Smoky Hills Public Television

Last updated
Smoky Hills Public Television
Shptv.png
western Kansas
United States
BrandingSmoky Hills Public Television
SloganMaking Kansas a Better Place to Live and Work
Channels Digital: see table below
Subchannels x.1 PBS SD
x.2 PBS HD
x.3 PBS Kids
x.4 Create
Affiliations PBS
OwnerSmoky Hills Public Television Corporation
First air dateNovember 10, 1982;36 years ago (1982-11-10)
Call letters' meaning see table below
Transmitter power see table below
Height see table below
Facility ID see table below
Transmitter coordinates see table below
Licensing authority FCC
Public license information: Hills Public Television Profile
Hills Public Television CDBS
Website www.shptv.org

Smoky Hills Public Television is a regional network of PBS member television stations serving central and western portions of the U.S. state of Kansas. It is operated by the Smoky Hills Public Television Corporation, which holds the licenses for all the PBS member stations licensed in the network. The broadcast signals of the four stations cover most of the western half of the state outside Wichita.

Smoky Hills

The Smoky Hills are an upland region of hills in the central Great Plains of North America. They are located in the Midwestern United States, encompassing north-central Kansas and a small portion of south-central Nebraska.

A state network in the United States broadcasting industry is a quasi-regional network of television stations, composed of a designated flagship station that originates the programming and several full-power satellite stations and low-power translators that relay a full-time or part-time simulcast of the main station's content throughout sections if not the entirety of a U.S. state and, in some cases, portions of adjoining states.

PBS Public television network in the United States

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and television program distributor. It is a nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educational television programming to public television stations in the United States, distributing series such as American Experience, America's Test Kitchen, Antiques Roadshow, Arthur, Downton Abbey, Finding Your Roots, Frontline, The Magic School Bus, Masterpiece, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Nature, Nova, the PBS NewsHour, Sesame Street, and This Old House.

Contents

The network produces public affairs programming and holds the broadcast rights to several Kansas high school athletic championship events sanctioned by the Kansas State High School Activities Association. The network's offices and network operations center are located in Bunker Hill (just east of Russell), in a historic native stone building.

In broadcasting, public affairs radio or television programs focus on matters of politics and public policy. Among commercial broadcasters, such programs are often only to satisfy Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulatory expectations and are not scheduled in prime time. Public affairs television programs are usually broadcast at times when few listeners or viewers are tuned in in the U.S., in time slots known as graveyard slots; such programs can be frequently encountered at times such as 5-6 a.m. on a Sunday.

Kansas State High School Activities Association organization

The Kansas State High School Activities Association (KSHSAA) is the organization which oversees interscholastic competition in the U.S. state of Kansas at the high-school level. It oversees both athletic and non-athletic competition, and sponsors championships in several sports and activities.

Bunker Hill, Kansas City in Kansas, United States

Bunker Hill is a city in Russell County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population of the city was 95.

History

The Smoky Hills Public Television Corporation was founded in 1978, with the intent to start a non-commercial educational television station in western Kansas. This region is part of the Wichita/Hutchinson Plus market, an unusually large market that covers over 70 counties stretching from the Flint Hills to the Colorado border–almost three-fourths of the state. It is the largest designated market area (DMA) by number of counties in the United States. Previously, much of the area received PBS programming on cable via either Wichita member station KPTS (channel 8) or Denver member station KRMA (channel 6).

The term non-commercial educational (NCE) applies to a radio station or TV station that does not accept on-air advertisements, as defined in the United States by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). NCE stations do not pay broadcast license fees for their non-profit uses of the radio spectrum. Stations which are almost always operated as NCE include public broadcasting, community radio, and college radio, as well as many religious broadcasting stations.

Hutchinson, Kansas City and County seat in Kansas, United States

Hutchinson is the largest city and county seat in Reno County, Kansas, United States, and located on the Arkansas River. It has been home to salt mines since 1887, thus its nickname of "Salt City", but locals call it "Hutch". As of the 2010 census, the city population was 42,080.

A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same television and radio station offerings, and may also include other types of media including newspapers and Internet content. They can coincide or overlap with one or more metropolitan areas, though rural regions with few significant population centers can also be designated as markets. Conversely, very large metropolitan areas can sometimes be subdivided into multiple segments. Market regions may overlap, meaning that people residing on the edge of one media market may be able to receive content from other nearby markets. They are widely used in audience measurements, which are compiled in the United States by Nielsen Media Research. Nielsen measures both television and radio audiences since its acquisition of Arbitron, which was completed in September 2013.

Flagship station KOOD (channel 16) in Hays was the first station in the network to sign on the air on November 10, 1982. This was followed by the debut of full-power satellites KSWK (channel 8) in Lakin on March 15, 1989 and KDCK (channel 21) in Dodge City on March 3, 1998. KWKS (channel 19) in Colby was the last satellite to sign on, debuting as a digital-only station, in June 2007.

In broadcasting, a flagship is the broadcast station which originates a television network, or a particular radio or television program that plays a key role in the branding of and consumer loyalty to a network or station. This includes both direct network feeds and broadcast syndication, but generally not backhauls. Not all networks or shows have a flagship station, as some originate from a dedicated radio or television studio.

Hays, Kansas City and County seat in Kansas, United States

Hays is a city in and the county seat of Ellis County, Kansas, United States. The largest city in northwestern Kansas, it is the economic and cultural center of the region. It is also a college town, home to Fort Hays State University. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 20,510.

Lakin, Kansas City and County seat in Kansas, United States

Lakin is a city in and the county seat of Kearny County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 2,216.

Most viewers watch SHPTV's programming through cable, which is all but essential for acceptable television in most of this vast area due to its hilly terrain. In 2005, satellite providers DirecTV and Dish Network began carrying the network in the Wichita market, boosting its potential viewership to over 1.5 million people in Kansas and Nebraska.

DirecTV direct broadcast satellite & streaming TV company

DirecTV is an American direct broadcast satellite service provider based in El Segundo, California and is a subsidiary of AT&T. Its satellite service, launched on June 17, 1994, transmits digital satellite television and audio to households in the United States, Latin America, Americas and the Caribbean. Its primary competitors are Dish Network and cable television providers. On July 24, 2015, after receiving approval from the United States Federal Communications Commission and United States Department of Justice, AT&T acquired DirecTV in a transaction valued at $67.1 billion.

Dish Network company

Dish Network Corporation is a U.S. television provider. Based in Meridian, Colorado, it is the owner of the direct-broadcast satellite provider Dish, and the over-the-top IPTV service Sling TV. As of November 2016, the company provided services to 13.7 million television and 580,000 broadband subscribers. The company has approximately 17,000 employees.

Nebraska State of the United States of America

Nebraska is a state that lies in both the Great Plains and the Midwestern United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwest; and Wyoming to the west. It is the only triply landlocked U.S. state.

Stations

Station City of license Channels
(Digital)		First air date Call letters’
meaning 		ERP
(Digital)		 HAAT
(Digital)		 Facility ID Transmitter coordinates
KOOD Hays 16 (UHF)
9 (PSIP)		November 10, 1982;36 years ago496  kW 304 m (997 ft)60675 38°46′16″N98°44′17″W / 38.77111°N 98.73806°W / 38.77111; -98.73806 (KOOD)
KSWK Lakin 8 (VHF)
3 (PSIP)		March 15, 1989;29 years agoSouth
Western
Kansas		33 kW153 m (502 ft)60683 37°49′39.9″N101°6′36.9″W / 37.827750°N 101.110250°W / 37.827750; -101.110250 (KSWK)
KDCK1 Dodge City 21 (UHF)
21 (PSIP)		March 1998;20 years agoDodge
City
Kansas		8.42 kW99 m (325 ft)79258 37°49′32.8″N100°10′42.5″W / 37.825778°N 100.178472°W / 37.825778; -100.178472 (KDCK)
KWKS1 Colby 19 (UHF)
19 (PSIP)		June 2007;11 years agoWestern
KansaS		464 kW383 m (1,257 ft)162115 39°14′31″N101°21′40″W / 39.24194°N 101.36111°W / 39.24194; -101.36111 (KWKS)

Notes:

Program and System Information Protocol

The Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) is the MPEG and privately defined program-specific information originally defined by General Instrument for the DigiCipher 2 system and later extended for the ATSC digital television system for carrying metadata about each channel in the broadcast MPEG transport stream of a television station and for publishing information about television programs so that viewers can select what to watch by title and description.

Until 2009, Smoky Hills Public Television also relayed its signal on seven low-power translator stations:

Station City of license Channels
K15CG15 (UHF) Oakley
K23BU23 (UHF) Goodland
K32BY32 (UHF) Oberlin
K39BS39 (UHF) Norton
K64BS64 (UHF) Concordia
K66CD66 (UHF) Phillipsburg
K69DB69 (UHF) Hoxie

The Hoxie translator was owned by the government of Sheridan County, the others were owned by the Smoky Hills Public Television Corporation. All of the translators were taken out of service upon the digital television transition in 2009.

Digital television

Digital channels

The digital channels of each of the Smoky Hills Public Television stations are multiplexed:

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming [1] [2] [3] [4]
x.1 480i 4:3 SHPTV-DTMain SHPTV programming / PBS SD
x.2480i/1080i 4:3/16:9 SHPTV-HDMain SHPTV programming / PBS HD**
x.3480i4:3SHPTV-DT3 PBS Kids*
x.4SHPTV-DT4 Create*

Notes:

Analog-to-digital conversion

Although the DTV Delay Act extended the mandatory deadline to June 12, 2009, Smoky Hills Public Television shut down the analog signals of two of its stations as originally scheduled on February 17, 2009, the original date in which full-power television stations in the United States were scheduled to transition from analog to digital broadcasts. KOOD and KSWK shut down their respective analog signals, over UHF channel 16 and VHF channel 8, on that date. KOOD's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 16; KSWK's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 47. [5] Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display KOOD's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 9 and KSWK's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 3.

Programming

Locally produced programs broadcast by Smoky Hills Public Television include the medical advice program Doctors On Call, the public affairs program The Kansas Legislature , the high school sports highlight program Scoreboard Show and the music program Down Home Country: Live in Branson . The network also holds broadcast rights to the Miss Southwest Kansas Pageant as well as several Kansas high school athletic championship events sanctioned by the Kansas State High School Activities Association (including the Eight-Man Division 1 and 2 Football Championship games, Class 3-2-1A state wrestling tournament and the Class 1A girls' and boys' basketball tournament championship games). Smoky Hills Public Television also broadcasts the Signature Auction, an annual fundraiser held each March; as well as Kansas Candidates, an ongoing series held during the election season.

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References

  1. ↑ RabbitEars TV Query for KOOD
  2. ↑ RabbitEars TV Query for KDCK
  3. ↑ RabbitEars TV Query for KWKS
  4. ↑ RabbitEars TV Query for KSWK
  5. ↑ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and Second Rounds" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-03-24.
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