WOSU-TV (channel 34) 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 ...

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

, United States. Owned by

The Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publi ...

as part of WOSU 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 ...

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stations

WOSU-FM WOSU-FM (89.7 FM) is a non-commercial educational radio station licensed to Columbus, Ohio, featuring a public radio news and information format known as "89.7fm NPR News". Owned by The Ohio State University, the station serves the Columb ...

(89.7) and

WOSA WOSA (101.1 FM) is a non-commercial educational radio station licensed to Grove City, Ohio, featuring a classical music format known as "Classical 101fm". Owned by the Ohio State University, the station serves Columbus, Ohio and much of the ...

(101.1 FM). The three stations share studios on North Pearl Street near the OSU campus; WOSU-TV's transmitter is located on Highland Lakes Avenue in

Westerville, Ohio Westerville is a city in Franklin and Delaware counties in the U.S. state of Ohio. A northeastern suburb of Columbus, the population was 39,190 at the 2020 census. Westerville is the home of Otterbein University. Westerville was once known a ...

. WOSU-TV previously operated full-time

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...

WPBO (virtual channel 42, UHF digital channel 43) in

Portsmouth, Ohio Portsmouth is a city in and the county seat of Scioto County, Ohio, United States. Located in southern Ohio south of Chillicothe, it lies on the north bank of the Ohio River, across from Kentucky, just east of the mouth of the Scioto River. ...

, which served extreme southern Ohio and the western edge of the Huntington–

Charleston, West Virginia Charleston is the capital and List of cities in West Virginia, most populous city of West Virginia. Located at the confluence of the Elk River (West Virginia), Elk and Kanawha River, Kanawha rivers, the city had a population of 48,864 at the 20 ...

market area from a transmitter near West Portsmouth. WPBO ceased operations in October 2017, after selling its spectrum in the

FCC 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 jurisdictio ...

incentive auction The 2016 United States wireless spectrum auction, officially known as Auction 1001, allocated approximately 100 MHz of the United States Ultra High Frequency (UHF) spectrum formerly allocated to UHF television in the 600 MHz band. The spe ...

History

Ohio State first sought an educational license in 1950, for channel 12. However, 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) turned down two requests for that allocation (most likely due to concerns about interference with

WKRC-TV WKRC-TV (channel 12) is a television station in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, affiliated with CBS and The CW. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which provides certain services to MyNetworkTV affiliate WSTR-TV (channel 64) under a loca ...

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

) instead giving OSU channel 34. WOSU-TV first broadcast on February 20, 1956. In 1959, a grant from the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

allowed the station to purchase the first

video tape recorder A video tape recorder (VTR) is a tape recorder designed to record and playback video and audio material from magnetic tape. The early VTRs were open-reel devices that record on individual reels of 2-inch-wide (5.08 cm) tape. They were use ...

in Ohio. WOSU-TV began broadcasting in

color Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...

in 1968, telecasting the football game between

Ohio State The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...

and

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

. The color telecast helped to popularize the UHF band in Columbus, an otherwise all- VHF market at the time. In 1972, the station moved from its old studios at 2470 North Star Road in

Upper Arlington Upper Arlington, often known by its initials U.A., is a city in Franklin County, Ohio, United States, on the northwest side of the Columbus metropolitan area. The Old Arlington neighborhood is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. ...

to a new facility, the Fawcett Center for Tomorrow, on the banks of the

Olentangy River The Olentangy River is a tributary of the Scioto River in Ohio, United States. History It was originally called ''keenhongsheconsepung'', a Delaware word literally translated as "sharp tool river", based on the shale found along its shores. ...

near (now on) the campus of OSU. WPBO began broadcasting as a full-powered relay station in October 1973. Both stations began broadcasting in

stereo Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration ...

in 1986; WOSU-TV was the first in Columbus to do so. In September 2006, WOSU opened a digital media center in partnership with Columbus' Center of Science and Industry (COSI); the WOSU@COSI project was considered a national model for public broadcast partnerships. The production facility included broadcast studios, edit suites, a conference suite, offices, the WOSU mediaLab and digital exhibits. WOSU raised $5.6 million to build and equip the all-digital facility. The Fawcett Center housed WOSU's primary

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

complex, business and administration offices, and television master control. WOSU also possesses an extensive archive of

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

s and public programming video materials. Ohio State University announced on March 3, 2017, that it had sold the license for WPBO for $8.8 million in the FCC's

spectrum auction A spectrum auction is a process whereby a government uses an auction system to sell the rights to transmit signals over specific bands of the electromagnetic spectrum and to assign scarce spectrum resources. Depending on the specific auction form ...

. WOSU general manager Tom Rieland told ''

The Columbus Dispatch ''The Columbus Dispatch'' is a daily newspaper based in Columbus, Ohio. Its first issue was published on July 1, 1871, and it has been the only mainstream daily newspaper in the city since ''The Columbus Citizen-Journal'' ceased publication in 19 ...

'' that Portsmouth has "incredible duplication of PBS signals". In addition to the two primary PBS members serving the Huntington/Charleston market,

West Virginia Public Broadcasting West Virginia Public Broadcasting (WVPB) is the public television and radio state network serving the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is owned by the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Authority, an agency of the state government that holds the li ...

flagship WVPB-TV in Huntington and

Kentucky Educational Television Kentucky Educational Television (KET) is a state network of PBS member television stations serving the U.S. Commonwealth of Kentucky. It is operated by the Kentucky Authority for Educational Television, an agency of the Kentucky state governm ...

outlet WKAS in

Ashland, Kentucky Ashland is a home rule-class city in Boyd County, Kentucky, United States. The largest city in Boyd County, Ashland is located upon a southern bank of the Ohio River at the state border with Ohio and near West Virginia. The population was 21,6 ...

, Portsmouth also receives PBS programming from

WOUB-TV WOUB-TV (channel 20) is a PBS member television station in Athens, Ohio, United States. The station's transmitter is located west of the city off SR 56. Its programming can also be seen on satellite station WOUC-TV (channel 44) in Cambridge, wit ...

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

and WCET in Cincinnati. Some parts of the area also receive the main WOSU-TV signal. WPBO ceased operations October 25, 2017; its license was cancelled two days later. Proceeds from the sale of WPBO remained with WOSU-TV, which will continue operations. In 2015, the partnership with COSI ended with the realization that WOSU had outgrown its space at the Fawcett Center and wanted to continue engage the community through a public space. The new headquarters and office building, designed by Meyers + Associates Architecture, is located just east of the OSU campus on 14th and Pearl Street.

Programming

Programming produced by WOSU include the concert show ''Songs at the Center'' and quiz show ''In the Know''. WOSU also produces ''

Columbus Neighborhoods ''Columbus Neighborhoods'' is a documentary television series produced by WOSU-TV, WOSU Public Media, a part of PBS. The series premiered in 2010 as a set of one-hour shows about Neighborhoods in Columbus, Ohio, historic neighborhoods in Columb ...

'', an Emmy Award-winning series about neighborhoods in the city of Columbus.

Fundraising

Throughout most of the 1980s and the 1990s, WOSU had three different titles for its

pledge drive A pledge drive is an extended period of fundraising activities, generally used by public broadcasting stations to increase contributions. The term "pledge" originates from the promise that a contributor makes to send in funding at regular interval ...

s: ''Festival'' (held every March), ''Summer Celebration'' (held every July), and ''Explore 34'' (held every December). WOSU also had its own televised

auction An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition ex ...

special, ''Auction 34!'', later renamed to ''GO Auction!'' around 2005. It was usually held every Tuesday-Saturday of the last week of April and the first week of May. Usually, the highest "Big Board" item sold was a

Honda is a Japanese public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles, and power equipment, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, reaching a product ...

motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike, or trike (if three-wheeled)) is a two or three-wheeled motor vehicle steered by a handlebar. Motorcycle design varies greatly to suit a range of different purposes: long-distance travel, commuting, cruising ...

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

WOSU-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 34, on March 31, 2009.List of Digital Full-Power Stations
/ref> The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 38, using

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 display WOSU-TV'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 34 on digital television receivers.

Translator

WOSU-TV has one low-power

repeater In telecommunications, a repeater is an electronic device that receives a signal and retransmits it. Repeaters are used to extend transmissions so that the signal can cover longer distances or be received on the other side of an obstruction. Some ...

: W18ES-D in

Mansfield Mansfield is a market town and the administrative centre of Mansfield District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest town in the wider Mansfield Urban Area (followed by Sutton-in-Ashfield). It gained the Royal Charter of a market tow ...

, located within the

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

DMA. The station was also previously repeated by W31AA in

Newark Newark most commonly refers to: * Newark, New Jersey, city in the United States * Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey; a major air hub in the New York metropolitan area Newark may also refer to: Places Canada * Niagara-on-the ...

, which broadcast on a frequency previously used by WGSF; the repeater signed on July 1, 1976, the day after WGSF closed down. W31AA's license was canceled by the FCC on July 7, 2009; the W31AA call sign was also deleted by the FCC from their database.

References

External links

*
The Ohio Channel
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wosu-Tv Ohio State Buckeyes media Ohio State University OSU-TV PBS member stations Television channels and stations established in 1956 1956 establishments in Ohio