Branding WUFT-TV
"Florida's 5" | Affiliations PBS (since 1970) | |
Channels Digital: 36 (UHF)
Virtual: 5 (PSIP) Subchannels 5.1 PBS
5.2 TFC/Create
5.3 World
5.4 PBS Kids Owner University of Florida
(Board of Trustees, University of Florida) First air date November 17, 1958; 58 years ago (1958-11-17) | ||
WUFT channel 5 is a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) member Public television station owned by the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida.
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History
WUFT first signed on the air November 17, 1958 as the third educational television station in Florida. Gainesville is unique in that a public television station is the market's oldest television station (Gainesville's first commercial television station, WCJB-TV, did not sign on until 1971). It serves 16 counties in north-central Florida. For decades, it has also been available on cable in Jacksonville.
Newscasts
WUFT-TV broadcasts local newscasts staffed and produced by students in the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. WUFT-TV broadcasts two main newscasts, along with a variety of special reports and half-hour specials. "First Edition", currently a six-minute newscast, airs weekdays at noontime for 100 shows per year. "First at Five" (the main newscast, formerly known as "WUFT News", "Report 5" and "Evening News") is a half-hour weekday newscast at 5:00pm which airs 200+ days per year. Starting in the Spring of 2014, WUFT-TV added a 6:00pm newscast, that is also thirty minutes long.
WUFT rebranded in August 2010, calling itself "Florida's 5".
Digital channels
The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
Analog-to-digital conversion
WUFT discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 5, 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 remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 36. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 5.