KLRU


KLRU, virtual channel 18, branded on-air as Austin PBS, is a PBS member television station licensed to Austin, Texas, United States. The station is owned by the Capital of Texas Public Telecommunications Council. KLRU's studios are located on Guadalupe and Dean Keeton streets on rented space at the University of Texas at Austin, and its transmitter is located in the West Austin Antenna Farm in unincorporated Travis County. In addition to airing program content from PBS, it produces original programming including the national music series Austin City Limits.
On cable, KLRU can be seen on Charter Spectrum and Grande Communications channel 9.

History

The station first signed on the air on May 3, 1979 as a satellite of KLRN in San Antonio. Before KLRU's sign-on, KLRN had served both cities from the Jesse H. Jones Communications Center on the UT Austin campus. Channel 18 had been allocated to Austin as a noncommercial frequency in the early 1950s, but it was thought that a UHF station would not be nearly adequate enough to provide educational television for a market that stretched from Mason in the west to La Grange in the east. This left Austin as one of the largest cities without its own PBS station. By the late 1970s, cable had gained enough penetration in Austin to make a PBS station viable in the capital.
From the day KLRU signed on, KLRN's owner, the Southwest Texas Public Broadcasting Council, set about making it a separate station. Only a year after KLRU hit the airwaves, it received its own Austin-based governing board, though it continued under the ownership of the Southwest Texas Public Broadcasting Council. In 1984, after KLRN moved to a new tower in San Antonio, KLRU adopted a separate Austin-focused programming schedule. In 1987, the two stations officially went their separate ways, with KLRU coming under the ownership of the Capital of Texas Public Broadcasting Council, which continues to own the station today.
In addition to the Austin market, KLRU claims Bell and Falls counties, which are in the Waco/Temple/Bryan market, as part of its primary coverage area. It became the default PBS member station for the western half of the Waco market via cable after KNCT ended its membership with PBS on August 31, 2018.
On November 4, 2019, the station rebranded as Austin PBS with a new logo to coincide with PBS' rebranding the same day and the 50th anniversary of the parent network.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP Short NameProgramming
18.11080iKLRU-HDMain KLRU programming / PBS
18.2480iKLRU-CRCreate
18.3480iKLRU-QQ
18.4480iPBSKidsPBS Kids

Analog-to-digital conversion

KLRU shut down its analog signal on April 16, 2009. Before shutting down the signal forever, it played its nightly sign-off from the 70's one last time. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 22, using PSIP to display KLRU's virtual channel as 18 on digital television receivers.

Programs produced by KLRU