WXEL-TV

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WXEL-TV (channel 42) is a PBS member station serving the West Palm Beach area and licensed to Boynton Beach, Florida. It is owned by South Florida PBS and works with its sister stations WPBT (Miami, channel 2) and WURH-LD (channel 13). All three share a transmitter site on Northwest 199th Street in Andover, while WXEL’s studios are in Boynton Beach. A translator, W31DC-D, also rebroadcasts WXEL in Fort Pierce.

Origins and growth: In the late 1970s, Palm Beach County pursued a public TV station on channel 42. The Public Broadcasting Foundation of Palm Beach won the construction permit, and the station began broadcasting as WHRS-TV on July 8, 1982, later changing its call letters to WXEL-TV in 1985. It originally shared ownership with WHRS 90.7 FM. Barry University bought WXEL in 1997, bringing financial stability and advancing digital upgrades.

Merger and spectrum changes: In 2015 WXEL merged with WPBT to form South Florida PBS. In 2016, WXEL sold its broadcast spectrum in the federal auction, and since then WXEL has been carried on WPBT’s transmitter. In 2018 WXEL began sharing WPBT’s transmitter, moving its signal to WPBT’s tower and changing its city of license to Boynton Beach to preserve coverage. WPBT’s digital channel was later repacked to channel 29 in 2019.

Today: WXEL remains part of South Florida PBS, sharing programming and resources with WPBT and WURH-LD. It’s broadcast from the Andover transmitter alongside its partners, with digital channel 29 and virtual channel 42.