Alabama Public Television
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Alabama Public Television is a network of PBS member stations serving the US state of Alabama. The stations are licensed by the Alabama Educational Television Commission which was created by the Alabama state legislature in 1953. The broadcast signals of the nine stations combine to provide complete geographic coverage of the state. The network produces its own news and public affairs programming and broadcasts content produced by the state's universities for online education and course credit as well.
History
The network's first station, with the transmitter atop Cheaha Mountain, began broadcasting in January 1955 as WTIQ (now WCIQ) for Talladega, though the city of license was Munford. When flagship WBIQ in Birmingham came online in April, Alabama Educational Television became the first operational educational television network in the United States. It made its first broadcast as a network shortly after WBIQ signed on. Twenty-five other states have started public television networks, all based on Alabama's model. The network changed its name to Alabama Public Television in the early 1980s.
Today APT's mission continues to be focused mainly on education. It provides educational services to the people of Alabama online, on air from three digital and one analog channel, and through outreach services to educators and service provides statewide.
WAIQ in Andalusia (now WDIQ in Dozier) went on the air in August 1956, bringing APT to south Alabama for the first time before being reassigned to Montgomery in December 1962. WAIQ was the first APT station to broadcast a digital signal as Channel 14 in 2003, but it was later changed to Channel 27 on account of Montgomery station WSFA. Mobile television station WALA-TV donated its former transmitter in Spanish Fort to APT in 1964, allowing WEIQ to bring the network to Mobile and Baldwin counties in November. WEIQ's power was increased during the 1980s.
APT began broadcasting a high definition channel (APT HD) in 2005. In December 2006 it launched a how-to channel featuring established cooking, gardening, decorating, crafts and sewing programs on APT Create. A family learning channel, APT IQ, began airing in March 2007.
In 1976, the FCC delayed renewal of AETC's licenses, on grounds of APT's refusal to air programs pertaining to the Vietnam War or the African-American community. APT management feared that airing these types of programs would have put the network's future in jeopardy, due to potential losses of funding from outraged (politically conservative) public officials. Therefore, APT followed orders by state officials not to air certain programming during the 1960s and 1970s. However, it has taken a more independent stance over the last 30 years.
For longer than a quarter century, Alabama Public Television has aired a public affairs program, For the Record, which takes a very aggressive approach to covering state government. In January 2007, APT reduced the frequency of For The Record to a weekly one-hour slot on Sunday nights after two decades of being a nightly show, the longest-running program of its kind on a PBS affiliate or regional or state network. For The Record: Focus and For the Record: Face to Face (interview show) are two other versions that appear on APT. Capitol Journal, which covers the Alabama Legislature's activities, is aired during times when the Legislature is in session.
In August 2004, APT began datacasting on its digital broadcast signals to distribute digital multimedia content to ten elementary and secondary schools, in a pilot program.
Stations
Alabama Public Television has 9 affiliates. Each callsign ends with the letters "IQ" meaning "intelligence quotient". (There are no other stations that follow the W-IQ Format, although there are two other stations ending in IQ: KVIQ and KFIQ.) The current number of affiliates have been in operation since 1971.
| Station | Signal Reach |
| WAIQ | the southern portion of the geographical center of the state. |
| WBIQ | the northern portion of the geographical center of Alabama and the west central counties of the state including the city of Tuscaloosa to the Mississippi state line |
| WCIQ | the east central portion of the state to the Georgia state line |
| WDIQ | the south central portion of the state to the Florida state line |
| WEIQ | Mobile and Baldwin counties along Alabama's Gulf Coast and several counties to the north as well as parts of southeastern Mississippi and northwestern Florida |
| WFIQ | the northwestern portion of the state and some counties in southern central Tennessee and northeastern Mississippi |
| WGIQ | most of the southeastern portion of the state and some parts of southwestern Georgia |
| WHIQ | most of the north central and northeastern portion of the state as well as some counties in southern central Tennessee |
| WIIQ | much of southwestern Alabama in the region known as the "Black Belt" |
On all stations, HDTV is on subchannel 1, and SDTV is on subchannel 2. The date the station commenced broadcasting is in parentheses. The network's offices and Network Operations Center are located in Birmingham, but APT also operates a studio in Montgomery for pledge drives and For the Record. The AETC also operates a public radio station, WLRH-FM 89.3, in Huntsville.
Digital Television
APT has 3 digital sub-channels.
Digital channels| Sub-channel | Programming |
|---|---|
| .1 | APT HD |
| .2 | APT Create |
| .3 | APT IQ |
Post-switchoff
In 2009, after the analog switchoff and digital coversion,
- WAIQ will move from channel 26 to 27.
- WBIQ will move its digital broadcast to channel 10, which was previously occupied by its analog signal.
- WCIQ will move its digital broadcast to channel 7, which was previously occupied by its analog signal.
- WDIQ will move its digital broadcast to channel 2, which was previously occupied by its analog signal.
- WEIQ will move from channel 42 to 41.
- WFIQ will move from channel 36 to 22.
- WGIQ will move from channel 43 to 44.
- WHIQ will move from channel 25 to 24.
- WIIQ will move from channel 41 to 19.