KUEN

KUEN (channel 9), known as UEN-TV, is an educational television station licensed to Ogden, Utah, United States, serving Salt Lake City and the state of Utah. The station is owned by the Utah Board of Higher Education and part of the Utah Education Network (UEN), which provides connectivity services to the state's K-12 and higher education systems. KUEN's studios are located at the Eccles Broadcast Center on the University of Utah campus; its transmitter is located at Farnsworth Peak in the Oquirrh Mountains, southwest of Salt Lake City, and is extended by dozens of broadcast translators across the state.

Channel 9, an educational channel since 1962, had been unused since 1973, when KOET was shut down by the Ogden school board. Weber State College obtained a construction permit to reactivate channel 9 in 1984, but it lacked funding to construct or operate the station. The permit was transferred to the Utah Board of Higher Education in 1985, and construction and operation of channel 9 was assigned to the University of Utah. The station began broadcasting on December 1, 1986, as KULC ("Utah's Learning Channel") with a selection of telecourses for college credit from institutions across the state.

In 1989, the Utah Education Network (UEN) was formed to coordinate this activity and, ultimately, internet connectivity for public schools in Utah. KULC, along with the University of Utah's public broadcasting stations, moved into the Eccles Broadcast Center in 1993. As part of efforts to reinforce the brand of its parent, KULC changed its call sign to KUEN in 2004 and became known as UEN-TV. The station offered educational programming, secondary public television programming from independent producers, and a limited amount of local production. In 2025, it dropped this programming to air First Nations Experience

History

Weber State plans

Momentum for putting channel 9 to use again started with Weber State College in Ogden. By early 1982, it was preparing an application to the FCC for channel 9, which it hoped would be a laboratory for students learning broadcast journalism and a station providing local programming.[12] Under an agreement with the Standard Corporation, parent of the Ogden Standard-Examiner and Salt Lake City TV station KUTV, Weber State would receive financial and facilities assistance.[13] By November 1983, a second application had been received for the channel from Way of the Cross of Utah, a group based in Lexington, Kentucky.[14]

Weber State received the construction permit in 1984;[15] the college had already proposed building a transmitter on Mount Vision in the Oquirrh Mountains, southwest of Salt Lake City.[16] In spite of corporate support and a federal grant, however, Weber State proved unable to raise the funds necessary to build channel 9. The federal grant required a local match, which was not feasible. One proposal that could have provided the funding came from KSTU (channel 20), which proposed swapping channels to move KSTU to channel 9 and the Weber State station to channel 20. However, channel swaps between public VHF and commercial UHF stations were controversial, leading college administrators to deny the offer.[17] In addition, there was no source of funding for recurring expenses.

Construction and operation

As a result of Weber State's financial inability to build channel 9 and a desire to prevent the channel from being lost to the state,[18] on May 18, 1985, the Utah State Board of Regents—the governing body for the state's higher education institutions—approved a plan to transfer the channel 9 construction permit to a consortium of institutions. Under the consortium, channel 9 would share facilities and space with KUED (channel 7), Utah's primary public television station, at the University of Utah.

KULC ("Utah's Learning Channel") began broadcasting on December 1, 1986. It originally broadcast for four hours a day on weekdays only before debuting a regular schedule in January 1987. The statewide microwave transmission system enabled institutions across the state to originate telecourses for KULC, including the University of Utah, Utah State University, Weber State College, Southern Utah State College, and Snow College.[19] Course offerings ranged from the coursework for a pilot's license and electrical engineering to introductory American history and geology.[20] The station's facilities in Gardner Hall[21]

Transfer to the University of Utah

In 2025, Congress stripped federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.[35] As a result, UEN-TV ceased broadcasting its educational program service. A message on its website indicated that, as a temporary measure, KUEN would broadcast programming from First Nations Experience (FNX) on its main subchannel.[36] The Utah Board of Higher Education filed on November 25, 2025, to transfer KUEN's broadcast license and those of its dependent translators to the University of Utah, which is wholly owned by the board.[37] The commission approved the transaction on December 4. The university intends to begin broadcasting PBS Kids from KUEN at a later date.[38]

callsign	KUEN
city	Ogden, Utah
branding	UEN-TV
digital	36 (UHF)
virtual	9
affiliations	9.1: First Nations Experience for others, see
owner	Utah Board of Higher Education, license transfer pending to the University of Utah
location	Ogden–Salt Lake City, Utah
country	United States
founded	March 21, 1984
airdate	December 1, 1986
callsign meaning	Utah Education Network
former callsigns	KULC (1986–2004)
former channel numbers	Analog: 9 (VHF, 1986–2009)
former affiliations	Educational independent (1986–2025)
erp	200 kW
haat	1247 m
facility id	69582
coordinates	40.65917°N, -112.20278°W
licensing authority	FCC
website	https://www.uen.org/tv/

Prior history of channel 9 in Ogden

History

Weber State plans

Construction and operation

Transfer to the University of Utah

Technical information

Subchannels

Analog-to-digital conversion

Translators

See also

External links

References