Branding WNIN | ||
Slogan Building A Better Tri-State, Together Channels Digital: 9 (VHF)
Virtual: 9 (PSIP) Subchannels 9.1 PBS
9.2 Create
9.3 PBS Kids
9.4 WNIN-FM Affiliations PBS (1970–1972 and since 1973) Owner WNIN Tri-State Public Media, Inc. | ||
WNIN is a public television station in Evansville, Indiana, broadcasting locally on channel 9 as a PBS member station. The station is owned by WNIN Tri-State Public Media, who also owns sister station WNIN-FM, the local NPR member station. The station broadcasts from the Willard Carpenter House in downtown Evansville, which is on the United States National Register of Historic Places. Brad Kimmel is the president of WNIN. On cable, WNIN is available on WOW! channel 2 and Charter Spectrum channel 9 in standard definition; and in high definition on WOW! digital channel 802 and Spectrum channel 916.
Contents
Background
WNIN signed on for the first time on March 5, 1970 owned by the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation. After a few months as a member of National Educational Television, it joined PBS in October.
Despite having the advantage of being on one of two VHF frequencies in the Tri-State, EVSC soon found itself in over its head running a full-service public television station. Within a year, WNIN was $59,000 in the red. Unable to raise enough money to close the gap, it took WNIN off the air in 1972. A year later, a group of Tri-State citizens formed Southwest Indiana Public Television (later known as Tri-State Public Teleplex and now known as Tri-State Public Media) and returned the station to the air. It bought the Carpenter House in 1986 and retired the mortgage on it three years later with the help of a capital campaign.
WNIN also programs and transmits two local cable channels: WNIN Learn (Cable 12) and WNIN Create (Cable 13). These channels are available on two local cable TV operators (Insight (now Time Warner Cable) and WOW - Wide Open West). WNIN Learn airs local Government-access television (GATV) for Vanderburgh County and Evansville City government meetings produced off-site inside the Carpenter House via remote-controlled cameras located in the Vanderburgh County Civic Center. WNIN Learn also airs repeats of some PBS Kids programs. WNIN Create simulcasts the national PBS Create channel which features how-to, creative and cooking programs.
Local programs produced by WNIN include "Lawmakers" and "Newsmakers," as well as various live debates and local documentaries. As of 2010, all local programming is available online via the station's implementation of the PBS COVE platform.
Digital channels
The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
The station carries Create on digital channel 9.2. The station carries PBS Kids on digital channel 9.3. Digital channel 9.4 is an audio simulcast of sister NPR member station WNIN-FM.
Analog-to-digital conversion
WNIN discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 9, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition VHF channel 12 to channel 9.
Indiana Channel
WNIN is the programming hub of the Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations (IPBS) project, the Indiana Channel. Currently, the Indiana Channel runs on digital subchannel 9.2 (WNIN Create) from 4-7 p.m. every weekday.