WMVT (Channel 36) is a public television station located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its signal covers most of southeastern Wisconsin, including the cities of Racine, Kenosha, Sheboygan, and Waukesha.

WMVT is a non-commercial educational public television station, which is a member of PBS. WMVT's owner, Milwaukee Area Technical College, also owns sister Milwaukee PBS member station WMVS. Both stations together refer to themselves collectively as Milwaukee Public Television.

WMVT airs more documentary, instructional, DIY, and news programming than WMVS' general PBS schedule, and is the Milwaukee member for Wisconsin Educational Communications Board's instructional telecourse programs for students and teachers, along with most Wisconsin Badgers sports coverage from WPT. Also, PBS primetime programming moves to Channel 36 while Channel 10 holds their annual auction and pledge drives. The station also airs The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on a half-hour delay in lieu of WMVS.

WMVT also has a "Student Operations Day" yearly on the first Saturday in May, where the students in MATC's broadcasting department use the MPTV facilities to produce their own shows to air on Channel 36, which vary from serious educational and history programs to comedy shows.

Digital television [link]

For more on MPTV's digital television services, see Milwaukee Public Television#Digital programming.

WMVT's digital signal is on Channel 35 and is multiplexted into six different digital subchannels, with 36.1 airing in 720p HD and the additional five services in standard definition 480i. Formerly, WMVT did not have a digital equivalent, and the station's channel slot was used to broadcast a full-quality HDTV signal of WMVS, due to the limitations of the VHF Channel 8 signal within the area. WMVS-DT had to operate on limited power until the digital switchover in order to protect the analog Channel 8 signal of NBC affiliate WOOD-TV across Lake Michigan in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which regularly propagated over the lake and into Wisconsin. Another shuffle occurred on September 1, 2010 which brought over three of WMVT's subchannel services to WMVS's bandwidth, along with a standard definition simulcast of WMVS's 10.1 schedule over channel 36.2 in 480i widescreen to address viewer complaints about reception of VHF channels post-transition. This shuffle also enabled 36.1 to eventually air programming in high definition beginning February 7, 2011, a move delayed by budget concerns^[1].

The layout of Milwaukee Public Television's digital service is detailed further within that article. Since the shuffle, Channel 36's traditional schedule is identified on air as MPTV-36.1 HD.

MPTV signed off their analog signals at 9am on June 12, 2009.

History [link]

WMVT began broadcasting on January 28, 1963.

References [link]

External links [link]

• Milwaukee Public Television's website
• History of Milwaukee television
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WMVT