WUFT (channel 5) is a PBS member television station in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is owned by the University of Florida alongside low-power independent station WRUF-LD (channel 10), NPR member WUFT-FM (89.1), and commercial radio stations WRUF (850 AM) and WRUF-FM (103.7). The five stations share studios at Weimer Hall on the University's campus; WUFT's transmitter is located on Northwest 53rd Avenue in Gainesville. WUFT serves 16 counties in north-central Florida. For decades, it has also been available on cable in Jacksonville, currently on Comcast Xfinity channel 25, providing a second choice for PBS programming alongside WJCT (which signed on two months before WUFT). History WUFT first signed on the air with instructional programming on November 17, 1958, becoming the third educational television station in Florida. The station was a major beneficiary of a quirk in the FCC's plan for allocating stations. In the early days of broadcast television, there were 12 VHF channels available and 69 UHF channels (later reduced to 55 in 1983). The VHF bands were more desirable because they carried longer distances. Since there were only 12 VHF channels available, there were limitations as to how closely the stations could be spaced. After the FCC's Sixth Report and Order ended the license freeze and opened the UHF band in 1952, it devised a plan for allocating VHF licenses. Under this plan, almost all of the country would be able to receive two commercial VHF channels plus one non-commercial channel. Most of the rest of the country ("1/2") would be able to receive a third VHF channel. Other areas would be designated as "UHF islands" since they were too close to larger cities for VHF service. The "2" networks became CBS and NBC, "+1" represented non-commercial educational stations, and "1/2" became ABC (which was the weakest network usually winding up with the UHF allocation where no VHF was available). However, what would become of the Gainesville market is sandwiched between Jacksonville (channels 4, 7, and 12) to the northeast, Tallahassee (channels 6 and 11) to the northwest, and Orlando (channels 2, 6, and 9) and Tampa Bay (channels 3, 8, 10, and 13) to the south. This created a large "doughnut" in north-central Florida where there could only be one VHF license. WUFT was fortunate enough to gain that license, and as a result, Gainesville became unique in that a public television station was the market's