December 1996 - The KCET.org Website Launches

In December 1996, KCET steered onto the Information Superhighway with the launch of the KCET.org website.

Prior to the mid-1990s, The Internet was a solely text-based affair, limited to universities, government agencies, and a handful of private companies. But the proliferation of home computers such as the Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows-equipped PCs, equipped with multimedia CD-ROM drives, rapidly made computing accessible to the common household The advent of the World Wide Web, developed by British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee in the early '90s, changed the game forever, adding a far more visual dimension to the Internet.

In April 1994, KCET formally registered the KCET.org Internet domain name, and in December 1996, the first iteration of the station's website appeared online (pictured above), largely as a placeholder site with basic information. By early 1997 the first fully functional site appeared, developed by the site's first webmaster, Ben Shaw. According to Mitch Aiken, who at the time served as KCET's Director of Educational Enterprises, the initial website had links to membership information, brief descriptions of signature shows, and links to the small number of PBS programs which were starting to have their own pages at the time.

"We were reluctant to post the [television] schedule early on, for fear that this might discourage viewers from becoming members, since the main tangible member benefit was receiving the schedule in the monthly magazine," said Aiken, whose title eventually evolved into Director of Education and Interactive Media.

"Shortly after we launched, we began to get requests from the individual KCET-produced programs to develop customized pages showcasing their shows," he added.

Individual KCET departments, such as Membership and Development, Production, Children's Programming, and Education, also saw the value in using the medium of the World Wide Web to communicate to their target audiences and began requesting their own customized presence on the site.

Though Spartan and primitive by today's standards, the website earned positive acclaim: KCET.org was named Best Website in the PBS System (Large Market) in 1998 and 2000.

While the site largely provided information on membership and TV programs in its early years, it shifted to original web-only content in 2005 with a section called "Web Stories," out of which came "Departures" in 2006. Today's KCET.org began to take shape in 2010, with the introduction of new sections carrying even more original online content.