Wikipedia
WVPT is a public television station in Harrisonburg, Virginia. It is the PBS member station for the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and West Virginia. The station is licensed to Staunton, and is located on the campus of James Madison University in Harrisonburg. Owned by Shenandoah Valley Educational Television Corporation, it broadcasts a digital signal on channel 11 (redirecting to former analog channel 51 via PSIP) from a transmitter in central Augusta County, Virginia.
WVPT operates a full-time satellite, WVPY in Front Royal, which serves Winchester and the upper Shenandoah Valley. It broadcasts on digital channel 21 (virtual channel 42) from a transmitter in northern Warren County.
WVPT signed on for the first time on September 9, 1968 and is the third-oldest educational station in Virginia, behind Hampton Roads' WHRO-TV and Richmond's WCVE-TV. WVPY was added in 1996. It also doubled as the default PBS station for Charlottesville (by way of two translators in the area) until WCVE signed on WHTJ as a satellite.
WVPY is available over-the-air in large portions of the Virginia and West Virginia portions of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area; Front Royal is part of the Washington market. WVPT is available on cable in Lynchburg. Additionally, the station is carried on the Harrisonburg DirecTV feed and the Washington DirecTV and Dish Network feeds. While it is available on Comcast's digital cable tier in Charlottesville and central Virginia, it is not carried on satellite there; U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules do not allow a station to be uplinked unless it has a full-power station located in the market. All told, WVPT reaches a potential viewing audience of over 6.1 million people in four states and the capital.
On October 1, 2008, WVPT started broadcasting in all HD.