Maryland Public Television


Maryland Public Television is the PBS member state network for the U.S. state of Maryland. It operates under the auspices of the Maryland Public Broadcasting Commission, an agency of the Maryland state government that holds the licenses for all PBS member stations licensed in the state.
MPT's headquarters are located at the Irene and Edward H. Kaplan Production Studio on Owings Mills Boulevard in the unincorporated community of Owings Mills in northwestern Baltimore County. MPT operates six full-power transmitters that cover nearly all of the state, plus Washington, D.C., and parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.
WWW mpt.org/home𝕏 mptnews

History

WMPB first signed on in 1969 as the first station of the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting; it gained satellite stations in Salisbury, Hagerstown, and Annapolis between 1971 and 1975, resulting in a formation of a statewide public television network. The network adopted its current name in 1984. Maryland Instructional Television, a division of the State Department of Education, was also housed at the network until 1991. On July 4, 1987, WFPT signed on to fill coverage gaps in the outer Washington market, while WGPT in Oakland began operations to cover the extreme west of the state, much of which previously had no local television service at all.
About 1999, the network launched an afternoon Britcom programming block, Afternoon Tea, replacing children's programming. By 2009, MPT was airing kids' programming during the day on its MPT Select channel.
In September 2015, as part of budget cuts, MPT outsourced its master control operations to Public Media Management—a joint venture of Boston PBS member WGBH and Sony Corporation.

Productions

Current regional productions

  • Chesapeake Collectibles: weekly series featuring people and their collectibles
  • Maryland Farm & Harvest: weekly series helping Marylanders learn more about agriculture
  • Chesapeake Bay Week: week long series of programs in April dedicated to the Chesapeake Bay
  • Direct Connection: public affairs call-in show focusing on discussion and analysis of politics and the news
  • Outdoors Maryland: outdoors show highlighting the Mid-Atlantic region's diversity and beauty
  • State Circle: news and analysis program detailing Maryland's General Assembly proceedings
  • Ways to Pay for College: annual special on finding money for higher education
  • Artworks: regional arts updates and specials highlighting Maryland's culture and history
  • Destination Maryland discover attractions and hidden gems that make Maryland an ultimate destination.
  • Made in Maryland From the people to product design and delivery, find out about what's made in Maryland

Nationally distributed productions

Regional documentaries and specials

  • Racing Rivals: Log Canoes of Chesapeake Bay
  • Water's Edge: Black Watermen of the Chesapeake
  • Kent County's Storied Landscape: Place Past & Present
  • Discovering the Dove
  • Eatin' Blue Catfish: Chesapeake Style
  • Chesapeake Decoys: The Nature of Waterfowl Art
  • Creatures of the Chesapeake
  • Chesapeake Beacons
  • Chesapeake & Delaware Canal: Gateway to the World
  • Eatin' The Chesapeake: The Five Feasts
  • Eatin' Oysters: Chesapeake Style! who's eating & shucking oysters, why they love them, and where to find the best.
  • Search for the USS Scorpion: Search for the Commodore Barney's Flotilla
  • The Chesapeake Bay Summit: Moderator Frank Sesno and a panel discuss the status of the Chesapeake Bay
  • Conowingo Dam: Power on the Susquehanna the dam's unique story and place in Maryland history
  • Eatin' Crabcakes: The Best I Ever Had: the ultimate crab cake treasure hunt
  • Potomac by Air: explores incredible natural and man-made history along our nation's river
  • Eatin' Crabs Chesapeake Style: a rollicking foray into the world of the blue crab, from dockside to table.
  • Distinctive Homes of the Chesapeake: opening the door to Maryland's magnificent homes surrounding the Chesapeake Bay
  • The Chesapeake Bay Bridge: Spanning the Bay an exciting look back at the monumental creation of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Past productions

Children's programs

Stations

The MPT stations are:
StationCity of licenseFacility IDERPHAATTransmitter coordinatesFirst air datePublic license information
WMPTAnnapolis22 659421000 kW
WMPBBaltimore67 6594490 kW
WFPTFrederick62 4062671.3 kW
WWPBHagerstown31 65943700 kW
WGPTOakland36 40619200 kW
WCPBSalisbury28 40618320 kW

Notes:
WGPT is assigned to the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, market and elects must-carry status on satellite providers there. For the purposes of pay-television carriage, WMPT and WMPB are assigned to the Baltimore market, while WFPT and WWPB are assigned to Washington–Hagerstown and WCPB to Salisbury.

Technical information

The stations' signals are multiplexed:
ChannelRes.AspectShort nameProgramming
xx.11080i16:9MPT-HDPBS
xx.2720p16:9MPT-2MPT2 / Create
xx.3480i16:9MPTKIDSPBS Kids
xx.4480i16:9NHK-WLDNHK World

Analog-to-digital conversion

MPT's stations ended regular programming on their analog signals on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The stations' digital channel allocations post-transition are as follows:
  • WMPB shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 67; the station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 29, using virtual channel 67.
  • WMPT ended regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 22; the station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 42, using virtual channel 22. As part of the SAFER Act, WMPT kept its analog signal on the air until June 26 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters.
  • WCPB shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 28; the station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 56, which was among the high band UHF channels that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era UHF channel 28.
  • WWPB shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 31; the station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 44, using virtual channel 31.
  • WGPT shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 36; the station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 54, which was among the high band UHF channels that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era UHF channel 36.
  • WFPT shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 62; the station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 28, using virtual channel 62.

Spectrum reallocation

As a part of the repacking process following the 2016–2017 FCC incentive auction, channels 38 through 51 were removed from television broadcasting. None of MPT's stations sold their allocations, but five of them moved channels within the UHF band: WMPT moved to channel 21, WMPB to channel 22, WWPB to channel 29, WGPT to channel 26, and WCPT to channel 16.

ATSC 3.0

MPT joined the Baltimore market's ATSC 3.0 lighthouse station, hosted at WNUV, on June 24, 2021. In return, WMPT and WMPB hosts WNUV's main channel to preserve coverage for existing ATSC 1.0 TV sets.