WGTV

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WGTV (channel 8, DTV 12) is the metro Atlanta station and flagship for Georgia Public Broadcasting (formerly Georgia Public Television), Georgia's PBS network.

The station transmits from the top of Stone Mountain, located just east of Atlanta in Stone Mountain, Georgia. The city of license is Athens, Georgia. It is considered the flagship station of GPB TV, and is the primary ("parent") station for two LPTV broadcast translators, mainly in the north Georgia mountains. Eight other stations also simulcast the network across the state, originally relayed via microwave radio towers and now via communications satellite.

WGTV's analog TV signal is the strongest of the GPB TV network, covering most of the northern part of Georgia, extending in about a 75-mile (120km) radius from the transmitter site. Like some other GPB TV stations, its digital TV signal is almost non-existent, however it will move from very low power on channel 12 to full power on channel 8 after the analog shutdown in 2009. This selection, made without conflict in the first-round digital channel election, is most likely due to WDEF-TV 12 (analog) in Chattanooga, which will permanently stay digital on channel 47. WGTV was originally assigned channel 22 for DTV operations, but requested the allotment change to channel 12 by the FCC, also allowing a change to 22 (from 59) by WSKC-CA.

History

In 1960, WGTV channel 8 signed on the air on May 23, licensed to the University of Georgia and operating out of the Georgia Center for Continuing Education. The station's VHF allocation was originally occupied by WSB-TV, which at that time was owned by the Atlanta Journal. The Journal's competitor in Atlanta, the Atlanta Constitution, had applied for and received from the FCC a construction permit for channel 2, which was to be called WCON-TV. When the Journal and Constitution merged, media ownership rules of the day did not permit one entity to own two television stations in the same market. Plans for WCON-TV were scrapped, WSB-TV moved to channel 2 from channel 8 in 1952, and the channel 8 slot was given the newly-started WLWA (which today is WXIA-TV channel 11).

In 1953, channel 8 was given to the University for an educational television station. In 1982, ownership of the license was transferred from the University of Georgia to the Georgia Public Telecommunications Commission, the oversight board for GPTV (now GPB TV).

In 1984 for a short time in February, the station became WPBS-TV and became tied-in to WPBA-TV, who changed its calls from WETV that same year. Viewers were not pleased about it and GPTV brought back the old callsign WGTV. (The WPBS-TV callsign is now used by a PBS affiliate in Watertown, New York.)

Until sometime in the 1980s, programming on WGTV was separate from the rest of the GPTV network. Since then, WGTV and the other GPB stations follow the same schedule.

Translators

Both translators are located near the state's border with South Carolina, in areas where coverage from a full-powered GPB transmitter is insufficient, due to the distance from the main transmitters and the hilly or mountainous terrain in northeast Georgia.

• W52AA Carnesville, Georgia, which has applied for digital on 12
• W68AF Toccoa, Georgia, which has applied for digital on 10

Several other translators are assigned to other GPB TV stations, including WCLP-TV, WJSP-TV. Though this issue is rather moot, as all GPB stations carry the same programming and idents.

External links

• GPB Website
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