WTCI (channel 45) is a PBS member television station in Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States. Owned by the Greater Chattanooga Public Television Corporation, the station maintains studios on Bonnyshire Drive in Chattanooga, and its transmitter is located on Sawyer Cemetery Road in Hamilton County, Tennessee.

WTCI was the third of four stations built by the Tennessee Department of Education to expand public television coverage in Tennessee, signing on March 3, 1970. Its original studios were on the campus of what is now Chattanooga State Community College. It operated as a state-owned station until 1984, when it was spun out to a local board in the wake of a scandal that revealed inefficiencies in Tennessee's state-run public TV stations. As a result, WTCI began fundraising in the community. In 2007, it relocated to its present studios. The station produces local programming, including coverage of Chattanooga city council meetings and public affairs and cultural programs of regional interest.

An educational television channel was allocated to Chattanooga in 1952, and as early as 1953, groups began analyzing the possibilities of the new medium in Chattanooga. Movement around constructing such a station locally did not come until May 1961, when the Tri-State Educational Television Council was formed. It hired experts with the goal of preparing an application for the reserved educational channel, 55. Meanwhile, plans for a statewide network began to progress as the state legislature appropriated funds, and the Tennessee Department of Education took the lead in planning the Chattanooga station. By 1963, the state government had filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to switch channel 55 to channel 14, which would be lower and have a better coverage area. At that time, the studio was planned to be located in the women's gymnasium at the University of Chattanooga, which was to be replaced; the state rejected this plan because it meant granting money to a private institution. The FCC, in 1965, instead assigned channel 38; the state began scouting tower sites for the proposed station. By April 1966, applications were on file with the FCC for a construction permit and the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare for grant money; it had been switched to channel 45. The new plans called for the station's studios to be built at Chattanooga State Technical College, with a transmitter on Signal Mountain. The two channel realignments contributed to later delays in construction of the station because many engineering studies needed to be redone.

The FCC awarded the construction permit in July 1966, and final state approval for construction was obtained the next month. However, it took several years to get WTCI in operation, due to channel changes and issues with the title to the Signal Mountain site. A chancery court proceeding was necessary to clear the title to the property before construction could proceed. Final plans for the station's facilities were submitted in February 1968, and a contract for studio construction was let in May.

WTCI began broadcasting on March 3, 1970. It was affiliated with National Educational Television, which was supplanted as the public television network by PBS that October. While the station could air filmed and network programs in color, it lacked color studio cameras for its own productions; in 1972, the state applied to the federal government for grant funding to purchase color-capable cameras and taping equipment. By that year, WTCI's educational programs reached 370,000 students in 16 local school systems.

WTCI was the third of four stations built by the Tennessee Department of Education to expand educational television coverage in Tennessee, alongside WSJK-TV in Sneedville (serving Knoxville and the Tri-Cities) and WLJT in Lexington and Martin. A fourth station, WCTE-TV in Cookeville, followed in 1978. In addition, there were educational stations in Nashville and Memphis (WDCN-TV and WKNO, respectively), which were not owned by the state.

In 1980, a controversy brewed whose effects would change the course of educational television in much of Tennessee. The year before, WSJK-TV general manager Al Curtis had produced a 30-minute documentary on the successful 1978 gubernatorial campaign of Republican Lamar Alexander, The Extra Mile. The film used his campaign theme song, and most of the source footage was shot by a consulting firm for his campaign, though a WTCI crew also participated. The consultant, Doug Bailey, noted he had input in the production of the program. Gene Dietz, a Democrat and head of the state network, denied Curtis permission to broadcast the program. At the time, Curtis was in line to succeed Dietz. However, when the issue came to light, state education commissioner Ed Cox abolished the position and began a formal audit. Dietz described his firing as politically motivated and called the rejected program "pure political propaganda".

This controversy led the state comptroller to audit the state educational television system, and Governor Alexander asked the Finance Department to evaluate the program. In April, it recommended all the stations be spun out to local community control. The report criticized the heavy bias in favor of state-owned stations in funding decisions, which disadvantaged the community-owned stations. A separate inquiry into the educational television system, produced by consultant Donald Mullally for the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, returned its findings in July. Citing underfunding compared to state networks in other Southern states and the same inequities found in the Finance Department report, it too called for the state educational television apparatus to be disbanded and WTCI to be put under local control. A local council was just one idea on the table. State senator Ray Albright floated transferring WTCI to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) or Chattanooga State, and an amendment to allow UTC to take possession of channel 45 progressed through the state legislature. State legislator Bobby Wood did not obstruct the amendment but disapproved of the idea, fearing that WTCI under UTC control would simply become a promotional vehicle for the university.