New Mexico PBS (KNME-TV) is the PBS member station in Albuquerque, licensed jointly to the University of New Mexico and Albuquerque Public Schools and on the air since 1958, serving much of the state with local programs, education and community services.
New Mexico PBS is the public television service of KNME-TV, channel 5 in Albuquerque, and its sister station KNMD-TV, licensed to Santa Fe. KNME-TV is owned jointly by the University of New Mexico (UNM) and Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) under a joint powers agreement and is governed by a seven-member board with appointees from both institutions and one community representative. The station operates as a department of UNM, with studios on UNM's North Campus at 1130 University Blvd. NE and its main transmitter atop Sandia Crest. Translators carry the signal across central, northern and western New Mexico, including three owned by the Navajo Nation.
KNME-TV signed on May 1, 1958, as New Mexico's first educational television station and began branding as New Mexico PBS in 2012. Its mission is to inform, engage, educate and connect New Mexico's diverse communities through programming, services and online content that can be accessed anytime, anywhere. Local productions include the public affairs newsmagazine New Mexico in Focus and the arts and culture series ¡Colores!, and the station co-produced the Peabody Award-winning documentary Surviving Columbus (1992).
Alongside the PBS schedule, the station carries PBS Kids, World, Create and FNX on its multicast channels, offers early childhood and classroom resources for parents, teachers and childcare providers, and holds community screenings and events. It also distributes Deutsche Welle and Democracy Now! news programs to public television stations nationwide.
New Mexico PBS staff are University of New Mexico employees, and every opening is posted on UNMJobs, UNM's hiring site. The station hires in content and production, promotion and marketing, engineering and station operations, development and membership, education and outreach, and digital services, and it regularly offers student positions.
