South Carolina Educational Television


South Carolina Educational Television is a state network of Public Broadcasting Service member television stations serving the U.S. state of South Carolina. It is owned and operated by the South Carolina Educational Television Commission, an agency of the state government which holds the licenses for all of the PBS member stations licensed in the state. The broadcast signals of the eleven television stations cover almost all of the state, as well as parts of North Carolina and Georgia.
The network's primary operations are located on George Rogers Boulevard in Columbia, across from Williams-Brice Stadium on the campus of the University of South Carolina; SCETV operates satellite studios in Spartanburg, Sumter and Rock Hill.

History

The state network began in 1957, after the South Carolina General Assembly authorized a study in the use of instructional television in the state's public schools. A studio was opened in the library of Dreher High School in Columbia. The first telecourses aired on September 8, 1958 via closed circuit television. By action of the South Carolina General Assembly, The South Carolina ETV Commission was created as a state agency and began operations on July 1, 1960, and by 1962 it extended closed-circuit, classroom television service to all 46 South Carolina counties.
In 1963, the Commission launched the first open-circuit educational station in South Carolina, WNTV in Greenville. One year later, WITV in Charleston signed on. Two years later, WRLK-TV in Columbia, made its debut. The network grew to eleven television transmitters covering all of the state. After years of receiving NET and PBS programs on tape delay, it entered PBS' satellite network in 1978. In 2000, SCETV broadcast the first digital television program in the state. Since 2003, the state network identifies on-air as simply "ETV."
The Commission entered public radio in 1972, when WEPR in Clemson signed on the air. The state radio network eventually expanded to eight stations and was called the South Carolina Educational Radio Network until 2003, when it was renamed ETV Radio. While "ETV" generally refers to television, SCETV viewed "ETV" as a general brand name for both its radio and television properties. In 2015, however, the radio network rebranded as South Carolina Public Radio.
R. Lynn Kalmbach was selected as the network's project director in 1958 and led it until his death in 1965. Henry J. Cauthen became ETV's president and general manager and served in numerous leadership roles developing American public broadcasting, including chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Cauthen retired in 1997. Paul Amos took the helm as ETV's third president in 1998 until his death in 2000. Maurice "Moss" Bresnahan joined ETV as president and CEO from 2001 to 2008. David Crouch served as interim president in 2009. Linda O'Bryon served as president from 2010 to 2017. Anthony Padgett is the current president and CEO.

Digital TV era

Despite the DTV Delay Act national transition extension to June 12, 2009, SCETV discontinued the analog signals of its 11 full-power stations February 18, 2009.
Each station's post-transition digital allocations and the FCC Repack Plan are as follows:
Call LettersInitial Analog
Channel		Pre-Transition
Digital Channel		Post-Transition
Digital Channel		FCC Repack
Plan
WNTV29998
WITV74979
WRLK35323233
WJPM33454516
WEBA14333321
WJWJ16444432
WRJA27282829
WNSC30151534
WHMC239911
WRET494343off-the-air
WNEH38181826

On April 13, 2017, the FCC identified SCETV will be compensated $43.2 million to have WRET-TV go off-the-air as part of the Spectrum auction. WRET will relinquish RF 43 and go into a channel sharing arrangement with WNTV, starting on January 23, 2018. On August 30, 2017, PBS Kids was added on new subchannel.4 and online.
On October 31, 2017, SCETV submitted an application to change the digital terrestrial signal of WITV from channel 7 to channel 24 ; the changeover is scheduled to take place between May and July 2020.

Commission

There are nine members of the ETV Commission. Eight are appointed by the Governor for six-year terms—one from each Congressional District and one from the State at-large who serves as Chairman. The ninth member is the State Superintendent of Education who is ex-officio.

Network

SCETV's television network consists of 11 digital transmitters that cover almost all of South Carolina, as well as eastern portions of Georgia and southern portions of North Carolina. SCETV's headquarters and main production facility is located in Columbia, with production facilities in Rock Hill, Spartanburg and Sumter.

Regional television stations

SCETV initially planned to make all eleven of its television stations capable of airing local programming. Four full-fledged stations were built and staffed in Beaufort, Rock Hill, Spartanburg and Sumter before the idea was abandoned in the early 1980s. After a massive reduction in force in 2004, the stations were downgraded to production facilities. In 2012, WJWJ-TV in Beaufort was converted into a repeater of the network.
The original plan was for each station to carry callsigns of the form WxTV, but after WNTV and WITV signed on it was determined that there were not enough such callsigns available. Beginning with the third station, WRLK-TV in Columbia, most of the remaining callsigns represent prominent officials who either supported SCETV or represented the station's coverage area.
The SCETV stations are:
StationCity of license
Channels
'		First air dateCall letters' meaningERPHAATTransmitter coordinatesFacility IDPublic license information
WNTVGreenville29
8 		65 kW61010
WITVCharleston7
7 ; to move to 24 		20 kW61005
WRLK-TV1
"ETV Headquarters"		Columbia35
33 		R. Lynn Kalmbach 62 kW61013
WJPM-TVFlorence33
16 		James Pierce Mozingo III 45 kW61008
WEBA-TVAllendale
14
21 		Edgar Brown Allendale427 kW61003
WJWJ-TV2
"ETV Lowcountry"		Beaufort
16
32 		James M. Waddell, Jr. 117 kW
385 kW
61007
WRJA-TV1
"ETV Sumter"		Sumter27
29 		R. J. Aycock 98.4 kW61012
WNSC-TV1
"ETV Carolinas"		Rock Hill
30
34 		North and South Carolina403 kW61009
WHMC4Conway
23
28 		Horry County, Myrtle Beach, Conway950 kW61004
WRET-TV1,3
"ETV Upstate"		Spartanburg49
8
Richard E. Tukey 50 kW61011
WNEH'''Greenwood
38
26 		49 kW60931

Notes:
SCETV offers four digital television services available over-the-air, and through the digital tiers of some cable television providers. ETV HD is the primary feed with high definition content from PBS and SCETV broadcast in the 1080i resolution format. The South Carolina Channel carries the national Create service daily, with regionally produced documentary programs focusing on the Carolinas airing during the evening hours. ETV World provides live newscasts from Europe, notably from Germany's Deutsche Welle and the United Kingdom's BBC television networks, along with live coverage from the South Carolina State House. SCETV PBS Kids is the fourth channel, a 24/7 service also available online. SCC, ETVW and ETVK are transmitted in 480i standard definition.
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP Short NameProgramming
xx.11080iETVMain SCETV programming / PBS
xx.2480iSCCSouth Carolina Channel
xx.3480iETVWETV World
xx.4480iETVKPBS Kids Channel

Cable and satellite availability

SCETV's television network is carried on nearly every cable television provider in South Carolina. Additionally, Rock Hill's WNSC-TV is carried on Charter Spectrum's systems on the North Carolina side of the Charlotte market.
On DirecTV and Dish Network, WRLK-TV, WNTV, WITV, WNSC-TV, WJWJ-TV, WEBA-TV and WJPM-TV are respectively carried on the Columbia, Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville, Charleston, Charlotte, Savannah, Augusta and Florence/Myrtle Beach local feeds. The South Carolina Channel, ETV World and SCETV PBS Kids have yet to be offered by satellite services.

Logos

SCETV original programming (current and past)

Television programming

Historical: