History of PBS Studios Building (9345 Lawton)

Detroit Public Schools' educational radio and TV stations, including WDTR later known as WRCJ-FM began in August 1948 as Michigan's first educational FM station out of 9345 Lawton, On October 3, 1955 the WTVS, today now known as Detroit PBS, began broadcasting out of their first Detroit studio out of the same building. Detroit Public Schools was a founding partner when the station launched in 1955 to provide Educational programming for Wayne State University, Detroit Public Schools, and other schools in the area. PBS began broadcasting on Channel 56 later expanding to 5 subchannels on the 56th channel. Many early PBS shows would be broadcasted at 9345 Lawton including Detroit Black Journal providing a vital voice for the African American community after the 1967 Detroit Riots unrest, evolving later into American Black Journal and continuing to this day. Along with the later edition at the 9345 Lawton Studio of Para Mi Pueblo a weekly show geared towards the Hispanic community. Along with a range of local programs, including high school football broadcasts and talk shows. In 1968 the studio would change to color broadcasting, then in 1971 PBS moved there studios to the former WJBK-TV Studios Building at 7441 Second Avenue in New Center. This change would allow for 24/7 broadcasting and a much larger facility. PBS would move again in 1990 from New Center to Wixom MI. Each of these buildings showed a different era of PBS broadcasting however all were used as fixed satellite services until 2009, at this time most of PBS’ analog broadcasting was done via large 1000ft towers notably at 8 mile and meyers rd and 11 Mile and Inkster Roads. Prior to the lead up of the federal mandate to end full power analog TV broadcasts on June 12, 2009, PBS had shut down its analog signal early on April 16, 2009 the switchover occurred after a presentation of the national anthems of Canada ("O Canada") and the United States ("The Star-Spangled Banner") WTVS management cited repeated failures of the station's analog transmitter as the reason for ceasing its analog signal on April 16 rather than the June 12 transition date for full power stations (the analog transmitter had failed seven times between January 1 and April 16 alone). This lead to a closure of the 9345 Lawton PBS location as analog was the only broadcast the station was equipped with due to its age. Between 2017 and 2018 the transmitter on top of the former PBS Studio was removed along with a much larger analog tower in the field of Brady Elementary School located next to the studio.