Branding GPB | Channels Digital: 8 (VHF/PSIP) | |
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Slogan Television Worth Sharing Subchannels 8.1 - GPB/PBS HD (1080i)
8.2 - GPB Create TV (480i)
8.3 - GPB Knowledge (480i) Owner Georgia Public Broadcasting
(Georgia Public Telecommunications Commission) First air date November 19, 1961; 55 years ago (1961-11-19) | ||
WXGA-TV, virtual and VHF digital channel 8, is a PBS member television station serving Valdosta, Georgia, United States that is licensed to Waycross. The station is owned by the Georgia Public Telecommunications Commission, and is a sister station to NPR member radio station WXVS (90.1 FM). WXGA-TV maintains transmitter facilities located on TV Tower Road in unincorporated Ware County. The station is operated as part of the Georgia Public Broadcasting television network.
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History
The station first signed on the air on November 19, 1961; it was the third educational television station to sign on in the state of Georgia (after WETV [now WPBA-TV] in Atlanta and sister station WGTV in Athens). It was the first in a group of three educational stations that were founded by the Georgia State Board of Education in the early 1960s, along with WVAN-TV in Savannah and WJSP-TV in Columbus. In 1965, the University of Georgia and the board merged their efforts as Georgia Educational Television, which evolved into the present GPB Television network.
Digital television
WXGA-TV broadcasts the following digital subchannels:
Analog-to-digital conversion
In 2001, WXGA began transmitting a digital signal on VHF channel 9; however, the signal operated at a low power of only 20 kilowatts, in order to prevent interference with sister station WVAN, which broadcast its analog signal on channel 9.
WXGA-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 8, on February 17, 2009, the original target date in which full-power television station 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 9 to channel 8.