KTWU
KTWU (channel 11) is a PBS member television station in Topeka, Kansas, United States, owned by Washburn University. The station's studios are located on the western edge of the Washburn University campus at 19th Street and Jewell Avenue (with a College Avenue mailing address) in central Topeka, and its transmitter is located on Wanamaker Road (south of the Kansas River) on the city's northwest side. KTWU is carried on many cable and satellite providers throughout eastern Kansas, including on the Kansas side of the Kansas City metropolitan area, giving viewers west of the Missouri River a second choice for PBS programming alongside KCPT. History In 1962, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) assigned the VHF channel 11 allocation in the Topeka market, reserving it for non-commercial broadcasting use. Thad Sandstrom, who at the time was the general manager and vice president of communications at Stauffer Communications, then-owners of WIBW-TV, the city's first television station (which launched nine years earlier in November 1953), helped convince the FCC to allocate channel 11 strictly for educational broadcasters. While this move assured eastern Kansas of getting educational television (and later, PBS) service, it also meant that Topeka would have a long wait for full service