PBS Appalachia Virginia is a PBS member station serving southwestern Virginia. Operated as a branch of Blue Ridge PBS in Roanoke, PBS Appalachia Virginia has no over-the-air transmitters and distributes its programming via cable and streaming television platforms.
It began broadcasting on June 10, 2023, to serve an area of Virginia without adequate public television coverage and where previous public TV broadcasting had been curtailed by financial and technical issues. It broadcasts from studios at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Bristol in Bristol, Virginia.
History
Southwestern Virginia had previously been served by two retransmitters of Roanoke's WBRA-TV Blue Ridge PBS: WSVN-TV (later known as WSBN-TV) in Norton and WMSY-TV in Marion. The two stations were shut down in 2013 due to Virginia state budget cuts to public television, but returned in 2014 (on the two stations and WBRA-DT2) as Southwest Virginia Public Television (SWVAPTV).[1][2]