South Dakota Public Broadcasting

South Dakota Public Broadcasting (SDPB) is a state network of non-commercial educational television and radio stations serving the U.S. state of South Dakota. The stations are operated by the South Dakota Bureau of Information and Telecommunication, an agency of the state government which holds the licenses for all of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) member stations licensed in South Dakota except KRSD in Sioux Falls, which is owned and run by Minnesota Public Radio, and KAUR in Sioux Falls, which is owned by Augustana University and operated by MPR. SDPB's studios and offices are located in the Al Neuharth Media Center at 500 N. Dakota Avenue on the University of South Dakota campus in Vermillion.
History.
Educational broadcasting in South Dakota began in 1919 with experimental broadcasts at USD's College of Engineering. USD was granted a full license in 1922, and went on the air that May 29 as WEAJ. It became KUSD in 1925. By 1952, the station settled at 690 AM at 1,000 watts, operating only during daylight hours to protect CBF in Montreal. In 1967, it acquired an FM sister station, KUSD-FM at 89.7. Also in 1967, South Dakota State University in Brookings signed on KESD-FM. The three stations merged in 1982 as South Dakota Public Radio.
On July 5, 1961, KUSD-TV signed on the air as the state's first educational television station. Seven more stations signed on from 1967 to 1975, extending its reach to parts of Minnesota and Iowa.
South Dakota Public Radio merged with the State Board of Directors for Educational Television, which operated the television network, in 1985 to form South Dakota Public Broadcasting under the ownership of the Bureau of Information and Telecommunication. Between 1985 and 1991, five other stations joined the radio network. One of them was KCSD, which signed on in 1985 as part of a partnership between Sioux Falls College (now the University of Sioux Falls) and the ETV Board in an effort to improve the network's reception in South Dakota's largest city. Until 2013, KCSD's license was held by the University of Sioux Falls and operated by the state network under a management agreement. The network bought KCSD outright in 2013.
In 1992, a Chevrolet Suburban was taken on a joyride through the Vermillion Golf Course, where KUSD (AM)'s towers were located. The Suburban crashed into one of the AM station's towers and knocked it down. While a judge ordered the suspect to pay $48,000, the insurance settlement was not large enough to restore full operations, and KUSD (AM) went off the air for good in 1994.
KUSD-TV's signal had long been spotty in parts of Sioux Falls, even though the channel 2 analog signal traveled a very long distance under normal conditions. Some parts of the area didn't get a clear signal from KUSD-TV until cable gained more penetration in the 1980s. To solve this problem, KCSD-TV signed on in 1995, significantly improving coverage in the state's largest city.
As of February 2017, SDPR now broadcasts the main network over the fifth subcarrier of the SDPB Television stations, and classical music (which airs on the radio stations' second HD channel) on the television stations' sixth subcarrier.
Radio stations.
South Dakota Public Radio airs a mix of news and talk from NPR, Public Radio International (PRI), American Public Media (APM), the BBC World Service and other sources. Stations in the lineup include:
South Dakota Public Radio also rebroadcasts on the following translator stations:
In March 2007, South Dakota Public Radio started broadcasting on HD Radio.
Television stations.
Television stations included in the state network are:
Translators.
The television programming from SDPB is also rebroadcast on the following low-power translator stations:
Digital television.
Digital channels.
The digital signals of SDPB'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, SDPB 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:
Programming.
Although SDPB provides PBS programming, it also produces original programs such as:
SDPB has also produced educational programs, such as:
SDPB has also syndicated educational programs, such as: