The three stations share studios on Mariposa Street in San Francisco's Mission District and transmitter facilities at Sutro Tower.

KQED was organized and founded by veteran broadcast journalists James Day and Jonathan Rice on June 1, 1953, and first signed on the air on April 5, 1954, as the fourth television station in the San Francisco Bay Area and the sixth public television station in the United States, debuting shortly after the launch of WQED in Pittsburgh.

[5] In 1970, KQED inherited KNEW-TV (channel 32) from Metromedia and changed the station's call letters to KQEC, but found they could not operate it without losing money.

In 1988, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revoked KQED's license to operate KQEC, citing excessive off-air time, further charging dishonesty in previous filings with regard to the specific reasons.

After being revoked from KQED's hands, the reassigned license was granted to the Minority Television Project (MTP), one of the challengers of the KQED/KQEC filing.

[8] KQED was co-producer of the television adaptation of Armistead Maupin's novel Tales of the City, which aired on PBS stations nationwide in January 1994.

The original six-part series was produced by Britain's public-service Channel 4 Corporation with KQED and PBS' American Playhouse.

The series featured gay themes, nudity, and illicit drug use in this fictional portrayal of life in 1970s San Francisco.

[9] With financial constraints looming, KQED announced in June 1995 that it would begin showing 30-second advertisements from corporate sponsors the following month.

KQED also became a PBS Kids Sprout partner, which gave the station goodwill to get carriage on Comcast's systems.

On Sundays, children's programming airs during the early morning hours, with reruns of popular shows during the daytime and prime time.

The program would eventually open a West Coast bureau at KQED's studios in 1997 to extend coverage throughout the United States.

[25] Unlike most PBS member stations in the west, KQED airs the Eastern Edition of the NewsHour live at 3 p.m. PT/6 p.m.

[26] Noteworthy KQED television productions include the first installment of Armistead Maupin's miniseries Tales of the City, Tongues Untied by Marlon Riggs, Film School Shorts, International Animation Festival hosted by Jean Marsh, and a series of programs focusing on the historic neighborhoods in San Francisco, such as The Castro and the Fillmore District.

One of KQED's early local programs was World Press, an hour-long weekly roundup of international news stories analyzed by a panel of political analysts, which debuted in 1963.

Panel members, who were political science analysts specializing in each specific global area, each brought a newspaper for round table discussion.

[28] It was developed by San Francisco Supervisor Roger Boas,[citation needed] who brought his long-term interest in government, politics, television, and business to the show.

Raggs and would first be test-marketed on ten public television stations, including KQED and its partners, before launching nationwide in 2008.