WETP-TV

WETP-TV (channel 2) and WKOP-TV (channel 15), together branded as East Tennessee PBS, are public television stations serving Knoxville and the Tri-Cities in East Tennessee, United States. The stations are owned by the East Tennessee Public Communications Corporation and broadcast from studios and offices on East Magnolia Avenue in downtown Knoxville. WETP-TV, licensed to Sneedville, Tennessee, is broadcast from a transmitter atop Short Mountain near Mooresburg, while WKOP-TV's transmitter is situated on Sharp's Ridge in North Knoxville.

Channel 2 began broadcasting on March 20, 1967, as WSJK-TV. It was the first in what would ultimately be four stations opened by the Tennessee Department of Education to extend educational television service beyond the cities of Memphis and Nashville. The station's assignment to Sneedville was necessary in order to use VHF channel 2, also allotted to Nashville and Atlanta; however, this resulted in middling reception in Knoxville and the Tri-Cities. WSJK-TV programs originated from studios in Knoxville and Johnson City, though the Johnson City studios diminished in importance and ultimately closed in 1980.

In the early 1980s, a controversy about the production of a film seen as too favorable to governor Lamar Alexander led to scrutiny of Tennessee's state-owned public television stations. Internal and external reports found the system to be inequitable in funding. The state of Tennessee exited public broadcasting with the Tennessee Educational Television Network Act of 1981 and spun out its four stations, including WSJK-TV, to new community licensees in the years that followed. After years of planning, WKOP-TV began broadcasting in 1990 in order to improve the signal in Knoxville. WSJK-TV was renamed WETP-TV in 2003 as part of the launch of a new brand, East Tennessee Public Television, for the service; the stations became known as East Tennessee PBS in 2010. East Tennessee PBS produces a variety of regional programming in the areas of health, education, and culture.

In 1953, officials with the Tennessee Educational Television Commission requested the assignment of several channels across the state for noncommercial educational use, including channel 2 in Sneedville, in addition to existing assignments for Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted the assignments in March 1954. The selection of Sneedville permitted the use of channel 2, as the transmitter had to be 190 miles (310 km) away from cities that had stations on the same channel, notably Nashville; Atlanta; and Greensboro, North Carolina.

Movement toward establishing a station first was made by the University of Tennessee (UT) in 1962. UT proposed a phased statewide network, with the first transmitters to be at Knoxville, Sneedville, and Chattanooga. At the time, educational television in East Tennessee was provided on commercial stations. The 1963 session of the Tennessee General Assembly authorized the Tennessee Department of Education to build TV stations to serve Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville and the Tri-Cities. The Metropolitan Educational Television Council then proposed to the state the establishment of the Sneedville station, to be fed by studios in Knoxville and Johnson City. The Department of Education then filed for channel 2 in February 1964; the state already had options on land near Sneedville for the transmitter site. The application reached the FCC on April 7, 1964, and was granted on June 2, 1965. The state selected the call sign WSJK-TV, representing Sneedville, Johnson City, and Knoxville. The 1965 Tennessee legislative session appropriated $1.75 million for educational TV construction, and a federal grant was also received for $512,000 in construction costs for channel 2.

Construction took place on Short Mountain in 1966 and early 1967. On the peak, a 499-foot (152 m) tower was constructed, as well as a transmitter facility complete with sleeping and cooking facilities in the event of an emergency. Meanwhile, work began to set up the two studios that would provide programs to channel 2 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and East Tennessee State University (ETSU) in Johnson City; an old band room in the basement of Neyland Stadium served as temporary quarters in Knoxville. However, WSJK-TV was held up by delays in designing, building, and approving the transmitter facility. The transmitter site was important because every program the Knoxville and Johnson City studios produced would have to be taped and taken to Sneedville for broadcast until microwave links could be established. The work was completed in early March 1967, when test patterns were broadcast from channel 2, while program service to a potential audience of 772 East Tennessee schools began with a music lesson on the morning of March 20. Two months later, the station began airing evening programs from National Educational Television, which was supplanted by PBS in 1970.

The Department of Education network grew from one station to four over the next twelve years. In February 1968, WLJT in Lexington was completed; this station served to rebroadcast WKNO in Memphis. WTCI in Chattanooga began in March 1970, while the last station in the set, WCTE, was brought into service in August 1978.

In 1970, the Department of Education applied to establish a microwave link from the Knoxville studio to Sneedville. Beginning the next year, Knoxville served as the station's primary origination point. This proved to reduce the role of Johnson City programming on channel 2; by 1980, only an hour a week was originating there, a public affairs show and a student-produced program. WSJK-TV proved a high-volume producer of educational programming and at one point in 1975 had more local shows in production than any other public television station in the United States. In the 1970s, the station also began airing Tennessee Volunteers men's basketball games.