KERA-TV


KERA-TV is a PBS member television station licensed to Dallas, Texas, United States, serving the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. Owned by North Texas Public Broadcasting, Inc., it is sister to NPR member station KERA, adult album alternative station KKXT, and classical music station WRR. The stations share studios on Harry Hines Boulevard; KERA-TV's transmitter is located in Cedar Hill, Texas.

History

The VHF channel 13 allocation in the Dallas–Fort Worth market—which the Federal Communications Commission reserved for non-commercial educational use in its list of frequencies assigned for broadcast television transmissions—was originally applied for use by Southern Methodist University in the late 1950s; however, the university had trouble raising enough funds for its planned educational station's start-up, programming and operational costs.
In 1958, the Dallas Independent School District partnered with local nonprofit corporation Area Education Television Foundation, Inc. to apply for the allocation. In October of that year, W. T. White, then-superintendent of the DISD, announced that the station was slated to sign on the air by the beginning of the 1959–60 school year; programming on channel 13 was scheduled to include Spanish-language instructional programming for area elementary school students. The foundation had difficulty in meeting its fundraising goals to obtain start-up costs for the commencement of operations and broadcasts of its educational station; by May 1959, the foundation was said to be $265,000 short of its $890,000 target to cover the proposed station's first two years of broadcasting.
The original license application filed by the organization-school district partnership had obtained permission from the FCC to operate the station from broadcast facilities located in Fair Park. However, in January 1960, the partnership applied for permission to broadcast from studios on Harry Hines Boulevard that were set to be vacated by ABC affiliate WFAA-TV, which had been used by that station since its sign-on in September 1949. A. H. Belo Corporation was in the process of building new studio facilities at Young and Houston Streets to accommodate the operations of local newspaper The Dallas Morning News, WFAA television, and its companion radio stations. The Dallas Independent School District purchased the building on Harry Hines for $400,000.
KERA-TV signed on the air on September 11, 1960, originally serving as a member station of National Educational Television. It originally operated from temporary studio facilities at the Davis Building—located behind the original WFAA studios—in downtown Dallas, in two portable buildings that were made to resemble a schoolhouse. It also used the original transmission tower used by WFAA-TV from 1960 to 1971, before moving its transmitter to a tower in Cedar Hill owned by then-independent station KTVT until 2009, when KTVT moved its transmitter to a different tower site a short distance away. However, KERA's transmitter only produced a medium-power signal that covered Dallas and surrounding suburbs in Dallas, Collin, Hunt, Rockwall, Ellis and Kaufman counties. The station would migrate its operations to the Harry Hines Boulevard facility in April 1961.
During its first years of operation, KERA benefitted frequently through help from commercial broadcast stations in the Metroplex. The Dallas Independent School District also paid the station to carry instructional telecourses that it would produce for broadcast on channel 13. The issues concerning channel 13's limited signal range would be resolved on August 31, 1970, when a new transmitter was installed that expanded KERA's signal coverage into Fort Worth and surrounding communities in Tarrant, Denton, Wise, Parker, Hood and Johnson counties. That same year, KERA became a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service, which was launched as an independent entity to supersede NET and took over many of the functions of its predecessor network.
In 1974, KERA gained a sister station on radio, when National Public Radio station KERA signed on the air on 90.1 FM; over time, KERA radio would expand its reach throughout North Texas through the launch of translators in Wichita Falls, Tyler and Sherman. That year, channel 13 became the first television station in the United States to broadcast episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus; the station is often credited with introducing the British comedy series to American audiences, which eventually gave Flying Circus a cult following.
On September 1, 1988, North Texas Public Broadcasting signed on KDTN in Denton to serve as the market's secondary PBS member station, a project which the organization had been working on since May 1977, when it filed an FCC application for a construction permit to build an educational station on VHF channel 2. The organization primarily used KDTN to run educational and instructional programs that had previously filled much of KERA's daytime schedule, along with carrying some programs produced by the University of North Texas. At that time, KERA shifted its schedule to offering primarily entertainment programming from PBS and other public television program distributors such as American Public Television; channel 13 also identified Denton as part of the station's service area in station identifications during the period it operated KDTN.
After making the decision to divest the secondary outlet on the basis that its funding was no longer sufficient to continue operating two television stations in the Metroplex, North Texas Public Broadcasting sold KDTN to religious broadcaster Daystar—which bought the station in a $20 million deal in order to get a better signal in the market to replace its original flagship, KMPX, which it sold in turn—on August 12, 2003; the acquisition was finalized on January 13, 2004.
Through a special arrangement, KERA announced plans to continue carrying programming sourced from the station over KDTN's digital signal, in order to free up bandwidth on KERA's main digital signal to allow the station to begin transmitting high-definition content on digital channel 13.1. This has never been utilized as improvements in multiplexing technology have allowed a high-definition channel to exist with standard-definition channels, and KERA has had no need to use KDTN's bandwidth.

Programming

As a PBS member station, much of KERA's programming consists of educational and entertainment programming distributed by PBS to its member stations, which include NOVA, the PBS NewsHour, Antiques Roadshow, Arthur, Frontline, Masterpiece, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Nature and Sesame Street. While there is cross-promotion between KERA-TV and the KERA, KKXT and WRR radio stations, the radio properties conduct pledge drives independent of those conducted by channel 13.
KERA airs children's programming from PBS and American Public Television on its main feed each Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., as well as 24 hours a day on its PBS Kids-affiliated subchannel on digital channel 13.2. KERA has the second-largest audience average for children's programming among public television stations in the United States, with its programs reaching over 350,000 children each week.

Original and PBS-distributed programs produced by KERA

KERA has long contributed original programming for distribution to the nationwide PBS system and individual member stations, including documentaries such as JFK: Breaking the News and Matisse and Picasso, the latter of which earned the station an Emmy Award nomination. The station also produced the PBS documentary series The U.S.–Mexican War, which aired between 1995 and 2006.
Other programs from KERA's production department that have been distributed to public television stations throughout Texas and nationwide have included The Texas Debates, CEO and The Van Cliburn: 50 Years of Gold. It also produces Frame of Mind, a series co-produced by KERA's Art&Seek unit and the Video Association of Dallas, which showcases independent films, documentaries and video shorts from Texas-based filmmakers.

News operation

KERA-TV became one of the earliest educational television stations in the U.S. to establish a news department on February 16, 1970, when it premiered Newsroom, a half-hour 6 p.m. newscast that aired Monday through Friday evenings, and was based on a similar program that aired on San Francisco PBS member station KQED. In October 1976, the program was relaunched as a half-hour prime time newscast under the title The 9 O'Clock Report, predating the move of then-independent station KTVT's late evening newscast to the 9 p.m. timeslot in August 1990. Within months of the change, channel 13 moved its evening newscast two hours earlier to 7 p.m. on January 31, 1977. KERA shut down its news department on September 21, 1977.

Notable former on-air staff

  • Jerry Haynes – host of Peppermint Place ; program was revamped version of former WFAA program Mr. Peppermint
  • Jim Lehrer – anchor of ''Newsroom''

    Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:
ChannelProgramming
service		Short nameRes.AspectProgramming description
13.1
KERA HD		KERA-HD1080i16:9Main programming schedule in high definition; downconverted at the provider level for an equivalent standard definition channel.
13.2
KERA Kids		KIDS480i16:9PBS Kids Channel programming; formerly carried World from 2009 until the PBS Kids Channel launched on January 16, 2017.
13.3
KERA Create		Create480i16:9Programming from the how-to and lifestyle network. Launched January 14, 2016.
13.4
KERA World		World480i16:9Programming from World. Launched July 1, 2021.