20th century The station first signed on the air on September 7, 1965, as a member station of
National Educational Television (NET), and eventually joined
PBS upon its 1970 founding. WLVT-TV is commonly known as "PBS39", a reference to the main virtual channel, 39.1. The
Lehigh Valley is part of the
Philadelphia market, the fourth-largest television market in the United States. Since the turn of the millennium, it has been picked up by many cable providers in the area, including
Comcast,
Service Electric,
RCN,
Blue Ridge Cable, and others. WLVT-TV is also available throughout the region on Philadelphia's
DirecTV and
Dish Network feeds. In recent years, it has expanded its reach to the entire Philadelphia market. WLVT serves one of the largest potential audiences in the country with 6.7 million people in eastern
Pennsylvania,
western and
southern New Jersey, and northern
Delaware. With its recent focus on the broader market, channel 39 frequently competes with Philadelphia's main PBS member station,
WHYY-TV (channel 12), one of the most-watched PBS stations in the country. To a lesser extent, WLVT-TV also competes with
NJ PBS's two outlets in the market,
WNJT-TV and WNJS-TV.
21st century In 2011, WLVT-TV moved from its longtime studio on Mountain Drive North to a new studio facility, the PPL Public Media Center (now the Univest Public Media Center), on the south side of
Bethlehem. The new facility is adjacent to the ArtsQuest complex on the SteelStacks Campus, previously home to
Bethlehem Steel. The new station is equipped with two large studios, where local productions, including
Focus (a local magazine show),
You Bet Your Garden (formerly on
WHYY-FM),
Scholastic Scrimmage,
Faces of Jazz, and
Behind the Guitar, are filmed. WLVT also broadcasts PBS and
American Public Television distributed programming. ==Technical information==