Pioneer PBS

Pioneer PBS is a nonprofit regional public television network based in Granite Falls, Minnesota, serving small towns and farming communities across western Minnesota and parts of Iowa, South Dakota and North Dakota since 1966.

Pioneer PBS is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) regional public television network and PBS member station based in Granite Falls, Minnesota. It is licensed to the West Central Minnesota Educational Television Company, formed by community leaders in Appleton who believed rural communities deserved access to high-quality educational media. Local families, businesses and organizations raised the money to launch the station, and its flagship, KWCM-TV, first went on the air in February 1966 with classroom instruction for students across the region. The station took the name Pioneer Public TV in the early 1980s and became Pioneer PBS in 2019.

Pioneer PBS broadcasts on KWCM-TV (channel 10) from Appleton, its full-time satellite KSMN (channel 20) in Worthington and the translator K08QE-D in Fergus Falls, as well as by satellite, on its livestream and through the PBS app. Together these signals reach more than a million people in rural areas and small towns in western and southwestern Minnesota and in parts of Iowa, South Dakota and North Dakota.

The station is known for local production that tells the stories of its region. Its series include Postcards, an award-winning program on the artists, history and cultural heritage of western Minnesota; Prairie Sportsman, on hunting, fishing, outdoor recreation and conservation; Prairie Yard and Garden; Your Legislators, a public affairs call-in program first aired in 1984; Compass, a solutions journalism series on public policy and community issues; Meet the Candidates legislative forums; Landmarks; Wheels; Hiseerie; and short videos from Pioneer Digital Studios. Its local productions have earned numerous Upper Midwest Emmy Awards since 2013.

Staff at the Granite Falls studio work in video production and editing, programming and scheduling, communications and promotion, development, membership and corporate support, engineering and master control, facilities, and finance and administration. Pioneer PBS hires for full-time and part-time roles, has mentored high school students in master control, engineering and video production, and welcomes volunteers and applicants for its Community Advisory Board.

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Websitehttps://www.pioneer.org/

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