The Mohawk-Hudson Council on Educational Television was formed in 1953, through financial support from commercial station
WRGB (channel 6), its then-parent company
General Electric (which was based in Schenectady) and many supporters and local businesses in the
Albany/Capital Region. In the beginning, Mohawk-Hudson produced educational programs on WRGB; however, due to the station's tight scheduling, the council decided to form a
non-commercial educational television station of its own. WMHT signed on the air on March 26, 1962, on UHF channel 17 as the second educational TV station in the state of New York (after
WNED in
Buffalo). From the outset the station was a member of
National Educational Television (NET) and became one of PBS' charter members after the two stations merged in 1970. In 1972, WMHT expanded into
FM radio by launching the first non-commercial
classical music station in the United States (a format that continues to this day). In 1987, WMHT purchased the assets of
independent station WUSV (channel 45) and made it a secondary programming service under the calls WMHX. Due to financial difficulties, WMHT shut WMHX down in 1991 and returned it to the air three years later under the call letters WMHQ. In the late 1990s, WMHQ's commercial license became attractive and WMHT sold it to the
Tribune Company for $18.5 million in 1999 with the station becoming
WB affiliate WEWB that September (it is now
CW affiliate
WCWN, owned by the
Sinclair Broadcast Group). The money from this sale allowed WMHT to expand into digital television. It also allowed the station to replace its original facility in
Rotterdam with a state-of-the-art facility in the Rensselaer Tech Park in town of
North Greenbush, New York. ==Programming==