WEDQ, virtual channel 3.4 (VHF digital channel 13), is a PBS member television station licensed to Tampa, Florida, United States and also serving the nearby city of St. Petersburg. Owned by Florida West Coast Public Broadcasting, it is a sister station to fellow PBS member WEDU (channel 3). The two stations share studios on North Boulevard in Tampa, and transmitter facilities in Riverview, Florida.
History
The station first signed on the air on September 12, 1966 as WUSF-TV, owned by the University of South Florida. Its main rival was WEDU, which has long been one of the highest-rated public television stations in the country. However, due to its ties with the university, most of WUSF's programming was educational in nature—including distance learning, which WUSF aired during the afternoon and late-night hours. WUSF was also known for showing a wide variety of home improvement programming, such as Hometime, during the late 1980s and 1990s that WEDU did not regularly program.
On October 12, 2015, the University of South Florida voted to explore placing WUSF-TV into the FCC's spectrum auction in 2016, a move that could lead to the station sharing a channel with another area station, moving its signal to a VHF channel, or ceasing operations altogether. On February 8, 2017, USF announced that the WUSF-TV license had been sold for $18.8 million in the auction, and that the station would cease operations; on August 11, it announced that the station would go off the air on October 15.
On October 8, it was announced that WUSF-TV had entered into a channel sharing agreement with WEDU, enabling the station to continue operations. WUSF-TV's broadcast license would also be transferred to WEDU's owner, Florida West Coast Public Broadcasting; the transfer was completed on January 24, 2018. USF retains its radio stations, WUSF-FM and WSMR, both of which continue under USF's control.
On October 15, 2017 at 11:59 p.m., after playing an abbreviated version of "The Star-Spangled Banner," WUSF-TV officially signed off-air and became WEDQ. WEDQ then began airing the PBS Encore service that aired on WEDU's fourth subchannel (previously branded as "WEDU Plus"), combined with some of WUSF-TV's more popular shows.
| TV stations in Florida |
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| WPBT/WLRN, Miami WEDU/WEDQ, Tampa |
| TV stations in the Tampa Bay Area |
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| WEDU 3 (PBS) WFLA 8 (NBC) WTSP 10 (CBS) WTVT 13 (Fox) WPDS-LD 14 (ETV) W15CM-D 15 (HSN) WEDQ 16 (PBS) WSVT-LD 18 (Daystar) WARP-CD 20 (Info) WCLF 22 (CTN) WXAX-CD 26 (AZA) WFTS 28 (ABC) WTAM-LD 30 (MEGA) WMOR 32 (Ind) W40CU-D 33 (HSN) WSPF-CD 35 (ATeVe) WTTA 38 (MNTV) WSNN-LD 39 (Ind) WWSB 40 (ABC) W16DQ-D 43 (SBN) WTOG 44 (CW) WZRA-CD 48 (ETH) WRMD-CD 49 (TLM) WVEA 50 (UNI) WFTT 62 (UMas) WXPX 66 (Ion) |