WLRN-TV

WLRN-TV, virtual channel 17 (UHF digital channel 20), is a PBS member television station located in Miami, Florida, United States. The station is owned by the Miami-Dade County Public Schools district, alongside NPR member radio station WLRN-FM (91.3). WLRN maintains studio facilities located on Northeast 15th Street and Northeast 1st Avenue in Miami, and its transmitter is located at McTyre Park in Miami Gardens. WLRN operates twenty closed-circuit educational channels for use by public schools within Miami-Dade County.

History

Prior to the station's sign-on, the UHF channel 17 allocation in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale market was occupied by ABC affiliate WITV. It lost the ABC affiliation to newly signed-on WPST-TV (channel 10, now WPLG) in August 1957, and went off the air soon afterward.

WLRN-TV first signed on the air on September 7, 1962 as WSEC-TV; it was the second non-commercial educational television station in the market. Operating an a member station of National Educational Television (NET), WSEC was originally owned by the Dade County School Board, which had persuaded the Federal Communications Commission to reallocate the channel 17 license for non-commercial use.