college telecourses and GED education for adults.
After six years of serving only Central Arkansas through KETS, in early 1972, the Arkansas Educational Television Commission commenced plans to construct a network of additional transmitters connected by a microwave relay system. On September 15, the AETC filed applications to build four satellite stations and one translator to expand KETS's educational programming to approximately three-quarters of the state, to serve Arkadelphia on VHF channel 9 (filed on July 15, 1974, and granted on February 28, 1975), Fayetteville on VHF channel 13 (filed on March 8, 1974, and granted on July 10, 1975), Jonesboro on UHF channel 19 (granted on July 8, 1974), and Mountain View on VHF channel 6 (re-filed on April 22, 1977, and granted on March 15, 1979). In 1973, the Arkansas General Assembly approved the plan and associated funding to expand educational television programming to the entire state through KETS.
Hub AI
Arkansas PBS AI simulator
(@Arkansas PBS_simulator)
Arkansas PBS
Arkansas PBS (sometimes shortened to AR PBS) is a state network of PBS member television stations serving the U.S. state of Arkansas. It is operated by the Arkansas Educational Television Commission, a statutory non-cabinet agency of the Arkansas government operated through the Arkansas Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which holds the licenses for all of the public television stations based in the state. The commission is managed by an independent board of university and education officials, and gubernatorial appointees representing each of Arkansas's four congressional districts. Along with offering television programs supplied by PBS and various independent distributors, the network produces public affairs, cultural and documentary programming as well as sports events sanctioned by the Arkansas Activities Association (AAA).
The broadcast signals of the six full-power and five low-power translator stations that make up the Arkansas PBS network cover almost the entire state, as well as portions of the neighboring states of Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana that have overlapping access to PBS programming through locally based public television stations; its programming is distributed via a thirteen-site microwave interconnection relay system around the state, which covers most of Arkansas, as well as parts of surrounding states.
Arkansas PBS also provides online education programs for classroom use and teacher professional development through ArkansasIDEAS (in collaboration with the Arkansas Department of Education), livestreams of state government and board proceedings and other government activities through the Arkansas Citizens Access Network (AR-CAN), and audio reading services for the blind and visually impaired through the Arkansas Information Reading Service for the Blind (AIRS); it also maintains the state's Warning, Alert and Response Network (WARN) infrastructure to disseminate emergency alerts to Arkansas residents. The main offices, production facilities and network operations of Arkansas PBS are based out of the R. Lee Reaves Center for Educational Telecommunications, located adjacent to the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.
Arkansas PBS traces its history to June 4, 1954, when the Arkansas Educational Television Association (AETA) was created as a voluntary committee representing 90 organizations lobbying the Arkansas General Assembly to fund and develop a non-commercial educational television service and to file applications with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reserve broadcast television frequencies in selected cities throughout Arkansas for non-commercial use. Following a two-year legislative study to assess the need for educational television programming in Arkansas, on March 8, 1961, the Arkansas General Assembly approved Act of Arkansas, Acts 1961, No. 198 (as amended under Arkansas Code § 6-3-101 to 6-3-113), which created the Arkansas Educational Television Commission as an independent statutory corporation and aimed to develop a statewide public television service that would "provide instructional, educational television for schools and the general public […] and to help with the preservation of the public peace, health and safety." The legislative language indicated that such a service was necessitated to help prevent the spread of communism in the state, as "counter-measures to such subversive influences [were] necessary to the continued existence of constitutional democracy." The bill—signed by Governor Orval Faubus—tasked the commission with providing educational television programming to Arkansans on a coordinated statewide basis, with the cooperation of the state's educational, government and cultural agencies, and allocated funding for the planning and operation of an educational station to serve Little Rock and other areas of Central Arkansas.
Longtime State Senator R. Lee Reaves (D–Warren) was appointed to serve as founding executive director of the Arkansas Educational Television Commission, Arkansas State Teachers College president Dr. Silas Snow was appointed as the commission's chairman, and Fred Schmutz was appointed as program director. The commission board was to have eight members appointed by the governor for a seven-year term, including two members from the state education system (one of whom must be a public education official, and one of whom employed with an Arkansas college or university), representing each of the state's congressional districts. The process of bringing public television to Arkansas began on May 22, 1963, when the AETC applied for a construction permit to build an educational television station on VHF channel 2 in Little Rock; the FCC granted the channel 2 permit to the commission on July 28, 1965. Subsequently, on September 23, 1963, Donrey Media donated the construction permit for defunct NBC affiliate KFOY-TV (channel 9) in Hot Springs to the AETC for $150,000, funded in part through a $100,000 gift from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. The permit was not used, but the channel 9 allocation was relocated to Arkadelphia and designated for noncommercial use in 1965.
KETS in Little Rock was finally able to sign on the air over channel 2 on December 4, 1966; it was the first educational television station to sign on in Arkansas, and the nation's 124th non-commercial educational television station to sign on. (The station operated under special temporary authority until the FCC granted the AETC a permanent license for KETS on June 22, 1967.) Channel 2 operated from studio facilities located at the Arkansas State Teachers College (now the University of Central Arkansas) in Conway, which leased the land near the campus on which the broadcast facilities were built; construction funds were appropriated to the commission through the Arkansas General Assembly and by a grant from local public utility provider Conway Corporation. (The building, which was dedicated to Reaves on December 5, 1981, underwent expansions in 1994, to provide expanded storage, tape library and office space, and in 2001, to provide expanded studio space and digital services.) KETS's transmitter and broadcast antenna were located two miles (3.2 km) west-southwest of Redfield, per an agreement with ABC affiliate KATV (channel 7), which leased use of its 2,000-foot (610 m) transmission tower and former transmitter to the AETC for a nominal annual fee.
For its first four years of operation, KETS carried programming from PBS forerunner National Educational Television (NET). Despite color television broadcasts becoming the norm, KETS had initially broadcast its programming exclusively in black-and-white. The station maintained limited hours of operation, exclusively airing Monday through Friday, during its early years; its initial programming, through a cooperative agreement with the Arkansas Department of Education, was focused primarily on instructional telecourse lectures and course subjects for use in Arkansas schools and attributable for college credit during the morning and afternoon from August through May; NET programming also aired during the late afternoon and early evening year-round. On October 5, 1970, KETS—like the full-power repeaters it would sign on in later years—became a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which was founded the previous year as an independent entity to supersede and assume many of the functions of the predecessor NET network. In 1972, the station upgraded its equipment to become capable of broadcasting programs in color. From KETS's sign-on through the 1980s, the network acted as an educational resource for public school and college educators through the use of instructional videos with teacher guides and supplements for grade school classrooms, college telecourses and GED education for adults.
After six years of serving only Central Arkansas through KETS, in early 1972, the Arkansas Educational Television Commission commenced plans to construct a network of additional transmitters connected by a microwave relay system. On September 15, the AETC filed applications to build four satellite stations and one translator to expand KETS's educational programming to approximately three-quarters of the state, to serve Arkadelphia on VHF channel 9 (filed on July 15, 1974, and granted on February 28, 1975), Fayetteville on VHF channel 13 (filed on March 8, 1974, and granted on July 10, 1975), Jonesboro on UHF channel 19 (granted on July 8, 1974), and Mountain View on VHF channel 6 (re-filed on April 22, 1977, and granted on March 15, 1979). In 1973, the Arkansas General Assembly approved the plan and associated funding to expand educational television programming to the entire state through KETS.