Kentucky Channel

KET's Star Channels, the network's interactive distance learning services that were launched in 1988, predated the advent of digital over-the-air television broadcasting of any kind by eleven years, and they were only available to schools, colleges, universities, and libraries throughout the state through satellite technology.[3] Public schools were outfitted with satellite dishes and keypads, provided by NTN Communications, to provide two-way communications between the instructors at the KET studios in Lexington and students throughout the state; all public schools in Kentucky were outfitted with the technology by the end of 1989. This interactive service was inspired by a football player predictor game at a local sports bar in Lexington.[4] The services were so successful in education centers, that the network earned the Innovations Award from the Ford Foundation for the star channels in 1991.[5]

Shortly after the successful launch of the interactive Star Channels, in January 1989, KET expanded its instructional programming schedule, which had aired during school hours on the over-the-air KET network since its 1968 inception,[6] to full-time services by launching a pair of direct broadcast satellite instructional television services available to C-band free-to-air satellite systems, one for elementary schools, and the other for middle and high schools.[7] Plans to launch the direct broadcast services date back to the 1980s, when the network unveiled plans to launch the services and eventually, the interactive Star Channels after having conducted a study on how to expand its instructional television offerings,[8] as well as the inception of KET Etc, a cable-only service that was the first attempt to start a second broadcast service to combat the overflow of programming on its primary network. A 1986 Lexington Herald-Leader interview with network founder and executive director O. Leonard Press revealed the plans to launch this satellite-based service.[9]

Star Channel 703 provided PK-12 educational programming exclusively to public schools[10][11][12] and libraries throughout the state, plus several other states. Star Channel 704 provided Annenberg/CPB Project programming, including college-credit telecourses and professional development series.[7]

In early 2002, the statewide relaunch of KET2 through the facilities of WKMJ-TV in Louisville, along with two new digital services, KET3 and KET4, were launched over the air as multicast services that were made available through the digital signals of all fifteen principal KET satellites. Initially, KET3 began broadcasting as a locally programmed 24/7 PBS Kids channel programmed by KET,[13] while KET4 began as a PBS digital sampler channel.[14] KET's second, third, and fourth subchannels, which were launched in May 2002, were the first ever digital subchannels in most, if not all, of Kentucky's media market's (e.g. Paducah, Evansville (Indiana), Bowling Green, Louisville, Cincinnati (Ohio), Lexington, and Huntington (West Virginia) markets), as most commercial outlets typically never began to launch digital signals or multicast services until the mid-2000s.

Beginning in August 2002, KET3 and KET4 were repurposed to become over-the-air digital relaunches of Star Channels 703 and 704 as both the then-new third and fourth subchannels began simulcasting the two respective channels, making them available to tens of thousands of homes via the digital over-the-air signals and on cable television systems for the first time. This has provided a benefit to parents of home-schooled children and teachers at parochial schools (i.e. Christian and Catholic schools) in addition to teachers and students of public schools, as well as KET viewers that regularly watched lifelong learning-oriented programming.[7][15][16][17] In addition, KET4 also carried PBS HD programming during primetime hours.[17] Sometime following that conversion, cable companies within the state began adding those digital channels to their channel lineups.[18] The satellite services were discontinued on June 30, 2005, therefore making the instructional programming and Annenberg Channel programming exclusively available through KET3 and KET4, respectively.[19]

From August until the end of December 2007, the network's subchannels went through a major realignment phase. Beginning in August 2007, the KET3 and KET4 services were merged to create the Education Channel, KET ED. KET ED and the PBS HD programming block were simulcast on both the DT3 and DT4 subchannels of all 15 of the network's primary transmitters for the remainder of that year.[20][21]

On January 1, 2008, the third subchannel of KET's 15 transmitters began airing a new programming format: a then-new channel devoted to programming about Kentucky people, places, and/or events, in a schedule format similar to that of Twin Cities PBS’s Minnesota Channel.[20] Beginning on January 1, 2008, KET3 was re-branded as the Kentucky Channel,[21] or as identified by the network's voiceover announcer, The Kentucky Channel from KET.

Beginning with the debut of the then-new Kentucky Channel, about 20 hours of Kentucky-related programming was broadcast on the service. Outside of the 20 hours, the service aired the KET HD evening programming service (national PBS HD schedule) in primetime hours from 8 p.m. to 12 Midnight Eastern time (7-11 p.m. Central time),[22][23] which was previously aired on KET4 outside of that service's 20 hours of Annenberg/CPB channel programming,[24] hence the PSIP readers displaying the channel name as KETKYHD during the 2008-09 television season.[15] The Kentucky Channel also replaced KET5 and KET6, which were discontinued at the end of December 2007, as the part-time service as the official broadcasters of the Kentucky General Assembly. Coverage of both the state House of Representatives and the state Senate is still available in the Frankfort area, overlapping C-SPAN3 and NASA TV on channels 16 and 17, respectively, on the Frankfort Plant Board cable system.[25]

Beginning with the 2009-10 television season, the Kentucky Channel expanded to a 24-hour programming schedule after all HD programming schedules began to be handled by the network, and moved onto the flagship service, the main channel of the fifteen principal satellite stations. An increase of fees for the usage of the national PBSHD channel feed caused the network to program PBS HD programming by itself on the main channel. After the KET ED linear service permanently signed off the DT4 subchannels of KET's principal signals and WKMJ-DT3, some of its former programming aired overnights on the Kentucky Channel from 1 to 6 a.m. Eastern (12 midnight to 5 a.m. Central) until that block was discontinued in 2012, making the Kentucky Channel truly full-time. KET ED still existed as an on-demand video service available on the network's website, offering a limited selection of the service's former programming as late as the mid-2010s.[26]

Also in 2009, the Kentucky Channel began broadcasting over WKMJ-DT2/Louisville; it would move to that station's third subchannel upon WKMJ's conversion to the ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV) format in 2022.