WGCU (channel 30) is a PBS 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 ea ...

licensed to

Fort Myers, Florida Fort Myers (or Ft. Myers) is a city in southwestern Florida and the county seat and commercial center of Lee County, Florida, United States. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 92,245 in 20 ...

, United States, and also serving

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adm ...

and Cape Coral. Owned by Florida Gulf Coast University, 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 WGCU-FM (90.1). The two stations share studios on the Florida Gulf Coast University campus in Fort Myers and transmitter facilities in

unincorporated Unincorporated may refer to: * Unincorporated area, land not governed by a local municipality * Unincorporated entity, a type of organization * Unincorporated territories of the United States, territories under U.S. jurisdiction, to which Congress ...

southern Charlotte County.

History

The station first signed on the air on August 15, 1983 as WSFP-TV. It was originally owned by the

University of South Florida The University of South Florida (USF) is a public research university with its main campus located in Tampa, Florida, and other campuses in St. Petersburg and Sarasota. It is one of 12 members of the State University System of Florida. USF i ...

Tampa Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough C ...

, owners of Tampa Bay's secondary PBS member station, WUSF-TV (now WEDQ), and primary NPR member WUSF-FM. At the time, the Fort Myers–Naples area was the only

media market A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings, and may also incl ...

in Florida without a public television station of any sort that was available over-the-air. Fort Myers–Naples area cable providers usually piped WEDU in Tampa or WPBT in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

, depending on the location. WSFP-TV operated as a typical PBS member station. The WSFP

broadcast license A broadcast license is a type of spectrum license granting the licensee permission to use a portion of the radio frequency spectrum in a given geographical area for broadcasting purposes. The licenses generally include restrictions, which vary f ...

was transferred to the new Florida Gulf Coast University in 1996, while construction on the university's campus was being completed. The station then changed its call letters to WGCU on August 11, 1997, two months before FGCU opened. For much of the first two decades as a locally-focused station, WGCU identified as "TV 3," after its location on most area cable systems; this was a nod to the exceptionally high penetration of cable and satellite in Southwest Florida. Since 2017, however, it has identified solely with its call letters. For several years, WGCU was also carried on cable in

Sarasota Sarasota () is a city in Sarasota County on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The area is renowned for its cultural and environmental amenities, beaches, resorts, and the Sarasota School of Architecture. The city is located in the sou ...

, which the station long claimed as part of its primary coverage area (despite being part of the Tampa Bay market).

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

WGCU shut down its analog signal, on

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

channel 30, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcasts on its pre-transition UHF channel 31. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's

virtual channel In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...

as its former UHF analog channel 30.

Programming

National programming on WGCU comes from PBS, American Public Television, and other distributors, as well as from independent producers.

References

External links

WGCU Public Media
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wgcu (Tv) PBS member stations 1983 establishments in Florida Television channels and stations established in 1983 GCU (TV) Florida Gulf Coast University