KCTS-TV

"Cascade PBS" redirects here. For its news website, see Crosscut.com.

"KYVE" redirects here. Not to be confused with KVYE.

KCTS-TV (channel 9) is a PBS member television station in Seattle, Washington, United States, owned by Cascade Public Media. The station's studios are located at Broadway and Boren Avenue in Seattle's First Hill neighborhood, and its transmitter is located at 18th Avenue and E. Madison Street on the city's Capitol Hill.^[4][5][6]

KCTS-TV

Seattle–Tacoma, Washington United States
City	Seattle, Washington
Channels	Digital: 9 (VHF) Virtual: 9
Branding	Cascade PBS
Programming
Affiliations	9.1: PBS for others, see § Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	Cascade Public Media
History
First air date	December 7, 1954 (69 years ago) (1954-12-07)
Former call signs	KUOW-TV (CP, 1953–1954)^[1] KCTS (1954–1959)^[1]
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 9 (VHF, 1954–2009) Digital: 41 (UHF, 1999–2009)
Former affiliations	NET (1954–1970)
Call sign meaning	Community Television Service^[2]
Technical information^[3]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	33749
ERP	21.7 kW
HAAT	249 m (817 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	47°36′57″N 122°18′32″W / 47.61583°N 122.30889°W / 47.61583; -122.30889
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	www.kcts9.org

KCTS-TV is the primary PBS member station for the Seattle–Tacoma market alongside Tacoma-licensed KBTC-TV (channel 28), owned by Bates Technical College. Through PBS's Program Differentiation Plan (PDP), KCTS-TV carries the majority (75%) of the network's programs, with KBTC-TV carrying the remaining 25%.^{[7][better source needed]}

Originally owned and operated by the University of Washington, KCTS-TV became a community licensee in 1987. In 2015, it was announced that the station would merge with Crosscut.com to form Cascade Public Media.^{[8][9][10][11]}

KYVE (channel 47) in Yakima operates as a semi-satellite of KCTS-TV, serving as the PBS member station for the western portion of the Yakima–Tri-Cities market. KYVE's transmitter is located on Ahtanum Ridge.

History

 

Former studios of KCTS at Seattle Center from 1986 to 2024

 

KCTS crew recording an interview with Dennis Kelso, then-commissioner of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, during the cleanup of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989.

 

KCTS logo used from 1999 until late 2006. The logo is similar to WTVS' logo.

 

KCTS 9 logo used from 2015 until 2023.

KCTS was founded by the University of Washington (UW), the station's original licensee. It was a sister station to KUOW-FM, which UW put on the air in 1951. It was originally to have gone on the air under the callsign KUOW-TV, but it instead assumed the callsign KCTS, meaning Community Television Service, to avoid singling out a member of its initial sponsoring group. Sponsors at the time included the UW, Seattle Public Schools, King County Public Schools, Seattle University, Seattle Pacific College, and the Seattle Public Library.^[1][12] A studio for KCTS was set up on the UW campus at 15th Avenue NE and NE Campus Parkway, with equipment donated by KING-TV owner Dorothy Bullitt.^[1][13][14]

The station aired its first test pattern on November 18, 1954; a fire at its studio the following day caused extensive damage to its equipment, but suppliers expedited shipments of replacement equipment such that they all arrived within a week after the fire, avoiding a potential delay to its planned regular programming.^[14][15] KCTS began broadcasting at 7:00 p.m. on December 7, first airing a five-minute program preview hosted by UW professor and program director Milo Ryan before switching to an abridged performance of Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah by the Seattle Pacific College Choir.^[16] Initially, it aired only two preview programs weekly; however, regular programming did not commence until nearly a month later on January 5, 1955, with the inaugural program featuring Governor Arthur B. Langlie as principal speaker.^[17][18] It had three telecast periods throughout the afternoon and evening during weekdays.^[19][20]

During the 1950s and 1960s, KCTS primarily supplied classroom instructional programs used in Washington State's K–12 schools, plus National Educational Television (NET) programs. Outside of schoolrooms, KCTS's audience among the general public was somewhat limited, and most programming was in black-and-white until the mid-1970s (although the station did install color capability in 1967). In 1970, NET was absorbed into the newly-created Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which commenced broadcasting on October 5. As a PBS member station, KCTS began offering a vastly enhanced scope of programming for the general public, including British programming.

Thanks to a major fundraising drive during the mid-1980s, KCTS moved to new studio space on the Seattle Center campus in October 1986 and would remain there until 2024. In 1987, UW spun off KCTS, and the station became a community licensee, thus separating it from KUOW-FM.^[21]

KCTS is seen throughout southwestern British Columbia on local cable systems, as well as across Canada on the Bell Satellite TV and Shaw Direct satellite providers, as well as on many other Canadian cable TV systems.^{[citation needed]} By 1996, a third of KCTS's audience resided in British Columbia;^[22] after it was removed from its channel number (9) on basic cable systems in the province, donations declined by $1.2 million.^[23] KCTS continues to receive financial support from its Canadian audience, which was processed through the Pacific Coast Public Television Association until its dissolution in 2017.^[24]

KCTS switched to a digital transmission signal from its Capitol Hill tower in March 1999, becoming the third television station in the Seattle area to make the transition. The station had been an early adopter of high-definition television programming and used its new digital signal to simulcast several programs.^[25] In January 2016, as part of a broader strategy to redefine itself as a content provider for various platforms other than television, the name of the licensee, KCTS Television became Cascade Public Media; its properties included KCTS-TV, Crosscut, a non-profit daily news site, and Spark Public. Cascade Public Media currently consists of KCTS, Crosscut and Piranha Partners.

In July 2022, Cascade Public Media purchased Childhaven's longtime facility in First Hill for $23 million and announced that it would move its operations there by the end of 2023; the organization stated on its website that the city of Seattle declined to renew the 40-year ground lease for the Seattle Center facility. It retained architectural firm JPC Architects, general contractor Abbott Construction, and project manager OAC Services as part of a capital campaign to purchase and renovate the property.^[5][26]

In October 2023, KCTS announced that it and Crosscut would merge under the new unified brand of Cascade PBS.^[27] It also announced plans for a new streaming app, expanding on a service that launched in 2020, that would be used by other PBS member stations.^[28] KCTS and Crosscut moved into the First Hill facility in January 2024, with both subsequently adopting the Cascade PBS name on March 1.^[29][30][31]

KYVE history

KYVE

Semi-satellite of KCTS-TV
Yakima, Washington
Channels	Digital: 21 (UHF) Virtual: 47
Programming
Affiliations	47.1: PBS for others, see § Subchannels
History
First air date	November 1, 1962 (61 years ago) (1962-11-01)
Former call signs	KYVE-TV (1962–1985)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 47 (UHF, 1962–2009)
Former affiliations	NET (1962–1970)
Call sign meaning	Yakima Valley Educational
Technical information^[32]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	33752
ERP	50 kW
HAAT	280 m (919 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	46°31′57.5″N 120°30′37.2″W / 46.532639°N 120.510333°W / 46.532639; -120.510333
Translator(s)	see § KYVE translators
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	www.kcts9.org/about/kyve47

In 1994, KCTS merged with KYVE, which has served central Washington since November 1, 1962. However, this was not the first time that the two stations had partnered together; during the early 1960s KYVE's engineers switched to and from KCTS's signal until the station's owners, the Yakima Board of Education, got enough funding for the station to be self-supporting. The station became a community licensee in 1984, but found the going difficult until its merger with KCTS. KYVE did produce a few local programs, including the KYVE Apple Bowl with host Tony Leita, a high school quiz competition; Northwest Outdoors with Wally Pease, an outdoors program; and Country Roads with Gwyn Gilmore, a showcase of country music videos.

During the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, some programs included a combined "KCTS/KYVE" visual bug in the lower-right corner of the screen, indicating they were simulcast to both markets. However, since the early 2000s, KYVE has largely been a straight simulcast of KCTS, so the screen bug was dropped. Combined, the two stations serve 2.4 million people, accounting for almost two-thirds of Washington state's population.

Its former studios were located at Braeburn Hall at Yakima Valley Community College. But since the start of the millennium, local origination was severely reduced, and eventually, Braeburn Hall was torn down. KYVE later moved to a small office on 2nd Street (at the bottom of the Larson Building). This office is now home to the ticket office and administration for the Yakima Valley Pippins baseball team, and aside from the Ahtanum Ridge transmitter and the legal hourly station ID, KYVE no longer has any presence in Yakima.

Programming

KCTS is perhaps best known for producing/distributing the popular PBS Kids show Bill Nye the Science Guy, as well as other programs such as Students by Nature (not a PBS-distributed program), The Miracle Planet, cooking shows by Nick Stellino, Chefs A' Field, and the annual televised high school academic competition KYVE Apple Bowl.

KCTS was among a number of PBS member stations to air the controversial "Sugartime!" episode of Postcards from Buster, a spinoff of Arthur about a cartoon rabbit named Buster Baxter, who travels the country with his father and interacts with children from different cultures and in different family structures.^[33] The episode had been removed from PBS Kids Go!'s national broadcast schedule after PBS received a critical letter from then-newly-appointed Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who was upset that Buster was visiting a Vermont family headed by two women.^{[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]} WGBH, the Boston-based PBS affiliate and original producer of the program, subsequently made the episode available to stations that still wished to air it on an individual basis.^[42]

Technical information

Subchannels

The stations' signals are multiplexed:

Subchannels of KCTS-TV^[43] and KYVE^[44]

Channel		Res.	Aspect	Short name		Programming
KCTS-TV	KYVE			KCTS-TV	KYVE
9.1	47.1	1080i	16:9	KCTS-HD	KYVE-HD	PBS
9.2	47.2	480i		KIDS	PBS Kids
9.3	47.3			Create	Create
9.4	47.4			WORLD	World Channel

Analog-to-digital conversion

KCTS-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 9, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.^[45] The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 41 to VHF channel 9.

KYVE translators

• K17IL-D Ellensburg
• K18AD-D East Wenatchee

References

1. "FCC History Cards for KCTS-TV" (PDF).
2. . Archived from the original on January 24, 2011. Retrieved December 19, 2010.
3. "Facility Technical Data for KCTS-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
4. Blankinship, Donna Gordon. "Crosscut and Cascade PBS say bye Seattle Center, hello First Hill | Crosscut". Crosscut. Retrieved April 3, 2024.
5. Stiles, Marc (July 6, 2022). "Crosscut, KCTS buy Childhaven's longtime Broadway property". Puget Sound Business Journal. Archived from the original on December 28, 2023. Retrieved July 8, 2022.
6. "Birth of a Television Station: KCTS". UW Showcase: University of Washington. 1997. Archived from the original on January 2, 2018. Retrieved April 10, 2024.
7. "PBS Membership Station: Membership Certification and Agreement: FY 2023 (July 1, 2022 - June 30, 2023)". KBTC. June 27, 2022. Archived from the original on May 31, 2023. Retrieved April 10, 2024.
8. Hanscom, Greg; Power-Drutis, Tamara (December 2, 2015). "An Exciting New Chapter for Northwest Public Media". Crosscut.com. Retrieved December 2, 2015.
9. Cullen, Hilda (December 2, 2015). (PDF) (Press release). KCTS-TV. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 2, 2015. Retrieved December 2, 2015.
10. Tu, Janet I. (December 2, 2015). "KCTS-TV to absorb Crosscut and another local website". The Seattle Times. Retrieved December 2, 2015.
11. Connelly, Joel (December 2, 2015). "KCTS-TV will merge with Crosscut". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved December 2, 2015.
12. "Progress Report". The Seattle Times. May 21, 1954. p. 21.
13. "TV Technique". The Seattle Times. October 7, 1954. p. 24.
14. "$10,000 Fire In New TV Studio Curbs Operations". The Seattle Times. November 19, 1954. p. 1.
15. "And So the Show Goes On". The Seattle Times. December 6, 1954. p. 21.
16. "Preview". The Seattle Times. December 7, 1954. p. 32.
17. "KCTS Gets Ready For Test Pattern". The Seattle Times. November 17, 1954. p. 29.
18. "Twisting Dials". The Seattle Times. November 30, 1954. p. 26.
19. "Channel 9: TV Entering The Classroom". Pictorial. The Seattle Times. December 12, 1954. p. 22.
20. "New Station Aided". The Seattle Times. January 6, 1955. p. 16.
21. "Birth of a Television Station: KCTS". depts.washington.edu.
22. Taylor, Chuck (November 17, 1996). "KCTS confronts its future". The Seattle Times. p. M1.
23. McCullough, Michael (December 6, 2002). "Bank failure won't stop shows for KCTS". The Vancouver Sun. p. C5. Retrieved February 25, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
24. "Cascade Public Media and Subsidiaries: Consolidated Financial Statements For the Year Ended June 30, 2019" (PDF). Cascade Public Media. November 21, 2019. p. 23. Retrieved February 25, 2024.
25. Levesque, John (March 22, 1999). "KCTS's new digital transmitter helps put city on cutting edge". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. p. D4.
26. Miller, Brian (July 7, 2022). "In $23M sale, Childhaven sells First Hill HQ to parent of KCTS and Crosscut". Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce. Retrieved July 8, 2022.
27. "A New Era: Cascade PBS". KCTS. October 18, 2023. Retrieved February 25, 2024.
28. Wyllie, Julian (December 21, 2023). "Cascade Public Media app aims to deliver long-awaited upgrades to PBS streaming experience". Current. Retrieved February 25, 2024.
29. Lee, M. David III (March 1, 2024). "Crosscut, KCTS 9 come together as Cascade PBS". Crosscut.com. Retrieved April 19, 2024.
30. "Cascade PBS snips ribbon on new First Hill HQ". Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce. March 15, 2024. Retrieved April 19, 2024.
31. Stiles, Marc (March 18, 2024). "New name, new Seattle home for KCTS 9 TV and Crosscut". Puget Sound Business Journal. Retrieved April 19, 2024.
32. "Facility Technical Data for KYVE". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
33. McFarland, Melanie (February 2, 2005). "KCTS/9 Will Air 'Postcards From Buster' Showing Lesbian Parents". Seattle P.I. Retrieved November 11, 2022.
34. Salamon, Julie (January 27, 2005). "Culture Wars Pull Buster Into the Fray". The New York Times. Retrieved June 15, 2022.
35. Salamon, Julie (February 5, 2005). "A Child Learns a Harsh Lesson in Politics". The New York Times. Retrieved June 15, 2022.
36. Moore, Frazier (February 11, 2005). "Fallout Continues Over Lesbian-Inclusive 'Postcards From Buster' Episode". Advocate. Retrieved June 18, 2022.
37. Stasi, Linda (March 21, 2005). "No Bunny Needs to Worry About Lesbian 'Postcards'". New York Post. Retrieved November 11, 2022.
38. Smith, Lynn (March 14, 2005). "By Nixing Show, PBS Spotlights Gay Family". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 15, 2022.
39. Ryan, Maureen (February 3, 2005). "'Boy, That's a Lot of Moms'". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved June 14, 2022.
40. Moore, Frazier (February 9, 2005). "What's the Big Deal About 'Buster'?". Today. Retrieved June 16, 2022.
41. Gaylord, Peggy R. (March 23, 2005). "Buster Exposed to Two Pairs of Moms". Umaffirm. Retrieved June 16, 2022.
42. Taylor, Scott. "MPBN ready to show 'Buster'". Sun Journal. Retrieved April 22, 2014.^{[dead link]}
43. "RabbitEars TV Query for KCTS". www.rabbitears.info.
44. "RabbitEars TV Query for KYVE". www.rabbitears.info.
45. (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013.

External links

• KCTS 9
• KYVE
• History KCTS from 1954 through 2003 (Seattle Times)
• Richard J. Meyer papers, at the University of Maryland Libraries. He was a manager of KCTS from 1972 to 1982 and helped in updating equipment, securing a larger budget for the station, and increasing community representation in the show with new employees from the local community.