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KCET
KCET (channel 28) is a secondary PBS member television station in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is owned by the Public Media Group of Southern California alongside the market's primary PBS member, Huntington Beach–licensed KOCE-TV (channel 50). The two stations share studios at The Pointe (on West Alameda Avenue and Bob Hope Drive, between The Burbank Studios and Walt Disney Studios complexes) in Burbank; KCET's transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson in the San Gabriel Mountains (north of Sierra Madre).
KCET was the second attempt at establishing an educational station in the Los Angeles area: KTHE, operated by the University of Southern California, had previously broadcast on channel 28, beginning on September 22, 1953. It was the second educational television station in the United States, signing on six months and four days after KUHT in Houston, but ceased broadcasting after only nine months on the air because its primary benefactor, the Hancock Foundation, determined that the station was too much of a financial drain on its resources.
KCET—the call letters of which stand for either California Educational Television, Committee for Educational Television, Community Educational Television, or Cultural and Educational Television—first signed on the air on September 28, 1964, as an affiliate of National Educational Television (NET). The station was originally licensed to the non-profit group Community Television of Southern California (CTSC). Part of the station's initial funding came from four of Los Angeles's commercial stations–KNXT (channel 2; now KCBS-TV), KNBC (channel 4), KTTV (channel 11) and KCOP (channel 13)–along with grants from the Ford Foundation and the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. KCET initially broadcast in black and white from Monday through Friday. James Loper, a co-founder of CTSC, served as the station's director of education from 1964 to 1966 and then vice president and general manager from 1966 to 1971. Loper then served as president of KCET from 1971 to 1983. Creative Person—John Burton a 30-minute film biography of Glass artist and Philosopher John Burton was the first color film commissioned by KCET-TV in 1965. It won the first two Los Angeles area Emmys for KCET for John Burton, and for the production by George Van Valkenburg. Van Valkenburg also produced a one-hour documentary film titled Paris Air Show 1967 for KCET.
KCET was originally located at 1313 North Vine Street in Hollywood, at what was the original Mutual-Don Lee Broadcasting System Building. The facility was also originally home to two of Los Angeles' first television stations—KTSL (channel 2; now KCBS-TV), and KFI/KHJ-TV (channel 9; now KCAL-TV, which both signed-on the air in May, and August 1948 respectively. Both stations eventually moved out by the early 1960s, just a couple of years before KCET officially took to the air. ABC also began taking up occupancy in the building, using it as a secondary studio facility for its television studio lot (which at the time also housed KABC-TV, channel 7) near the eastern end of Hollywood.
Prior to applying for and receiving a construction permit to build the new channel 28, CTSC attempted to acquire one of Los Angeles's seven existing VHF commercial stations. In 1968, Community Television of Southern California emerged as a potential buyer of KTLA's channel 5 license from then-owner Gene Autry, but could not raise the cash needed to make a serious offer. If CTSC succeeded in moving KCET to channel 5, the move would have mirrored a similar occurrence seven years earlier in the New York City area, where local broadcasters assisted a non-profit group in purchasing commercial independent VHF station WNTA-TV and converting it into non-commercial, educational WNDT (it is now WNET).
On October 5, 1970, KCET became a charter member of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) at the programming service's inception. For most of the next 40 years, it was the second most-watched PBS station in the country and occasionally produced programs distributed to PBS and to individual public television stations. The station served as Southern California's flagship PBS member station, with San Bernardino-licensed KVCR (channel 24)—which the San Bernardino Community College District signed on the air on September 11, 1962—as the service's original sole secondary outlet. KCET gained additional competitors when the Coast Community College District signed on Huntington Beach-licensed KOCE-TV (channel 50) on November 20, 1972, and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) signed on secondary Los Angeles member KLCS (channel 58) on November 5, 1973.
In 1971, KCET purchased the former Monogram Pictures property at 1425 Fleming Street (now Hoover Street) in a historic area of East Hollywood—which was used as a film and television studio from 1912 to 1970—to serve as the station's headquarters, an acquisition assisted in part by financial contributions from both the Ford Foundation and the Michael Connell Foundation. The building was renamed the Weingart Educational Telecommunications Center and housed KCET's master control, digital control rooms, ingest, and editing stations on the first floor, and engineering, and new media operations, and news and public affairs departments on the second floor.
In 1994, KCET and Store of Knowledge Inc., a Cerritos-based company, launched the KCET Store of Knowledge in Glendale as the first of many partnership stores with PBS affiliates. The store was a partnership between KCET, educational store Lakeshore Learning Materials, and the venture capital firm of Riordan, Lewis and Haden, which included former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan. The chain continued to operate until 2001. In 2004, as part of its image-reclaiming public relations after the Gulf oil spill, BP started granting KCET half the funding for preschool shows including A Place of Our Own and Los Ninos en Su Casa, a Spanish-language version. The other half of the $50 million grants for the show and supporting outreach programs came from First 5 California plus additional funding from an anonymous donor. The show won Peabody and local Emmy awards and was shown nationally over PBS. KCET renamed its production studio to BP Studios in thanks.
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KCET
KCET (channel 28) is a secondary PBS member television station in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is owned by the Public Media Group of Southern California alongside the market's primary PBS member, Huntington Beach–licensed KOCE-TV (channel 50). The two stations share studios at The Pointe (on West Alameda Avenue and Bob Hope Drive, between The Burbank Studios and Walt Disney Studios complexes) in Burbank; KCET's transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson in the San Gabriel Mountains (north of Sierra Madre).
KCET was the second attempt at establishing an educational station in the Los Angeles area: KTHE, operated by the University of Southern California, had previously broadcast on channel 28, beginning on September 22, 1953. It was the second educational television station in the United States, signing on six months and four days after KUHT in Houston, but ceased broadcasting after only nine months on the air because its primary benefactor, the Hancock Foundation, determined that the station was too much of a financial drain on its resources.
KCET—the call letters of which stand for either California Educational Television, Committee for Educational Television, Community Educational Television, or Cultural and Educational Television—first signed on the air on September 28, 1964, as an affiliate of National Educational Television (NET). The station was originally licensed to the non-profit group Community Television of Southern California (CTSC). Part of the station's initial funding came from four of Los Angeles's commercial stations–KNXT (channel 2; now KCBS-TV), KNBC (channel 4), KTTV (channel 11) and KCOP (channel 13)–along with grants from the Ford Foundation and the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. KCET initially broadcast in black and white from Monday through Friday. James Loper, a co-founder of CTSC, served as the station's director of education from 1964 to 1966 and then vice president and general manager from 1966 to 1971. Loper then served as president of KCET from 1971 to 1983. Creative Person—John Burton a 30-minute film biography of Glass artist and Philosopher John Burton was the first color film commissioned by KCET-TV in 1965. It won the first two Los Angeles area Emmys for KCET for John Burton, and for the production by George Van Valkenburg. Van Valkenburg also produced a one-hour documentary film titled Paris Air Show 1967 for KCET.
KCET was originally located at 1313 North Vine Street in Hollywood, at what was the original Mutual-Don Lee Broadcasting System Building. The facility was also originally home to two of Los Angeles' first television stations—KTSL (channel 2; now KCBS-TV), and KFI/KHJ-TV (channel 9; now KCAL-TV, which both signed-on the air in May, and August 1948 respectively. Both stations eventually moved out by the early 1960s, just a couple of years before KCET officially took to the air. ABC also began taking up occupancy in the building, using it as a secondary studio facility for its television studio lot (which at the time also housed KABC-TV, channel 7) near the eastern end of Hollywood.
Prior to applying for and receiving a construction permit to build the new channel 28, CTSC attempted to acquire one of Los Angeles's seven existing VHF commercial stations. In 1968, Community Television of Southern California emerged as a potential buyer of KTLA's channel 5 license from then-owner Gene Autry, but could not raise the cash needed to make a serious offer. If CTSC succeeded in moving KCET to channel 5, the move would have mirrored a similar occurrence seven years earlier in the New York City area, where local broadcasters assisted a non-profit group in purchasing commercial independent VHF station WNTA-TV and converting it into non-commercial, educational WNDT (it is now WNET).
On October 5, 1970, KCET became a charter member of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) at the programming service's inception. For most of the next 40 years, it was the second most-watched PBS station in the country and occasionally produced programs distributed to PBS and to individual public television stations. The station served as Southern California's flagship PBS member station, with San Bernardino-licensed KVCR (channel 24)—which the San Bernardino Community College District signed on the air on September 11, 1962—as the service's original sole secondary outlet. KCET gained additional competitors when the Coast Community College District signed on Huntington Beach-licensed KOCE-TV (channel 50) on November 20, 1972, and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) signed on secondary Los Angeles member KLCS (channel 58) on November 5, 1973.
In 1971, KCET purchased the former Monogram Pictures property at 1425 Fleming Street (now Hoover Street) in a historic area of East Hollywood—which was used as a film and television studio from 1912 to 1970—to serve as the station's headquarters, an acquisition assisted in part by financial contributions from both the Ford Foundation and the Michael Connell Foundation. The building was renamed the Weingart Educational Telecommunications Center and housed KCET's master control, digital control rooms, ingest, and editing stations on the first floor, and engineering, and new media operations, and news and public affairs departments on the second floor.
In 1994, KCET and Store of Knowledge Inc., a Cerritos-based company, launched the KCET Store of Knowledge in Glendale as the first of many partnership stores with PBS affiliates. The store was a partnership between KCET, educational store Lakeshore Learning Materials, and the venture capital firm of Riordan, Lewis and Haden, which included former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan. The chain continued to operate until 2001. In 2004, as part of its image-reclaiming public relations after the Gulf oil spill, BP started granting KCET half the funding for preschool shows including A Place of Our Own and Los Ninos en Su Casa, a Spanish-language version. The other half of the $50 million grants for the show and supporting outreach programs came from First 5 California plus additional funding from an anonymous donor. The show won Peabody and local Emmy awards and was shown nationally over PBS. KCET renamed its production studio to BP Studios in thanks.