KPEC-TV was an educational television station on ultra high frequency (UHF) channel 56 in Lakewood Center, Washington, United States.
[3] When KPEC-TV began broadcasting again in the fall, it added high school courses, supported by a Ford Foundation grant, as well as evening programs from National Educational Television.
Within a week, a transmitter was on order, and arrangements were being made to use the FM radio studio, protected by a firewall from significant damage, to resume program production;[12] KPEC-TV beat a self-imposed October 1 deadline to get back on the air with the aid of RCA and equipment loaned by other Tacoma and Seattle stations.
[5][17] Channel 56 conducted its first live broadcast in 1970, of a forum on the construction of a new highway;[18] the station's remote production truck, formerly a delivery van, was rebuilt three times using equipment discarded by Seattle's KIRO-TV and KOMO-TV.
[17] Some of that videotape equipment was of benefit to viewers far beyond Washington: by the early 1970s, PBS network programming was being recorded at Lakewood so that the tapes could be transported to KUAC-TV in Fairbanks, Alaska, that state's first public television station.
A series called Washington Alternatives, which was aired by all of the state's public television stations, was taped at KWSU-TV in Pullman but edited at channel 56.
In December 1973, it filed to sell the station to the Christian Broadcasting Network; while that sale awaited FCC action, employees walked out in January until they received their paychecks.
The bankruptcy court received two offers for the station,[23] and Clover Park was the surprise high bidder for the channel 13 broadcast facility (excluding studios).
[26] The final cost was a bargain: $212,000 (revised later to $378,000[27]), with the $1 million of debt dissolved as part of settlements with creditors, some of whom bought back equipment in the KTVW studios at a sheriff's sale.
[25] That sum was similar to the cost of replacing the channel 56 transmitter,[25] but it gave a much wider coverage area and strong regional VHF signal that the existing facility could not provide.
[32] After the approval of a settlement between this group and Kelly that included a $450,000 gift from the buyer for public television and the donation of the Ruston tower to KTPS,[34] KCPQ ceased educational broadcasting on February 29, 1980,[35] and Kelly moved the transmitter site to Bremerton's Gold Mountain before returning KCPQ to commercial operation as an independent station on November 4; it is now a Fox owned-and-operated station.