was a
Public Broadcasting company based in
San Francisco ,
California . On
May 1 ,
2006 , KQED and the
KTEH Foundation merged to form
Northern California Public Broadcasting 1. The KQED assets were brought into that new organization— a TV station, KQED-TV, and an
FM Radio station, KQED-FM. Both are members of
PBS and
NPR , respectively. KQED's broadcasts reach all of
Northern California via over-the-air broadcast, cable and satellite. KQED produces some TV and radio programming for local and national distribution.
is an
NTSC Television signal on
VHF channel 9. This channel is also carried on
Comcast Cable TV and via satellite TV from
DirecTV and
Dish Network . Its transmitter is on
Sutro Tower in
San Francisco .
Noteworthy TV productions have included the first of Bay Area", and ''
This Week In Northern California '',
{Link without Title} among others.
is an
ATSC Digital Television signal broadcast over channel 30 from Sutro Tower. There are five
Sub-channels available:
HDTV :
- KQED Encore on DT9.2 / 30.2
- KQED World on DT9.3 / 30.3
- KQED Life on DT9.4 / 30.4
- KQED Kids on DT9.5 / 30.5
KQED-DT is available over the air with a digital tuner, or on
Comcast 's
Digital Cable service.
Founded in 1969, is a ''
{Link without Title} , among others.
KQED-FM is the most-listened to public radio station in the United States, and is typically rated at #3 in the Arbitron ratings, though the break-out of ratings shown to commercial advertisers do not include the ratings for non-commercial stations.
In addition, KQED-FM is
Webcast with live
Streaming Audio available. Audio archives are available on the web site as well.
with nationwide coverage.
The KQED organization was the sixth "
Public Broadcasting " station, making its debut on April 5, 1954, shortly after Pittsburgh's WQED. Its call letters come from the phrase "
Quod Erat Demonstrandum ," or "
Q.E.D. " The station was created by Jim Day and Jon Rice, both veteran broadcasters with extensive news experience.
KQED Television, for a time, had a
Sister Station , "
KQEC ," which broadcast on Channel 32. KQED had inherited the station (as KNEW-TV) from Metromedia Inc., when they found they could not profitably operate it. Various PBS and locally produced programs from KQED would air at different times of the day on KQEC. However, KQED found that they could not operate channel 32 either, and took the station off the air for a couple months. The FCC threatened to withdraw the license. A legal battle ensued between KQED and the
Minority Television Project resulting in KQED suddenly abandoning channel 32 to MTP in
1991 . The station was re-branded as
KMTP .
During the early
1990s , when the State of
California reinstituted the
Death Penalty , the KQED organization waged a highly controversial legal battle for the right to televise the forthcoming
Execution of
Robert Alton Harris at
San Quentin State Prison.
The decision to pursue the videotaping of executions was controversial amongst those on both sides of the
Capital Punishment debate; contemporary reports noted that a number of KQED's members (primarily
Families throughout the
Bay Area ) dropped their financial support for the station, intending for their
Charitable Contributions to KQED to support programs such as
Sesame Street rather than legal fees.
KQED was co-producer of the television adaptaion of
Armistead Maupin 's novel,
Tales Of The City , which aired on PBS stations nationwide in January of 1994. The six-part miniseries stirred controversy because of the homosexual themes, nudity and illicit drug use in this fictional portrayal of life in 1970's San Francisco. The controversy led to calls from the public to cancel the series, a bomb threat at the Chattanooga, TN PBS Station,
WTCI (the station pulled the program an hour before airtime) and threats from state and federal governments to cut funding for the network and its stations. Although the program gave PBS its highest ratings ever for a dramatic program, the network decided not to participate in the television production of the second book of the series, .
In during the day, management and listeners of
KALW (another San Francisco public radio station) cried foul, claiming that KQED had stolen KALW's format. KALW had run news and information programs during the day.
