KBDI-TV (channel 12), known as PBS12, is a PBS member television station licensed to Broomfield, Colorado, United States, serving the Denver area.

The station is owned by Colorado Public Television, Inc. KBDI-TV's studios are located at Welton and 29th Streets in the Five Points neighborhood northeast of downtown Denver; its main transmitter is located atop Mestaa'ėhehe Mountain[b] (just west of Evergreen, in Clear Creek County), and it is rebroadcast by translators throughout the Front Range and eastern Colorado.

KBDI-TV serves as Colorado's secondary public television station to Rocky Mountain PBS with an emphasis on local and independent programming.

Denver's existing public TV station, KRMA-TV, launched an ultimately unsuccessful legal battle to stop KBDI-TV from being built, calling into question Schwartz's character and competition for programming and fundraising dollars.

It was rushed to air with little programming, amateurish production values, and myriad technical issues, among them a transmitter site that impaired coverage of Boulder.

In the 1990s, KBDI's willingness to air programming by and for Colorado's gay community earned it a loyal viewer and donor base, as well as criticism.

Most prominent are the station's long-running weekly public affairs series, Colorado Inside Out, and election coverage including the production of candidate debates.

[10] The Front Range Educational Media Corporation (FREMCO) applied to the Federal Communications Commission on March 17, 1977, to build Boulder's channel 12 as a station in nearby Broomfield.

[11] On August 28, 1977, Clark Secrest of The Denver Post published a front-page story calling into question Schwartz's job performance as general manager of WYEP-FM.

[18] KRMA-TV and its parent, Denver Public Schools—concerned about the emergence of a competitor for fundraising dollars and PBS programming—began to scrutinize the Front Range application only after it had been granted.

[16][17] In December, it formally lodged a complaint with the FCC, claiming that Schwartz had a penchant for "misrepresentation and deception" and "no ability to manage".

[19] Front Range defended Schwartz's actions as a good-faith attempt, born of youth and inexperience, to save WYEP.

It vacated the permit grant and remanded the case to the FCC for hearings on FREMCO's financing and evidence as to Schwartz's character, saying the commission should have considered the impact KBDI-TV would have on KRMA-TV.

[28] Schwartz quit as president of the station, an action that in combination with a new financing plan was intended to relieve the issues at the heart of the matter;[29] he returned in an advisory capacity two weeks later.

[45] A month later, a swarm of moths invaded the transmitter site and caused a short circuit, abruptly ending the evening's broadcasting in the middle of a movie.

[47] Another problem was poor siting; intervening terrain prevented much of the immediate Boulder area from receiving a clear signal, as had been predicted before launch.

[48] To alleviate its reception issues in Boulder, in 1982, the station installed a translator on channel 11 to rebroadcast its signal from Williams Village.

[49] The studios likewise had issues; hurried refitting of a converted warehouse on 117th Street in Broomfield led to a city inspection that turned up "numerous" violations of electrical code.

[52] Schwartz led coverage of Denver's high-profile cable television franchise hearings later that year, winning plaudits from Secrest for his "steel-trap understanding" of the topic area and ability to ask hard-hitting questions of key players such as Reynelda Muse, a stakeholder in one firm seeking the franchise.

[55] In 1982, KRMA-TV's program director told The Boston Globe that the market had room for his station and KBDI-TV as long as they continued to be "divergent" in what they aired.

[56] Ruling out Boulder for technical reasons, the station selected Denver and announced its relocation to a site on Stout Street in 1988.

[58] The building was foreclosed on in 1990; the new owners opted to serve eviction notices on all tenants, including KBDI, which fretted about the impossibility of relocating its operation within a 30-day window.

[59] The station settled with the owners[60] and vacated the premises in early 1991, relocating to a former bakery and construction school on Federal Boulevard.

[62] KBDI introduced Colorado Inside Out, a talk show originally hosted by Ken Hamblin, that December.

[75] After 20 years with the station and 15 as general manager, Ted Krichels departed KBDI in 1999 to run WPSX-TV at Pennsylvania State University.

[82] In 2005, Front Range Educational Media Corporation reincorporated as Colorado Public Television, Inc., and KBDI-TV rebranded fully under that name (CPT12 for short) in 2010.