Branding WKNO Channel 10 | Affiliations PBS | |
Slogan Public Broadcasting for the Mid-South Channels Digital: 29 (UHF)
Virtual: 10 (PSIP) Owner Mid-South Public Communications Foundation First air date June 25, 1956; 60 years ago (1956-06-25) | ||
WKNO, virtual channel 10 (UHF digital channel 29), is a PBS member television station located in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. The station is owned and operated by the Mid-South Public Communications Foundation, a non-profit organization governed by a board of trustees composed of volunteers, and is operated alongside NPR member radio station WKNO-FM (91.1). WKNO maintains studios and offices in Cordova, and its transmitter is also located there.
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History
The station first signed on the air on June 25, 1956 as Tennessee's first public television outlet. Its studios were first located in midtown Memphis, but would move several years later to rented space on the campus of Memphis State University (now University of Memphis); in 1979, the studios were relocated a few blocks to the south, to the southern annex of the MSU campus on Getwell Road. That facility served the station for 30 years until November 2009, when the station moved into a custom-designed all-digital studio facility in Cordova.
From 1968 to 1981, WKNO's programming was repeated on WLJT in Lexington for viewers in the remainder of western Tennessee outside the Memphis metropolitan area. Afterward, that station eventually began broadcasting a separate programming schedule, including programming of local interest to that region.
Unlike most of Tennessee's public television outlets, WKNO has never had direct or indirect ties to the state government, even though during its early years the station would identify as "Tennessee Educational Television" during in-school hours and "Tennessee Public Television" during off-school hours, including prime time.
Digital channels
The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
Analog-to-digital conversion
WKNO discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 10, on May 1, 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 29, using PSIP to display WKNO's virtual channel as 10 on digital television receivers.