Mississippi Public Broadcasting

Mississippi Public Broadcasting is the public broadcasting network serving the U.S. state of Mississippi. It is owned by the Mississippi Authority for Educational Television, an agency of the state government that holds the licenses for all of the PBS and NPR member stations in the state. MPB's headquarters is located on Ridgewood Road in northeast Jackson. It was established in February 1970 as Mississippi Educational Television.

History

Mississippi was a relative latecomer to public broadcasting. By the late 1960s, it was the only state east of the Mississippi River without an educational television station licensed within its borders. The only areas of the state to get a clear signal from a National Educational Television or PBS station were the northwestern counties and the counties along the Gulf Coast.
In 1969, the Mississippi Legislature created the Mississippi Authority for Educational Television to create a locally focused educational television service for Mississippi. After almost a year of planning, WMAA in Jackson debuted on February 1, 1970, as the state's first educational television station. It immediately joined PBS. The initial broadcast was written by Jeanne Lucket and produced and co-directed by Mims Wright, then Director of Public Affairs at Jackson NBC affiliate WLBT, and Joe Root, WLBT Production Manager.
Only four months after beginning operations, WMAA received unwanted national attention when it refused to carry Sesame Street because of its racially integrated cast. That decision was reversed 22 days later after a nationwide outcry. Six other stations began operation over the next few years, and the state network became known as Mississippi Educational Television, or simply ETV.
Public radio came even later, arriving in the state in 1983. Eventually, Public Radio in Mississippi expanded to eight stations throughout the state.
On November 20, 2003, MAET adopted "Mississippi Public Broadcasting" as an umbrella on-air brand for all television and radio operations.

Programming

Since its inception, MPB has produced educational or instructional television programs from its Jackson studios. A partial list includes Tomes & Talismans, The Write Channel, The Clyde Frog Show, About Safety, Ticktock Minutes, Zebra Wings, Posie Paints, Project Survival, The Metric System, Media Mania, and Between the Lions.

MPB Television

As of 2009, the MPB television stations are:

Station	City of license	Channels VC / RF	First air date	Callsign meaning	ERP	HAAT	Facility ID	Transmitter coordinates	Public license information
WMAB-TV¹	Mississippi State	2 8			7.6 kW		43192
WMAE-TV¹	Booneville	12 9			35 kW		43170
WMAH-TV¹	Biloxi	19 16			540 kW		43197
WMAO-TV¹	Greenwood	23 25			815 kW		43176
WMAU-TV¹	Bude	17 18			682 kW		43184
WMAV-TV¹	Oxford–University	18 36			272.5 kW		43193
WMAW-TV¹	Meridian	14 28			640 kW		43169
WMPN-TV¹ ²	Jackson	29 20		Mississippi Public Network	400 kW		43168

Notes:

1. All stations added the -TV suffix to their callsigns on February 1, 1982.
2. WMPN-TV used the callsign WMAA from its 1970 sign-on until 1990.
Coverage areas

Translator

MPB received a construction permit for station WMAA, channel 43 in Columbus, in 1998. This permit was modified to specify digital-only operation and granted again in 2001. The permit expired June 27, 2003, without any construction having taken place. MPB has stated there are currently no plans or funding to build the station.
MPB Television covers nearly all of the state, as well as parts of Alabama, Tennessee and Louisiana. Additionally, WMAV is carried on DirecTV and Dish Network's Memphis feeds, bringing its programming to an additional 1.4 million people in Tennessee and Arkansas. Oxford is part of the Memphis market.

Digital television

Subchannels

The signals of MPB's TV stations are multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

During 2009, in the lead-up to the analog-to-digital television transition that would ultimately occur on June 12, MPB shut down the analog transmitters of its stations on a staggered basis. Listed below are the dates each analog transmitter ceased operations as well as their post-transition channel allocations:

WMPN-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 29, on February 17, 2009, the original date in which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 20, using virtual channel 29.
WMAH-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 19, on February 17, 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 16, using virtual channel 19.
WMAE-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 12, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 55, which was among the high band UHF channels that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era VHF channel 12.
WMAU-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 17, on February 17, 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 18, using virtual channel 17.
WMAO-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 23, on February 17, 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 25, using virtual channel 23.
WMAW-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 14, on February 17, 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 44, using virtual channel 14.
WMAB-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 2, on February 17, 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition VHF channel 10, using virtual channel 2.
WMAV-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 18, on February 17, 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 36, using virtual channel 18.
MPB Radio

MPB Radio consists of eight stations covering most of the state. It airs mostly news and talk programming from NPR and other distributors of public radio programming, along with several locally produced shows.
Recently, MPB has added a 24-hour classical music service on its second HD channel, which now also airs on DT4 on all MPB television stations. It brands this programming as "Music Radio," while the original MPB Radio service is known as "Think Radio." Shows produced by MPB Music include the nationally distributed program Sounds Jewish. All of MPB's radio stations also air the Radio Reading Service of Mississippi on their FM subcarriers, which is also simulcast on the DT4 subchannel on the "Spanish/Audio Description" audio channel.
MPB Radio streams both of its services live in Windows Media and Mac formats.

Call sign	Frequency	ERP	HAAT	Class	City of license	Broadcast Area	Facility ID	Transmitter coordinates
'	89.9 MHz	64,300		C1	Mississippi State		43212
'	89.5 MHz	85,000		C1	Booneville		43190
'	90.3 MHz	100,000		C	Biloxi		43198
'	90.9 MHz	100,000		C1	Greenwood		43177
'	88.9 MHz	100,000		C1	Bude		43185
'	90.3 MHz	100,000		C	Oxford		43213
'	88.1 MHz	100,000		C	Meridian		43188
'	91.3 MHz	45,000		C	Jackson		46682