Alaska Public Media

About Alaska Public Media

Alaska Public Media traces to May 7, 1975, when KAKM (channel 7) signed on at 7:07 p.m. as Alaska Public Television, Inc., broadcasting from the Consortium Library in Anchorage. The station soon moved to a purpose-built facility on the Alaska Pacific University campus, later named the Elmo Sackett Broadcast Center. Its call letters stand for the three regions it serves — Anchorage, Kenai, and Matanuska — and KAKM was the only PBS station in Alaska that was never part of the AlaskaOne network. On the radio side, KSKA signed on in 1978 at 103.1 MHz under Aurora Community Broadcasting, moved to 91.1 MHz in 1980, and grew to 100,000 watts by 1998.

The two services consolidated over time. In 1994 KSKA merged with KAKM to form Alaska Public Telecommunications Inc. (APTI), and the stations moved together into the Elmo Sackett Broadcast Center in 1997. In 2004 the Alaska Public Radio Network merged with APTI; KTOO in Juneau and KYUK in Bethel later merged operations with KAKM to form Alaska Public Television. Control of the Alaska Rural Communications Service — the satellite-fed network serving 235 Bush communities — passed to Alaska Public Media in 2021.

Today Alaska Public Media owns KAKM (PBS, channel 7) and KSKA (NPR, 91.1 FM, HD Radio), sharing studios at the Elmo Sackett Broadcast Center on the Alaska Pacific University campus on University Drive in Anchorage, with transmitters near Knik. Its radio service carries NPR, BBC World Service, and locally produced programming including Alaska News Nightly. Its digital home is alaskapublic.org.