OETA is Oklahoma's statewide PBS network, run by the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, a state agency based in Oklahoma City. Four full-power stations and 14 translators carry its signal across nearly all of Oklahoma.
OETA is Oklahoma's statewide PBS network. It is operated by the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, a statutory corporation the Oklahoma Legislature created in 1953, when Oklahoma became the first state to pass legislation for a statewide educational television service. The authority holds the licenses for all of the PBS stations in the state and is governed by a board of gubernatorial appointees and university and education officials. Its first station, KETA-TV in Oklahoma City, signed on in 1956.
The network broadcasts from four full-power stations, KETA-TV in Oklahoma City, KOED-TV in Tulsa, KOET in Eufaula and KWET in Cheyenne, plus 14 translators, covering almost all of Oklahoma and fringe areas of Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas. Viewers watch OETA-HD, OETA WORLD, OETA Create and PBS Kids over the air, on cable and satellite, and by live stream at oeta.tv, and OETA reports more than 650,000 viewers a week. Its main offices and production facilities are at the Robert L. Allen Telecommunications Center in northeast Oklahoma City, and it also uses studios in Tulsa.
OETA's stated mission is to provide essential educational content and services that inform, inspire and connect Oklahomans to ideas and information that enrich their quality of life. Alongside PBS programming it produces local news, public affairs and cultural programs, including the Oklahoma News Report, Gallery America, Back in Time and the OETA Movie Club, and distributes The Lawrence Welk Show to public television stations nationwide. It offers classroom resources and professional development for educators and maintains the state's infrastructure for the PBS Warning, Alert and Response Network (WARN), which relays emergency alerts to cell phones statewide.
Funding comes from the State of Oklahoma, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and individual donors and foundations. Private fundraising runs through Friends of OETA, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that supports the network. Because OETA is a state agency, its openings also appear on the State of Oklahoma jobs site. It hires for engineering and IT, news and content production, education and outreach, and development and membership roles in Oklahoma City.
