WCVE-TV, virtual channel 23, is a Public Broadcasting Servicemembertelevision stationlicensed to Richmond, Virginia, United States. The station is owned by the VPM Media Corporation. WCVE-TV's studios and transmitter are located at 23 Sesame Street in Bon Air, a suburb of Richmond. WHTJ in Charlottesville operates as a full-time satellite of WCVE-TV; this station's transmitter is located atop Carters Mountain. WCVE-TV also operates a sister station in Richmond, WCVW, whose transmitter is co-located with WCVE-TV. The three stations were collectively known locally as the Community Idea Stations and began using their call letters for identification in 2008, with each referring to itself as a Community Idea Station. On August 5, 2019, Commonwealth Public Broadcasting rebranded its stations as VPM, with WCVE-TV and WHTJ becoming VPM PBS and WCVW becoming VPM Plus.
History
The community-owned public broadcasting company was established in 1961 by Thomas Boushall and a group of concerned citizens to employ television for educational purposes. The patron saints of public broadcasting in central Virginia were Boushall, E. Claiborne Robins, Sr., Mary Ann Franklin, and Bill W. Spiller. Mrs. Franklin first approached Boushall and Henry I. Willett, then Superintendent of Richmond City Schools, with the idea of establishing an educational television station. Boushall and Franklin then recruited Spiller, who was hired in December 1963 and began working for them in January 1964. WCVE-TV's sister station, WCVW-TV signed on in 1967. Richmond became the first community in Virginia to have dual stations, and only the eighth in the nation to do so, doubling the amount of instructional programming provided to schools in central Virginia. Over 40 years later, both WCVE-TV and WCVW are still in operation. In 1974, Commonwealth Public Broadcasting took over WNVT-TV, a Fairfax public TV stationon the verge of financial insolvency, in order to protect instructional television and educational services for schools in northern Virginia. In 1981, a second Northern Virginia station, WNVC-TV, was established. Today, these two stations provide international programming in English and several other languages tailored to the needs of the Washington, D.C. area's culturally diverse population. In 1988, Union Theological Seminary & Presbyterian School of Christian Education announced plans to give up its public radio license for WRFK, which had assumed a fine music format from WFMV. To ensure public radio would remain in Richmond, WCVE-FM radio went on the air as a National Public Radio member station. The following year, the company established WHTJ in Charlottesville. Before WHTJ's sign-on, Charlottesville had no full-powered PBS station; only a repeater of Harrisonburg's WVPT served the area. A TV and radio studio-office complex was added in 1991. After signing off at midnight almost daily for over 40 years, WCVE-TV and WCVW became 24-hour stations most days of the week in the fall of 2006. Starting in early 2008, the stylized "i" logo became the station's secondary logo, and the stations adopted a family of similar primary logos displaying their call letters.
WCVE-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 23; the station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 42. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 23.
WCVW shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 57; the station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 44. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 57, which was among the high band UHF channels that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.
WHTJ shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 41; the station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 46. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 41.
Programming
Like most public television stations, this trio broadcasts shows distributed by PBS and American Public Television, but they also create a range of local programs. WCVE-TV produces Virginia Currents, a program profiling residents of the state, both typical and notable, which is aired by other PBS stations in Virginia such as Blue Ridge PBS and WVPT. WHTJ offers Charlottesville Inside-Out, hosted by musician Terri Allard. All of the programs are produced by WCVE-TV's studios in Richmond.
