WUSF TV is celebrating a milestone today – it’s been 50 years since the station serving West Central Florida went on the air.
University of South Florida students were the first people to tune in when WUSF TV went on the air on Sept. 12, 1966. The station provided distance learning classes, from Monday to Friday.
Weekend programming arrived in the 1970s, and when a transmitter in Riverview was turned on in the middle of the decade, the station’s coverage area increased to seven counties. Today, WUSF TV offers four channels that focus on popular PBS shows and educational programming – from “Rick Steve’s Europe” to children’s favorites like “Arthur.”
The station operates from the University of South Florida Tampa campus, where the “University Beat” television show is produced. Also there, broadcast journalism students work with WUSF staff each fall semester to report on and produce a show called “Talk of the Town.”
WUSF TV, as a PBS member station, also is actively involved in providing resources to local Title I schools and day-care and after-school programs in the Tampa area.
