The Kentucky Channel, also known by its Program and System Information Protocol short name and on-screen logo bug as KET KY, is a full-time 24/7 statewide digital television programming service originating from PBS member state-network Kentucky Educational Television. The channel features programming related to the U.S. state of Kentucky (with some programming relevant to surrounding states such as Tennessee, Indiana or Virginia), as well as coverage of Kentucky General Assembly when it is in session.
It is carried on the third digital subchannel of all fifteen (15) of KET's main satellite stations, and on the second digital subchannel of Louisville-based KET2 station WKMJ-TV. The channel is programmed and broadcast from the O. Leonard Press Telecommunications Center at 600 Cooper Drive in Lexington, Kentucky.
History
KET Star Channels
KET's Star Channels, the network's interactive distance learning services that were launched in 1988, predated the advent of digital over-the-air television broadcasting of any kind by eleven years, and they were only available to schools, colleges, universities, and libraries throughout the state through satellite technology. Public schools were outfitted with satellite dishes and keypads, provided by NTN Communications, to provide two-way communications between the instructors at the KET studios in Lexington and students throughout the state; all public schools in Kentucky were outfitted with the technology by the end of 1989. This interactive service was inspired by a football player predictor game at a local sports bar in Lexington. The services were so successful in education centers, that the network earned the Innovations Award from the Ford Foundation for the star channels in 1991.
KET ITV satellite service
Shortly after the successful launch of the interactive Star Channels, in January 1989, KET expanded its instructional programming schedule, which had aired during school hours on the over-the-air KET network since its 1968 inception, to full-time services by launching a pair of direct broadcast satellite instructional television services available to C-band free-to-air satellite systems, one for elementary schools, and the other for middle and high schools. Plans to launch the direct broadcast services date back to the 1980s, when the network unveiled plans to launch the services and eventually, the interactive Star Channels after having conducted a study on how to expand its instructional television offerings, as well as the inception of KET Etc, a cable-only service that was the first attempt to start a second broadcast service to combat the overflow of programming on its primary network. A 1986 Lexington Herald-Leader interview with network founder and executive director O. Leonard Press revealed the plans to launch this satellite-based service.
Star Channel 703 provided PK-12 educational programming exclusively to public schools and libraries throughout the state, plus several other states. Star Channel 704 provided Annenberg/CPB Project programming, including college-credit telecourses and professional development series.
As KET3
In early 2002, the statewide relaunch of KET2 through the facilities of WKMJ-TV in Louisville, along with two new digital services, KET3 and KET4, were launched over the air as multicast services that were made available through the digital signals of all fifteen principal KET satellites. Initially, KET3 began broadcasting as a locally programmed 24/7 PBS Kids channel programmed by KET, while KET4 began as a PBS digital sampler channel. KET's second, third, and fourth subchannels, which were launched in May 2002, were the first ever digital subchannels in most, if not all, of Kentucky's media market's (e.g. Paducah, Evansville (Indiana), Bowling Green, Louisville, Cincinnati (Ohio), Lexington, and Huntington (West Virginia) markets), as most commercial outlets typically never began to launch digital signals or multicast services until the mid-2000s.