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WPBS-TV (channel 16) and WNPI-DT (channel 18) are PBS member television stations licensed respectively to Watertown and Norwood, New York, United States. Owned by the St. Lawrence Valley Educational TV Council, the stations maintain studios on Arsenal Street in Watertown. WPBS-TV's transmitter is located on Lewis County Route 194 in Denmark, New York, while WNPI's tower is in South Colton.
WNPI operates as a full-time satellite of WPBS; its existence is only acknowledged in station identifications. Aside from the transmitter, WNPI does not maintain any physical presence locally in Norwood.
The two stations service most of northeastern New York as well as Ottawa and Kingston, Ontario, Canada; their slogan "Your Two-Nation Station" reflects this Canadian audience.
Because of its large Canadian viewership, WNPE was one of the more successful PBS stations, with fundraising totals often exceeding those of stations in much larger markets.
For a minor sum, the rights to use the WPBS call letters were purchased from a small radio station in Conyers, Georgia, in the late 1990s; the call sign change to WPBS-TV took effect on September 1, 1998. Following the shutdown of analog television signals, WPBS switched to a "-DT" suffix on July 2, 2009, as did WNPI; WPBS returned to the "-TV" suffix on March 11, 2020. Despite the calls, which mimic the callsign schemes used by stations owned by ABC, NBC and CBS in New York City and Los Angeles, WPBS-TV is not an owned-and-operated station (nor is similarly named KPBS in San Diego), as PBS cannot own or operate any of its member stations due to the network's local and non-profit nature; the WPBS callsign reflects the station's affiliation and programming, but not any special status within PBS.
Despite its strong viewership in Canada, Rogers Cable, the main cable provider in Ottawa, announced in July 2009 that it would replace WPBS on its systems with Detroit's WTVS by mid-August to provide a higher-quality PBS feed, as WTVS could be fed via fiber optic cable rather than from over-the-air signals. Shortly after receiving this news, a Facebook campaign called 'Save WPBS in Ottawa' (later renamed 'Ottawa Loves WPBS') urging Rogers to reconsider its decision to pull the station was launched, attracting hundreds of supporters, as well as local Ottawa politicians. On July 30, 2009, it was announced that WPBS would offer a fiber-optic feed of the station for Rogers transmitted from Buffalo, New York. Ottawa Citizen: "PBS Watertown wins reprieve from Rogers", 7/30/2009.
Erie, Pennsylvania's WQLN, which serves viewers in the London, Ontario area through Rogers, was also threatened with removal from the Rogers system; London Free Press: "Loss of London viewers could sink Erie station", 7/22/2009. as with WPBS, WQLN offered a fiber connection with Rogers. London Free Press: "Rogers retains PBS affiliate WQLN", 7/31/2009.
WPBS-originated programming distributed to public television stations by the National Educational Telecommunications Association includes:
The four digital subchannels are identical for both WPBS-TV and WNPI-DT.
The station had requested an increase in power from 40 kW to 60 kW for each digital transmitter. While this request had not been addressed by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in time for WPBS/WNPI's April 12, 2009, analog shutoff date, which was sooner than the June 12, 2009, date for American analog stations to end, a construction permit was issued later that year for the increased-power digital facilities.
WPBS-TV's former analog channel number (UHF 16) was in use by WXXI-TV in Rochester from 2003 until 2019. WNPI-TV's former analog channel number (UHF 18) and antenna location has been reassigned to WWNY-CD, a Massena rebroadcaster of Fox affiliate WNYF-CD.
WPBS' service area comprises mostly rural areas and small towns. The only major urban areas in its service area are Ottawa and Kingston.
In the past, reflecting its two-nation audience, the U.S. and O Canada were played on station sign-on and sign-off.
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