Maryland Public Television
PBS member network serving Maryland, USA
Maryland Public Television (MPT) is the PBS member state network for the U.S. state of Maryland. It operates under the auspices of the Maryland Public Broadcasting Commission, an agency of the Maryland state government that holds the licenses for all PBS member stations licensed in the state.
MPT's headquarters are located at the Irene and Edward H. Kaplan Production Studio on Owings Mills Boulevard in the unincorporated community of Owings Mills in northwestern Baltimore County. MPT operates six full-power transmitters that cover nearly all of the state, plus Washington, D.C., and parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.
History
WMPB (licensed to Baltimore) first signed on in 1969 as the first station of the Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting; it gained satellite stations in Salisbury, Hagerstown, and Annapolis between 1971 and 1975, resulting in a formation of a statewide public television network. The network adopted its current name in 1984. Maryland Instructional Television (Maryland ITV), a division of the Maryland State Department of Education, was also housed at the network until 1991. On July 4, 1987, WFPT (licensed to Frederick) signed on to fill coverage gaps in the outer Washington market, while WGPT in Oakland began operations to cover the extreme west of the state, much of which previously had no local television service at all.
About 1999, the network launched an afternoon Britcom programming block, Afternoon Tea, replacing children's programming. By 2009, MPT was airing kids' programming during the day on its MPT Select channel.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Maryland Public Television” as pBS member network serving Maryland, USA. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as pBS member network serving Maryland, USA. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q14692165. VIAF identifies the subject as 127199435. The Library of Congress control number is n86106191. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1969, 1971, 1975 and 1984.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Maryland Public Television”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Maryland Public Television primary sources, Maryland Public Television archive and Maryland research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Maryland Public Television”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Maryland Public Television” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.