KACV-TV


KACV-TV, virtual channel 2, branded on-air as Panhandle PBS, is a Public Broadcasting Service member television station licensed to Amarillo, Texas, United States. Owned by Amarillo College, it is sister to National Public Radio member station KACV-FM. The two outlets share studios at the Gilvin Broadcast Center on Amarillo College's Washington Street campus ; KACV-TV's transmitter is located west of US 87–287 in unincorporated Potter County. On cable, the station is available on Suddenlink Communications channel 3 in both standard and high definition.

History

In 1955, the Amarillo Junior College District began producing televised instructional programs for carriage on local commercial television stations in the area to be viewed in school by local college and secondary school students. At its peak, the district was leasing airtime to broadcast 40 hours of instructional programming Monday through Friday each week. The college established its own academic department for radio and television production in 1971, and eventually broadcast Amarillo Badgers college basketball games and other local programs. In 1982, Amarillo College eventually launched a local educational access cable channel on channel 2 on most Amarillo-area cable systems.
After National Educational Television had many of its functions superseded and assumed by the Public Broadcasting Service in 1970, PBS had maintained an arrangement to distribute its programming to the Texas Panhandle – which was one of the few areas of the state that did not have a PBS member station of its own on a per-program basis via the Amarillo market's commercial stations, NBC affiliate KAMR-TV, ABC affiliate KVII-TV or CBS affiliate KFDA-TV..
Viewers in the Texas Panhandle watched PBS programming via cable television via either KTXT in Lubbock or via a translator of KRMA-TV in Denver. PBS programming was also available over the air via KWET-TV in Cheyenne, Oklahoma or via KENW-TV out of Portales, New Mexico.
The VHF channel 2 allocation in Amarillo was contested between two groups that competed for the Federal Communications Commission 's approval of a construction permit to build and license to operate a new television station. Amarillo Junior College District filed the initial application on December 19, 1984. The district underwent an FCC licensure tug-of-war with Family Media, Inc., another group seeking to operate a non-commercial station on channel 2. The FCC granted the Amarillo Junior College District a construction permit and license in 1986. The following year, Amarillo College received a $1 million grant from the United States Department of Commerce to purchase broadcast equipment; the college concurrently raised about $550,000 in funds from the public and local private contributions, enabling the expansion of its studio facilities.
The station first signed on the air on August 29, 1988. It was the first public television station in the Texas Panhandle, making Amarillo one of the last major media markets in Texas to get its own PBS station. Despite the station's presence, cable providers in portions of the Panhandle continue to carry PBS programming via the OETA – which, in addition to its Cheyenne satellite, also maintains three translators across the state line in the Oklahoma Pandhandle – instead of KACV in some areas of the eastern Texas Panhandle.
On September 3, 2013, in commemoration of the station's 25th anniversary of broadcasting, KACV changed its branding to "Panhandle PBS".

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
ChannelProgramming
service		VideoAspectPSIP
Short
Name		Programming description
2.1
Panhandle PBS		1080iKACV-HDKACV's main programming schedule; downcoverted to a 4:3 format for cable and satellite viewers who receive the station's standard-definition feed. Unlike its digital subchannels, the main KACV feed does not provide a second audio program channel to transmit Descriptive Video Service or alternate language audio feeds of certain PBS and American Public Television-syndicated programs due to technical limitations with Dolby Digital audio channels in the ATSC 1.0 format.
2.2
PBS Kids 24/7		480iKACV-SDAirs the full schedule of PBS Kids 24/7, with programs that fulfill educational programming guidelines defined by the Children's Television Act. All PBS Kids Channel programming carried on KACV-DT2 are transmitted in anamorphic 4:3 standard definition due to technical limitations which prevent it from being presented in 16:9.
KACV-DT2 originally launched in August 2004 as a dedicated high definition channel serving as a supplement to the main analog simulcast. It converted into an affiliate of V-me on March 1, 2009; KACV-DT2 would remain with the Spanish language educational network until March 30, 2017, when V-me transitioned into an advertiser-supported cable- and satellite-exclusive service, resulting in V-me disbanding from its over-the-air affiliates.
2.3
Create		480iKACV-CRAirs the full schedule of Create, carrying the network's how-to, cooking, art, travel and lifestyle programs from American Public Television and other distributors.

Analog-to-digital conversion

KACV began transmitting a digital television signal on VHF channel 8 in 2002. The station shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 2, on February 17, 2009, the original target date in which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition VHF channel 8, using PSIP to display KACV's virtual channel as its pre-transition VHF analog channel 2 on digital television receivers.

Translators

In addition to maintaining cable carriage within this area, KACV-TV covers a large portion of the Texas Panhandle through a network of ten UHF translators that distribute its programming beyond the range corridor of its broadcast signal :
StationCity of licenseChannels
'		OwnerFirst air date
Former
callsigns		Former
channel
number		ERP
'		HAAT
'		Facility IDTransmitter
coordinates
K23EC-DCanadian, Texas23 C. L. & O. Translator System, Inc.K23EC N/A0.585 kW8013
K21IR-DChildress, Texas21 Amarillo Junior College
N/AN/A0.25 kW168102
K17DS-DClarendon, Texas17 Amarillo Junior College
K17DS N/A0.51 kW1237
K47BP-DFollett, Texas47 C. L. & O. Translator System, Inc.K47BP N/A0.25 kW25985
K36KL-DGruver, Texas36 Amarillo Junior College
N/AN/A0.42 kW25985
K44AK-DMemphis, Texas44 Amarillo Junior College
K44AK N/A0.46 kW14639
K47GM-DNew Mobeetie, Texas47 Amarillo Junior College
K47GM N/A0.478 kW72162
K36MA-DPerryton, Texas36 C. L. & O. Translator System, Inc.K62DD Analog:
62 		0.25 kW8007
K35EM-DQuitaque, Texas35 Amarillo Junior College
K35EM N/A0.51 kW1238
K34KO-DTulia, Texas34 City of TuliaK55JV Analog:'''
55 		0.464 kW125458

Programming

As a PBS member station, much of KACV-TV's programming consists of educational, children's and entertainment programming distributed by PBS to its member stations as well as content from American Public Television and various other distributors. The station's programming schedule also consists of cultural and educational programs, documentaries and general interest programming. While there is some cross-promotion between KACV-TV and KACV-FM, the two properties conduct pledge drives independent of one another. The station has also produced some local programming including artZONE, and the documentaries A Conversation with Ken Burns and Braggin' Rights: The Coors Cowboy Club Ranch Rodeo.
KACV's weekday lineup is mostly filled by children's programs from PBS and American Public Television from 5:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Programs provided by PBS are primarily shown on most nights in prime time except for Saturdays, which instead features a mix of music, documentary and British drama content from American Public Television. Weekends feature additional children's programming in the morning, with the remainder of the schedule outside of prime time consisting of travel, cooking and how-to series on Saturdays, and art instruction, British sitcoms, encores of PBS prime time shows and some local programs.
From the station's sign-on until January 2009, the station's broadcast transmitter was typically turned off during the overnight hours. In order to fill time until the station resumed broadcasts each morning, from 1995 to 2008, Amarillo-area cable providers carried the PBS Satellite Service over KACV's assigned channel slots during the designated sign-off-to-sign-on period. Beforehand, many other cable providers around the Amarillo market carried other lower-priority cable networks that limited headend frequency space precluded from assigning them to a separate full-time channel over KACV's channel slots as filler during overnight/early morning time periods during the broadcast signal's off-air period.