KAMU-TV (channel 12) is a

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

member

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...

licensed to

College Station, Texas College Station is a city in Brazos County, Texas, situated in East-Central Texas in the heart of the Brazos Valley, towards the eastern edge of the region known as the Texas Triangle. It is northwest of Houston and east-northeast of Austin. ...

, United States. Owned by

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

, it is a

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

member

KAMU-FM KAMU-FM (90.9 FM) is a public radio station in College Station, Texas, United States. It is owned and operated by Texas A&M University, and is a sister station to PBS member KAMU-TV (channel 15). The two stations share studios at the Moore Comm ...

(90.9). The two stations share studios at the Moore Communications Center on the university's campus; KAMU-TV's transmitter is located at adjacent Hensel Park. KAMU-TV serves as the sole PBS member station for the

Waco Waco ( ) is the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin. The city had a 2020 population of 138,486, making it the 22nd-most populous city in the st ...

–

Temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

– Bryan

market Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: *Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand *Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, an ...

History

KAMU-TV began broadcasting on February 15, 1970. It originally aired on UHF channel 15, and was the first educational station in central Texas. On April 1, 2003, KAMU was the first station in the region to begin broadcasting in

HDTV High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the g ...

. KAMU made the first

live Live may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Live!'' (2007 film), 2007 American film * ''Live'' (2014 film), a 2014 Japanese film *'' ''Live'' (Apocalyptica DVD) Music *Live (band), American alternative rock band * List of albums ...

HDTV broadcast in the region on April 22, 2004, with the program ''Meet the Candidates 2004''. On February 27, 2018,

Central Texas College Central Texas College (CTC) is a community college in Killeen, Texas. Founded in 1965, it has branch campuses in Europe and on military installations across the U.S. History Central Texas College was established by a vote of the citizens of C ...

's board of trustees voted to close down KNCT (which served the western third of the Waco–Temple–Bryan market, including Waco and Killeen) over budgetary concerns related to the FCC

spectrum repacking A spectrum (plural ''spectra'' or ''spectrums'') is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary, without gaps, across a continuum. The word was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of colors ...

that would have required that station to move from RF channel 46 to RF channel 17 starting in 2020, as well as the need to replace its original transmitter.FCC TV spectrum Phase Assignment Table
''FCC Incentive Auction Television Transition Data Files'', April 13, 2017. The shutdown of KNCT, which would occur on August 31, 2018, would leave KAMU-TV as the only PBS member station in the market. However, most

cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

systems on the western side of the market opted to import

KLRU KLRU (channel 18), branded on-air as Austin PBS, is a PBS member television station in Austin, Texas, United States, owned by the Capital of Texas Public Telecommunications Council. In 2022, KLRU moved into its "Austin Media Center" studios loc ...

from

Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

, which had already served as the default PBS member station for the market's southwestern areas.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

Analog-to-digital conversion

KAMU's broadcasts became digital-only, effective June 12, 2009. It opted not to use

PSIP The Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) is the MPEG (a video and audio industry group) and privately defined program-specific information originally defined by General Instrument for the DigiCipher 2 system and later extended for the AT ...

to remap to channel 15, instead opting to use channel 12 as its virtual channel. KAMU offered

ResearchChannel ResearchChannel was an American educational cable television network operated by a consortium of universities, foundations, government agencies, corporations, and learned societies. It began broadcasting in 1996 and discontinued operations in 201 ...

on subchannel 12.3 until that service was discontinued in August 2010.

References

External links

*
KAMU-TV Watch live
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kamu-Tv Texas A&M University PBS member stations Television channels and stations established in 1970 Television stations in Texas 1970 establishments in Texas