KLRU (channel 18), branded on-air as Austin PBS, is a PBS member television station in Austin, Texas, United States, owned by the Capital of Texas Public Telecommunications Council. In 2022, KLRU moved into its "Austin Media Center" studios located on the Austin Community College Highland Campus, which was redeveloped from the former Highland Mall. KLRU occupies in what was previously the mall's Dillard's department store. The station's transmitter is located in the West Austin Antenna Farm in unincorporated Travis County. In addition to airing program content from PBS, it produces original programming including the national music series Austin City Limits. History When KLRN in San Antonio was built, it was designed to serve both San Antonio and Austin, as there was interest in building a public television station in Austin but not enough funding until the University of Texas got involved. It had studios in both cities (in Austin, at the Jesse H. Jones Communications Center on the University of Texas at Austin campus). Its transmitter was located at New Braunfels, providing enough signal to provide coverage to San Antonio and Austin, but this arrangement proved insufficient to cover all of Travis and Williamson counties, and reception in Austin had been poorer than expected due to intervening hilly terrain. The Southwest Texas Public Broadcasting Council, owner of KLRN, filed to build a new television station on Austin's non-commercial reserved channel 18 in 1975 and received a construction permit on September 3, 1976. In 1978, KLRN began a public fundraising drive to raise the money to build KLRU. Its construction enabled 23 additional school districts to benefit from the station's educational programming. The transmitter was activated on April 24, 1979, and programs began May 4. Born at a time when its ownership was embroiled in other controversies involving operations, the station's first license was only for one year due to misrepresentations over matching donations during the fund drive. From the moment KLRU signed on, a future where KLRN and KLRU were separate entities was in the offing. Only a year after KLRU hit the airwaves, it received its own Austin-based governing board, though it continued under the ownership of the Southwest Texas Public Broadcasting Council. In 1984, KLRN moved to a new tower in San Antonio. Two years later, for financial reasons, officials began exploring an outright split of the two stations, which was approved in September 1986, with separate branding