WBRA-TV

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WBRA-TV (channel 15) is a PBS member station in Roanoke, Virginia, owned by Blue Ridge Public Television, Inc. The station’s studios are on McNeil Drive in southwest Roanoke, and its transmitter sits on Poor Mountain.

WBRA-TV began broadcasting on August 1, 1967 and says it was the country’s first all-color educational station. It originally aired as part of National Educational Television (NET) and joined PBS when NET ended in 1970. In the 1980s, the station began using the on-air name Blue Ridge Public Television, reflecting its location near the Blue Ridge Mountains, and in 2007 it adopted the name Blue Ridge PBS.

The station built two satellite stations to reach the Tri‑Cities area: WSBN-TV in Norton (1971) and WMSY-TV in Marion (1981). In 2013, budget cuts after Virginia reduced public broadcasting funding led to the decision to close WSBN and WMSY, though there was talk of reviving them in the future. In 2014, the operation was relaunched as Southwest Virginia Public Television (SWVAPT) with a regional focus in addition to PBS programming, and it was carried on WBRA-DT2 and area cable systems.

In 2017, SWVAPT’s satellites went off the air and were sold in the FCC’s spectrum incentive auction; Tri-Cities viewers could still receive PBS from nearby stations. In 2021, Blue Ridge PBS launched ECHO—a new subchannel and streaming service offering locally produced, community-based programming. In 2022, the network announced a new local PBS service for Southwest Virginia, PBS Appalachia Virginia, which launched in June 2023 as a cable- and streaming-only service (no over-the-air broadcast). As part of this change, SWVAPT was replaced on WBRA-DT2 by Blue Ridge PBS 2.

WBRA-TV shut off its analog signal in 2009 during the nationwide transition to digital television. Its current digital operations are mapped to virtual channel 15, with the station’s broadcast data and subchannels multiplexed to deliver PBS and related programming.