WSRE (channel 23) is a PBS member television station in Pensacola, Florida, United States. It is owned by Pensacola State College (PSC), with studios located at the Kugelman Center for Telecommunications on the Pensacola State main campus on College Boulevard and its transmitter near Robertsdale, Alabama.
WSRE went on the air in 1967 under the ownership of the Escambia County board of education. Its transmitter and studios were located at what was then known as Pensacola Junior College, and it provided instructional television and production services for local K-12 schools and the junior college as well as evening programming from National Educational Television, later supplanted by PBS. The college became the licensee in 1971, after Florida state law moved junior colleges under the control of the State Board of Education. In 1991, the WSRE-TV Foundation was established to provide financial support and administration. In addition to a range of local programming, WSRE has provided public telecommunications and other services, including a radio reading service.
History
The Board of Public Instruction of Escambia County, Florida, applied on May 24, 1965, for a construction permit to build a new non-commercial television station in Pensacola. The station was initially allocated channel 21, but this was changed to channel 23 before the permit was granted on May 10, 1966.[1] Though Pensacola was among the last population centers in the state to receive educational television, it already had suitable studio facilities at