WJCT, Inc. is a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

public media organization in

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the ...

, United States. It operates

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 WJCT "Jax PBS" (channel 7) and NPR member radio station

WJCT-FM WJCT-FM (89.9 MHz) is a public radio station in Jacksonville, Florida. Owned by WJCT, Inc., it is an NPR member station. It shares studios with its sister PBS station WJCT (channel 7) on Festival Park Avenue, near TIAA Bank Field in Downtown Jac ...

89.9, as well as their associated digital platforms. The company's studios and offices are located on Festival Park Avenue in the Stadium District in downtown Jacksonville.

History

In 1952, following a four-year-long freeze on awarding station licenses, the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...

(FCC) revised its channel allocation table and reserved 242 frequencies, including channel 7 in Jacksonville, for noncommercial educational use. In Jacksonville,

podiatrist A podiatrist ( ) is a medical professional devoted to the treatment of disorders of the foot, ankle, and related structures of the leg. The term originated in North America but has now become the accepted term in the English-speaking world for ...

Dr. Heywood Dowling launched a campaign to bring educational television to the

First Coast Florida's First Coast, or simply the First Coast, is a region of the U.S. state of Florida, located on the Atlantic coast of North Florida. The First Coast refers to the same general area as the directional region of Northeast Florida. It roughly ...

region. While many other public stations at the time were affiliated with universities, Dowling proposed that Jacksonville's station be owned and funded by the community. Civic leaders embraced the concept, and after years of fundraising, the FCC issued a

construction permit Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building perm ...

for channel 7 on February 27, 1957. WJCT television first went on the air on September 10, 1958. Its first broadcast was a report by then-Florida governor LeRoy Collins on educational television. As Channel 7 initially had no production facility of its own, it used the studios of the city's two commercial stations, WMBR-TV (channel 4, now WJXT) and WFGA-TV (channel 12, now WTLV). It was Florida's second public television station, following WTHS-TV in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

. Its service area extended past Jacksonville to Live Oak,

St. Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afri ...

, and

Palatka, Florida Palatka () is a city in northeastern Florida and it is the county seat of Putnam County, Florida, United States. The population was 10,558 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Putnam County. Palatka is the principal city of the Palatka Mi ...

, and

Folkston, Georgia Folkston is a city in and the county seat of Charlton County, Georgia, United States. Folkston is in the Jacksonville Metropolitan Area. The population was 2,502 as of the 2010 census, up from 2,178 in 2000, largely due to the extension of the c ...

. Its first month was dedicated to national programs from National Educational Television. WJCT added a radio station,

, in 1972. Originally on air under the name "Stereo 90", WJCT-FM's broadcasting covered music, fine arts, news, and public affairs. In October 1973, WJCT produced its first television and radio

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultane ...

of a concert by the

Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra The Jacksonville Symphony is an orchestra based in Jacksonville, Florida. Concert hall As one of a handful of American orchestras with its own dedicated concert hall, the Jacksonville Symphony performs the majority of its programs in the Rober ...

. In 2014, WJCT spearheaded the Digital Convergence Alliance Network Operations Center (DCA-NOC), a central master control operation funded by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This was the first network operations center developed in a partnership of 11 public broadcasting companies.

Television

The schedule of WJCT television, known as "Jax PBS", includes programming from

and other programming services, including the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

and American Public Television. WJCT also produces and broadcasts local news, public affairs programs and documentaries. Subchannels include

Create To create is to make a new person, place, thing, or phenomenon. The term and its variants may also refer to: * Creativity, phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is created Art, entertainment, and media * Create (TV network), an America ...

PBS Kids PBS Kids is the brand for most of the children's programming aired by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. Some public television children's programs are not produced by PBS member stations or transmitted by PBS. Instead, ...

, and

World In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

. On April 6, 2009, WJCT's analog signal on channel 7 left the air for good.http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1082A2.pdf Jacksonville TV stations might not wait to switch to digital
'' The Florida Times-Union'', February 6, 2009.

Radio

WJCT-FM (89.9 MHz) is the primary public radio station in Jacksonville, offering four streams of programming over its

HD Radio HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for an in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. It generally simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD Radio is used ...

signal and online. The main subchannel and analog broadcast consists of nationally syndicated public talk shows as well as ''First Coast Connect'', its flagship local news program. Additional subchannels carry the Classical 24 classical music service and two other music services: Anthology, a mix of music from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and The Independent, focusing on new and local music. WJCT also operates the regional radio reading service, broadcast as an analog subcarrier for the visually impaired and streamed online.

References

External links

WJCT-TV PBS 7's official website
* * {{NPR Florida NPR member stations PBS member stations JCT-FM Television channels and stations established in 1958 JCT (TV) 1958 establishments in Florida