University of North Carolina Television Network

Noncommercial television began in North Carolina on 8 January 1955, when WUNC-TV, Channel 4 (Chapel Hill) went on the air. The station was licensed to the University of North Carolina system. Planning began in the early 1960s for a statewide network of educational television stations. From 1965 to 2010, twelve stations joined WUNC-TV to form the University of North Carolina Television Network. The University of North Carolina Center for Public Television was established in 1979 to centralize the operation and administration of the network.

Noncommercial television began in North Carolina on 8 January 1955, when WUNC-TV, Channel 4 (Chapel Hill) went on the air. Officials of the consolidated University of North Carolina system had applied in 1953 for one of a limited number of channels reserved by the Federal Communications Conmmission for educational use. WUNC-TV was the tenth educational television station in the country, and the first south of Washington, D.C. It consisted of studios located on the university system's three campuses: the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, Woman's College in Greensboro, and North Carolina State College in Raleigh. These studios fed programs to a single transmitter in Chatham County. Each campus had a director of television and a television programming council, composed of faculty. In Chapel Hill, the first director of television was Earl Wynn, who had been director of the Communication Center there since 1946. WUNC-TV's Chapel Hill studio shared space with the Communication Center in Swain Hall. Earl Wynn was succeeded as director of television at Chapel Hill in 1959 by John E. Young. Young remained in the position until 1980.

In October 1962, a commission appointed by Governor Sanford recommended that the university's television program be expanded to a statewide network. In 1963, the General Assembly appropriated funds for the initial phase of network construction. The state funds were matched by grants from the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. In September 1965, WUNB-TV (Columbia) went on the air, becoming the statewide network's second station. The first phase of network construction concluded in September 1967, when new stations went on the air in Linville, Asheville, and Concord. The 1967 General Assembly authorized funding for a second phase, which resulted in new stations in Wilmington (1971), Greenville (1972), and Winston-Salem (1973). Funds for a third phase were appropriated in 1978, and stations in Jacksonville and Roanoke Rapids were completed in 1982 and 1986 respectively. In 1996, the network's eleventh station, in Lumberton, was dedicated; and in 2010 the twelfth, and final, station signed on in Canton/Waynesville.

Although administrative oversight of the television program was the responsibility of the General Administration of the University of North Carolina system, the three production studios and their directors operated semi-autonomously. Even as new stations joined the network, production remained in the original three studios. In 1969, the Office of Director of Educational Television was created within the university system to improve oversight of the expanding network. Dr. George Bair was appointed to this position and held it until January 1980. In 1979, the General Assembly authorized the creation of the University of North Carolina Center for Public Television. Operations and administraion of the network were then centralized in the new center. A 22-member advisory body, designated the Board of Trustees, was appointed; and John W. (Jake) Dunlop assumed the position of director of the center in February 1980. Dunlop closed the studios in Raleigh and Greensboro and centralized production at the Chapel Hill studio. In 1989, the Joseph and Kathleen Bryan Communications Center opened in the Research Triangle Park, providing new facilities for both production and administration of the network.

In 1986, President C. D. Spangler, Jr., newly appointed head of the university system, hired Wyndham Robertson as vice president of communications and gave her oversight of the University of North Carolina Center for Public Television. Robertson focused much of her attention on improving the center's programs. When Jake Dunlop retired in 1992, Robertson and Spangler agreed that programming, especially the production of original programs, should be the first priority of the new director. Later that year, they hired Tom Howe as director and general manager of the network. The network formally adopted UNC-TV as its on-air identity in 1993.