KUED Rebrands As PBS Utah

[David]

The subject line pretty much says it all. What surprises me is that it's taken this long for the U of U to make the change. It's been over a year since KBYU-TV dropped its PBS affiliation, and it's not like there's a waiting list for new PBS affiliates in Utah.

www.ksl.com/article/46667313/kued-to-rebrand-to-pbs-utah-later-this-month

[amanuensis]

Myself, I don't see the point of the rebrand. It is not like people were scratching their heads wondering which station carried PBS programming. The only reason for that I can think of is perhaps to some people the "ED" in "KUED" implies "boring".

[David]

There was at least one person who posted on the KSL article that was unaware KBYU-TV dropped its PBS affiliation last July, and another person who didn't know that Create is now on 7.4. I suspect there's at least a few others who haven't got the memo about KUED being the only PBS affiliate in Utah now.

[CAwasinNJ]

I don't see the point of this either. If viewers don't know KUED is PBS by now they're never going to. I don't even think either of those names matters. In my conversations with non-hobbyist TV viewers about any programming they almost always refer to the channel number and that's it. It's just "channel 7" or "channel 5" or "channel 13" or whatever. No network, no local branding, no nothing. I doubt this is going to hurt them, so meh. amanuensis' theory about maybe the ED = boring is interesting but doesn't PBS = boring even more with the no fans? I know it was just spitballing but I don't think that's it. Of course I can't come up with anything at all so I think you win this round.

David, it isn't either surprising or not that it took over a year to rebrand KUED. They could have done that years ago and it would have been fine in my opinion. KUED has been the primary PBS affiliate in Utah for forever, even when they were sharing programming with KBYU-TV. Not being the exclusive home of something doesn't seem to affect KUER and KUSU. KUER has been NPR Utah for a while now even with other NPR stations around. Not to be outdone, KUSU brands as Utah Public Radio and also runs NPR programming. I tend to believe the public statement by KUED that the rebranding is just tied to the national PBS rebranding. KRLU is doing the same thing KUED is doing and starting to call itself Austin PBS.