Groundwork for an
educational television station in northwest Pennsylvania was laid in 1953 with the founding of Educational Television of Erie. Its initial effort to sign on a station was unsuccessful, but the group eventually reserved channel 54 for noncommercial use. The group, which was renamed Educational Television of Northwest Pennsylvania in 1964, pressed on until finally winning a
construction permit on December 6, 1966. The group initially chose the
call sign WLRN (for "Learn"), but those letters were already being used by a
public radio station in
Miami, Florida. They the group went with their next choice, WQLN ("We Question and Learn"). On August 13, 1967, WQLN finally
signed on the air. Six years later, in 1973, 91.3
WQLN-FM hit the airwaves as an
NPR member station. WQLN is the second-smallest PBS member in Pennsylvania. Its coverage area is limited due to Erie being sandwiched between
Pittsburgh to the south,
Youngstown to the west and
Buffalo to the north, along with
Cleveland's
WVIZ also being accessible in parts of the market. As a result, the station has struggled financially for most of its history. Like most PBS member stations along the
Canada–United States border, particularly in smaller markets, it also depends heavily on viewership and donations from Canadian audiences. In WQLN's case, that extended audience is across
Lake Erie in the
London, Ontario, area. At various times in the station's history, PBS mainstays such as ''
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Nova, and The
MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour'' were not seen on WQLN. The station's transmitter was knocked off-air early September 15, 2008, after its antenna and transmission line were damaged by
Hurricane Ike. There was also additional damage (possibly from a prior lightning strike) to the transmission line. The station later returned using a temporary digital antenna, making WQLN the first Erie station to become fully digital. With the impending end of analog broadcasting only four months away, the station opted against rebuilding its analog facility and is broadcasting exclusively in digital. ==Subchannels==