Channels Digital: 7 (VHF)
Virtual: 7 (PSIP) Subchannels 7.1 PBS
7.2 World
7.3 Create
7.4 PBS Kids Owner KSPS Public Television
(Friends of KSPS) First air date April 24, 1967; 49 years ago (1967-04-24) Call letters' meaning Spokane Public Schools (former licensee)
or
Spokane's Seven Former channel number(s) Analog:
7 (VHF, 1967–2009)
Digital:
8 (VHF, until 2009) | ||
KSPS-TV is the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) public television station in Spokane, Washington. It also has viewership in the province of Alberta, Canada, including the cities of Edmonton and Calgary. The station broadcasts its main signal from its site at Krell Hill, also known as "Tower Mountain", with its general studios at Joel E. Ferris High School in the South Gate neighborhood on Spokane's south side. KSPS can be seen in high-definition on channel 107 on Comcast in the Spokane area, and channel 707 in the Coeur d'Alene and Palouse areas, as well as on channel 7 on Dish Network and DirecTV in both standard and high-definition. In the Edmonton area it is broadcast on Channel 22 on Shaw Cable, and Channel 140 on Telus Optik TV. In the Calgary area it is broadcast on Channel 14 on Shaw Cable, and Channel 140 on Telus Optik TV.
Contents
History
In spring 1967, the station first signed on the air, from the basement of Adams Elementary of Spokane Public Schools. A series of school levy failures in the early 1970s forced the station to secure alternate funding and, in 1972, Friends of Seven, later known as Friends of KSPS, was founded to provide financial support to KSPS.
On July 26, 2012, the board of Spokane Public Schools voted unanimously to spin off KSPS to the Friends of KSPS. A day later, the Friends of KSPS board also voted unanimously to move forward with taking full control of the station. The transition from an educational license to a community license was completed in fall 2013. School board employees working for KSPS would become employees of the non-profit organization. Gary Stokes, the executive director of the Friends of KSPS, says that he hopes to "keep things as business-as-usual as possible. That includes keeping the employees a part of our station." Friends of KSPS has become the primary financial supporter for the station in recent years and Stokes said he believed that his organization was in a position to take over the station outright. The station plans to remain at Ferris High School in the short term; the school board has no plans to sell the building in which the station is located. Soon after the sale closed and the station officially became a community-licensed station, Friends of KSPS changed its name to KSPS Public Television.
Programming
KSPS provides programing from PBS and local sources. The station's main signal reaches parts of Washington and Idaho, and it operates a translator network covering parts of Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Montana. It is also carried on cable in most of Alberta and parts of British Columbia, and on satellite systems across western Canada. Montana and Alberta are on the Mountain Time Zone, and programs are viewed one hour later by local time.
The majority of the station's donations from pledge drives come from Calgary and Edmonton. Calgary and Edmonton each have populations which are more than double the entire population of KSPS's American coverage area, and most of the station's members live in those two cities. Not only must KSPS take its large Canadian audience into account in its programming, but a significant portion of its donations are in Canadian dollars. It is one of five local Spokane TV stations seen in Canada on Shaw Cable.
It was the first station to carry Mary Ann Wilson's Sit and Be Fit program, as KSPS serves as the primary production studio and distributor of the series since it debuted in 1987.
Tower collapse
On November 29, 2006, ice and wind caused the top 200 feet (60 meters) of the station's antenna at the Krell Hill transmission site to collapse, disrupting its off-air signal. Other area television broadcasters promised to lend short-term support. Cable and satellite feeds in the U.S. and Canada were not affected, as fiber is used to transmit the signal to the head ends. Over-the-air broadcasts were interrupted for almost a month while the tower was being repaired.
Digital channels
The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
Analog-to-digital conversion
KSPS-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 7, 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 (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition VHF channel 8 to channel 7 for post-transition operations.
Translators
The following translators re-broadcast KSPS-TV:
*Note that some of the translators on this list are confirmed on the KSPS-TV website but they do not have any known FCC data. There are also some translators that are not on the list at the KSPS-TV website, but are listed on the RabbitEars website under the states of Washington, Idaho, Montana and/or Oregon.