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WLRN-TV
WLRN-TV (channel 17) is a secondary PBS member television station in Miami, Florida, United States. It is owned by the Miami-Dade County Public Schools district alongside NPR member WLRN-FM (91.3); the two outlets are operated under a management agreement by Friends of WLRN, the stations' fundraising arm. WLRN-TV and WLRN-FM share studios at the ABM Telecommunications Center on Northeast 15th Street and 1st Avenue in Miami and transmitter facilities on Southwest 52nd Avenue in Pembroke Park, Florida.
WLRN-TV is one of two PBS member stations serving the Miami–Fort Lauderdale market, the other being WPBT (channel 2), owned by South Florida PBS. Originally a secondary station to channel 2 when it was WTHS-TV, the effective split of community and public licensees in the late 1970s made channel 17 the only TV station operated by the school system. WLRN-TV's local productions include documentaries and special-interest programs on South Florida, and it also airs independently produced Spanish-language programs on Sundays.
In 1959, the Dade County school board purchased a transmission facility in Hallandale that had last been used by WITV, a one-time ABC affiliate that had broadcast from 1954 to 1958, struggling through the launch of VHF television stations that took away its network programming and economic viability. After making the $200,000 acquisition, the school board received an exemption to use the site, five miles (8 km) too close to Daytona Beach's channel 2 station (WESH) otherwise, to relocate WTHS-TV, its educational station, from a facility in Miami. The project would expand the reach of the station, which had previously been limited to Dade County since its 1955 sign-on, to include areas in Broward and Palm Beach counties. To support the heavier channel 2 antenna, the tower height was reduced from 1,049 feet (320 m) to 700 feet (210 m).
For the school board, it was a trivial task from a facilities standpoint to reactivate channel 17: WTHS-TV already had studios, and it had just purchased the old WITV plant. In June 1960, it authorized its attorneys to prosecute a plan to reactivate channel 17 for educational use. This application was designated for hearing by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), along with the license renewal for WITV, in 1961. An FCC hearing examiner sided with the school board, and the channel was shifted from Fort Lauderdale to Miami and reserved for non-commercial use so that the school board could use the same Miami studios for both facilities.
Operations of WSEC-TV began with program tests on June 26, 1962, with several high school courses moving over from WTHS-TV and sets in the schools being fitted with UHF converters. This allowed the WTHS-TV programs to be aimed at elementary and junior high school students.
In 1973, the call sign was changed to the present WLRN-TV, but channel 17 continued to be dedicated to use by the schools with little public recognition. The station cost just $60,000 a year to operate. A 1976 column by Sherry Woods, radio and TV editor for The Miami News, referred to it as "Channel What?" and noted that "few viewers outside of those in Dade County classrooms even know of its existence"; that year, it began its first effort at evening programming, a nightly variety show titled Something on Seventeen.
While channel 17 kept broadcasting to an audience that almost exclusively consisted of students, channel 2 had emerged as the primary public broadcasting outlet in South Florida. Long a joint effort between the school board and the private Community Television Foundation of South Florida (CTF), this arrangement was consecrated as two separate FCC licenses sharing the channel in 1970. WTHS-TV continued to broadcast during weekday daytime hours to provide in-school programs, while non-school fare was provided by the foundation under the new call sign of WPBT. The stated intention was to sunset WTHS-TV after five years and transition its broadcasts to a closed-circuit system connecting the schools, ceding channel 2 to WPBT full-time.
The arrangement went sour in 1975, when CTF sought to take full control. However, the school board refused, stating that WLRN-TV and other services were not yet available to a majority of students. The inadequate WLRN-TV facilities were cited by one school board member as a poor compensation for giving up half of channel 2; by 1978, the station was operating at an effective radiated power of 38,000 watts, using a transmitter it had acquired used from WHRO-TV in Hampton, Virginia, in 1961. However, relief was on the way in the form of a major signal upgrade to WLRN-TV. In August 1978, a rebuilt facility was activated and effective radiated power increased to 2.83 million watts, extending the station's city-grade coverage to take in Cutler Ridge to the south and Boca Raton to the north. In addition to Something on Seventeen and educational courses for schools and the general public, the station also aired local government meetings.
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WLRN-TV
WLRN-TV (channel 17) is a secondary PBS member television station in Miami, Florida, United States. It is owned by the Miami-Dade County Public Schools district alongside NPR member WLRN-FM (91.3); the two outlets are operated under a management agreement by Friends of WLRN, the stations' fundraising arm. WLRN-TV and WLRN-FM share studios at the ABM Telecommunications Center on Northeast 15th Street and 1st Avenue in Miami and transmitter facilities on Southwest 52nd Avenue in Pembroke Park, Florida.
WLRN-TV is one of two PBS member stations serving the Miami–Fort Lauderdale market, the other being WPBT (channel 2), owned by South Florida PBS. Originally a secondary station to channel 2 when it was WTHS-TV, the effective split of community and public licensees in the late 1970s made channel 17 the only TV station operated by the school system. WLRN-TV's local productions include documentaries and special-interest programs on South Florida, and it also airs independently produced Spanish-language programs on Sundays.
In 1959, the Dade County school board purchased a transmission facility in Hallandale that had last been used by WITV, a one-time ABC affiliate that had broadcast from 1954 to 1958, struggling through the launch of VHF television stations that took away its network programming and economic viability. After making the $200,000 acquisition, the school board received an exemption to use the site, five miles (8 km) too close to Daytona Beach's channel 2 station (WESH) otherwise, to relocate WTHS-TV, its educational station, from a facility in Miami. The project would expand the reach of the station, which had previously been limited to Dade County since its 1955 sign-on, to include areas in Broward and Palm Beach counties. To support the heavier channel 2 antenna, the tower height was reduced from 1,049 feet (320 m) to 700 feet (210 m).
For the school board, it was a trivial task from a facilities standpoint to reactivate channel 17: WTHS-TV already had studios, and it had just purchased the old WITV plant. In June 1960, it authorized its attorneys to prosecute a plan to reactivate channel 17 for educational use. This application was designated for hearing by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), along with the license renewal for WITV, in 1961. An FCC hearing examiner sided with the school board, and the channel was shifted from Fort Lauderdale to Miami and reserved for non-commercial use so that the school board could use the same Miami studios for both facilities.
Operations of WSEC-TV began with program tests on June 26, 1962, with several high school courses moving over from WTHS-TV and sets in the schools being fitted with UHF converters. This allowed the WTHS-TV programs to be aimed at elementary and junior high school students.
In 1973, the call sign was changed to the present WLRN-TV, but channel 17 continued to be dedicated to use by the schools with little public recognition. The station cost just $60,000 a year to operate. A 1976 column by Sherry Woods, radio and TV editor for The Miami News, referred to it as "Channel What?" and noted that "few viewers outside of those in Dade County classrooms even know of its existence"; that year, it began its first effort at evening programming, a nightly variety show titled Something on Seventeen.
While channel 17 kept broadcasting to an audience that almost exclusively consisted of students, channel 2 had emerged as the primary public broadcasting outlet in South Florida. Long a joint effort between the school board and the private Community Television Foundation of South Florida (CTF), this arrangement was consecrated as two separate FCC licenses sharing the channel in 1970. WTHS-TV continued to broadcast during weekday daytime hours to provide in-school programs, while non-school fare was provided by the foundation under the new call sign of WPBT. The stated intention was to sunset WTHS-TV after five years and transition its broadcasts to a closed-circuit system connecting the schools, ceding channel 2 to WPBT full-time.
The arrangement went sour in 1975, when CTF sought to take full control. However, the school board refused, stating that WLRN-TV and other services were not yet available to a majority of students. The inadequate WLRN-TV facilities were cited by one school board member as a poor compensation for giving up half of channel 2; by 1978, the station was operating at an effective radiated power of 38,000 watts, using a transmitter it had acquired used from WHRO-TV in Hampton, Virginia, in 1961. However, relief was on the way in the form of a major signal upgrade to WLRN-TV. In August 1978, a rebuilt facility was activated and effective radiated power increased to 2.83 million watts, extending the station's city-grade coverage to take in Cutler Ridge to the south and Boca Raton to the north. In addition to Something on Seventeen and educational courses for schools and the general public, the station also aired local government meetings.
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