Twin Cities PBS

Twin Cities Public Television, Inc. (abbreviated TPT, doing business as Twin Cities PBS) is a nonprofit organization based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States, that operates the Twin Cities' two PBS member television stations, KTCA-TV (channel 2.1) and KTCI-TV (channel 2.3), both licensed to Saint Paul. It produces programs for local, regional and national television broadcast, operates numerous websites, and produces rich media content for Web distribution.

TPT's offices and studio facilities are on East 4th Street in downtown Saint Paul; KTCA-TV and KTCI-TV transmit from the KMSP Tower in Shoreview, Minnesota.

Twin Cities PBS also serves the Mankato market via K26CS-D (relaying KTCA) and K29IE-D (relaying KTCI) in nearby St. James through the local municipal-operated Cooperative TV (CTV) network of translators as that area does not have a PBS member station of its own.

Twin Cities Public Television was incorporated in 1955 as Twin City Area Educational Television.

KTCA (channel 2) began broadcasting as the first non-commercial public television station in the state on September 16, 1955, from a shabby, WWII wooden barracks-type structure on the University of Minnesota Agricultural Campus. The studios and offices were moved in the 1960s to what was known as the Minnesota Statehood Centennial Memorial Building for Education Television, at 1640 Como Avenue in Saint Paul. (Incidentally, that building housed another Twin Cities commercial television station, WUCW, channel 23, from 1989 to 2018.) KTCA's first program was Exploring Science. A second station, KTCI (channel 17), was launched on May 4, 1965. Channel 17 was originally assigned to the Tedesco Brothers in the early 1950s to be a commercial station, WCOW-TV, affiliated with the DuMont Television Network, but that station never made it to air. In 1967, KTCA became the first educational television station in the United States to broadcast in color. In 1976, the station changed its corporate name to Twin Cities Public Television.

On September 16, 1999, the stations began their first digital television broadcasts, 10 years after moving to 172 4th Street East in downtown Saint Paul. In 2000, KTCA and KTCI were rebranded tpt2 and tpt17, paving the way for the larger family of digital broadcast services to come. In 2002, TPT became the first broadcaster in Minnesota to launch a channel, tptHD, fully devoted to high-definition programming, and in 2004 the organization launched a full-time digital channel, tptMN, devoted entirely to local and regional programs.

In December 2005, the organization began distributing many of its productions online, making programs available through iTunes, Google Video, and Yahoo! Podcasts among others. Its website features streaming video as well as video podcasts. In 2007, TPT began offering Video-On-Demand (VOD) through local cable providers.

KTCA's Nielsen ratings are among the highest of any PBS station in the country.^{[citation needed]}