WNIN (channel 9) 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 ...

Evansville, Indiana Evansville is a city in, and the county seat of, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 118,414 at the 2020 census, making it the state's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the largest city in ...

, United States. Owned by WNIN Tri-State Public Media, it is

sister A sister is a woman or a girl who shares one or more parents with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to refer to ...

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 station

WNIN-FM WNIN-FM is the NPR (National Public Radio) member station in Evansville, Indiana, with offices in downtown Evansville at the corner of Main Street and Riverside Drive. It broadcasts on 88.3 MHz FM. The radio station streams online via the W ...

(88.3). The two outlets share studios in downtown Evansville and transmitter facilities near Pelzer, Indiana.

Background

WNIN signed on for the first time on March 5, 1970, licensed to the

Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation The Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation (EVSC) is a public school corporation serving Evansville, Indiana and Vanderburgh County; its boundary includes the entire county. It is the third largest school district in the state of Indiana, beh ...

(EVSC). After a few months as a member of

National Educational Television National Educational Television (NET) was an American non-commercial educational, educational terrestrial television, broadcast television network owned by the Ford Foundation and later co-owned by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It o ...

(NET), it joined PBS in October. Despite having the advantage of being on one of two VHF frequencies in the Tri-State, EVSC soon found itself in over its head running a full-service public television station. Within a year, WNIN was $59,000 in the red. Unable to raise enough money to close the gap, it took WNIN off the air in 1972. A year later, a group of Tri-State citizens formed Southwest Indiana Public Television (later known as Tri-State Public Teleplex and now known as Tri-State Public Media) and returned the station to the air. They bought the Carpenter House in 1986 and retired the mortgage on that building three years later with the help of a capital campaign. WNIN also programs and transmits two local cable channels: WNIN Learn (Cable 12) and WNIN Create (Cable 13). WNIN Learn airs local

Government-access television Government-access television (GATV) is a type of specialty television channel created by government entities (generally local governments) and broadcast over cable TV systems or, in some cases, over-the-air broadcast television stations. GATV pr ...

(GATV) for

Vanderburgh County Vanderburgh County is a county in the U.S. state of Indiana. As of 2010, the population was 179,703. The county seat is in Evansville. While Vanderburgh County was the seventh-largest county in 2010 population with 179,703 people, it is also the ...

and Evansville City government meetings produced off-site inside the Carpenter House via remote-controlled cameras located in the Vanderburgh County Civic Center. WNIN Learn also airs repeats of some

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, ...

programs. WNIN Create simulcasts the national Create channel which features how-to, creative and cooking programs. Local programs produced by WNIN include ''Lawmakers'' and ''Newsmakers'', as well as various live debates and local documentaries. As of 2010, all local programming is available online via the station's implementation of PBS' COVE platform.

Digital television

Digital channels

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 ...

: The station carries Create on digital channel 9.2. Until October 2012, the station offered an audio simulcast of sister

member station

on digital channel 9.3.

Analog-to-digital conversion

WNIN discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 9, 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 relocated from its pre-transition VHF channel 12 to channel 9.

Indiana Channel

WNIN was the programming hub of the Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations (IPBS) project, the Indiana Channel. From 2006 to 2016, the Indiana Channel had run on digital subchannel 9.2 (WNIN Create) from 4 to 7 p.m. every weekday.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wnin (Tv) Television channels and stations established in 1970 NIN 1970 establishments in Indiana PBS member stations