Alabama Public Television

Alabama was one of the earliest states to enter into educational television broadcasting when the Alabama General Assembly created the Alabama Educational Television Commission in 1953. In an unusual move at the time, the Commission requested allocations for four stations that would air the same programming at all times, fed from a central studio in Birmingham. At the time, it was apparent that much of the state outside of Birmingham, Montgomery, and Mobile was too poor and too rural to support stand-alone educational stations. The Commission thus wanted to ensure that all of the state's children would have access to educational television.

After two years of preparation, the AETC began the nation's ninth educational television station, WEDM in Munford, serving the eastern central part of the state. The transmitter was located atop Cheaha Mountain, the highest point in Alabama. When WBIQ in Birmingham came online in April 1955, Alabama became the first state in the nation with an educational television network. Alabama Educational Television made its first broadcast as a network shortly after WBIQ signed on. Since then, 25 other states have started public television networks, most based on Alabama's model. The network changed its name to the Alabama Public Television Network in the late 1960s, and shortened the name to simply Alabama Public Television in 1988.

APT's studio in Montgomery

WAIQ in Andalusia (now WDIQ in Dozier) went on the air in August 1956, bringing APT to southern Alabama for the first time before being reassigned to Montgomery in December 1962. WAAY-TV (channel 25) was issued a construction permit in Huntsville in 1962, but never signed on the air (the owners at the time would buy WAFG-TV, on channel 31, instead in 1963). Channel 25 in Huntsville would later become WHIQ in 1965. WAIQ was the first APT station to broadcast a digital signal in 2003, on UHF channel 14, but that signal was later moved to channel 27 on account of Montgomery station WSFA airing its digital signal on channel 14. Commercially licensed station WALA-TV in Mobile donated its former transmitter in Spanish Fort to APT in 1964, allowing WEIQ to bring the network to Alabama's Gulf Coast counties that November. WEIQ's transmitter power was increased during the 1980s.

AETC eventually built a network of nine transmitters covering the state during a 16-year period ending in 1970. In the 1970s and 1980s, several stations in the metropolitan areas of Alabama aired weekly "cutaway" programs, produced by local entities instead of APT, of interest to their particular viewing areas, but those were eliminated in the 1990s. Since then, all APT stations air the same programming at all times.

The AETC took over the operation of Huntsville public radio station WLRH in 1977, assuming control from the public library system, which had started the station the previous year but found itself unable to manage or fund it properly.

In January 1982, a major ice storm caused the collapse of the WCIQ tower, which was then rebuilt.

In August 2004, APT began datacasting on its digital broadcast signals to distribute digital multimedia content to ten elementary and secondary schools, in a pilot program. The datacasting model was replaced by APTPLUS, an online distribution of multimedia content that became available to every school in Alabama via the Internet. Every public school in Alabama registered to use APTPLUS within its first year of operation. Many private school teachers and home-schooling families are also registered users.

For more than a quarter century, Alabama Public Television aired a nightly public affairs program, For the Record, covering statewide news and Alabama politics. The longest-running program of its kind on a PBS member station or regional or state network, it won an award for Best Local News Program from the National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA), an organization of public television stations. Capitol Journal succeeded For the Record in 2008 and is produced at APT's State House studio in Montgomery.

APT began broadcasting a high definition channel (APT HD) in 2005. In December 2006 it launched a digital "how-to" channel featuring established cooking, gardening, decorating, crafts, and sewing programs called APT Create. A third digital channel, APT IQ, debuted in March 2007. Originally called APT IQ, the channel became APT World in October 2012 and offers news and documentary programming. 2017 brought the addition of PBS Kids statewide.

The members of the Alabama Educational Television Commission Board as of 2012 are: Ferris W. Stephens, chairman, Birmingham (6th congressional district), Gregory O. Griffin Sr., Vice-chairman, Montgomery (2nd congressional district), Dr. Rodney D. Herring, Secretary, Opelika (3rd congressional district), Bebe Williams, Huntsville (5th congressional district), Les Barnett, Mobile (1st congressional district) and Dr. Dannetta K. Thornton Owens, Birmingham (7th congressional district).

Notes:

• 1. Aside from their transmitters, the APT stations (except WAIQ and WBIQ) do not maintain any physical presence in their cities of license.
• 2. WAIQ used the call sign WDIQ during its construction permit from September to October 1961.[1]
• 3. WBIQ used the call sign WEDB during its construction permit from 1954 to 1955.[2]
• 4. WCIQ used the call sign WEDM (EDucational Munford) from January to March 1955,[3] and then WTIQ (T for Talladega) to 1959.[4] Also, the station's city of license was previously Munford (near Cheaha Mountain) from its 1955 sign-on to 1960,[5] and then, Cheaha State Park, where the station's transmitter is located on the mountain. Because the tower is located in Cleburne County, Nielsen Media Research and therefore the FCC, considers the station to be a part of the Atlanta, Georgia television market.[6]
• 5. WDIQ used the call sign WAIQ (A for Andalusia) from its 1956 sign-on to 1961.[7] This station's city of license was Andalusia from its 1956 sign-on to 1962.[8]
• 6. The WGIQ transmitter is in Texasville, but WGIQ is licensed to Louisville, Alabama.

• Bookmark with Don Noble, literary discussion program airing since 1988[12]
• Capitol Journal,[13] political discussion show hosted by journalist Don Daley for 24 years until 2021[14]
• Discovering Alabama, natural history show[15] airing since 1985[16]
• Alabama Public Television Documentaries
• Journey Proud,[17] a show about the cultural history of Alabama[18]

In 1976, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) delayed the renewal of, then briefly revoked, AETC's licenses due to APT's refusal to air programs pertaining to the Vietnam War or the African-American community.[19] APT management feared that airing these types of programs would cause angry public officials to cut the network's funding and put the network's future in jeopardy. Therefore, APT followed orders by state officials not to air certain programming during the 1960s and 1970s. However, it has taken a more independent stance over the last 40 or so years.

In May 2019, APT became one of two PBS state networks, along with the Arkansas Educational Television Network, to decline to broadcast an episode of the animated children's series Arthur because it features a same-sex wedding; APT opted to air a rerun of an earlier episode instead.[20] The program director, Mike McKenzie, said that it would be "a violation of trust" for the station to broadcast the episode,[21] and said that the decision was made because some children might watch the episode without their parents, and some children younger than the episode's target demographic might watch the segment.[20] Alabama Public Television had also rejected an episode of the spin-off Postcards from Buster that depicted a same-sex couple in 2005.[22] PBS offered free online streaming of the episode for a limited time to families desiring to view it.[23]

• List of television stations in Alabama

• Official website