The station signed on the air on September 10, 1962, as WDCN-TV (for Davidson County Nashville), on VHF channel 2. It is Tennessee's second-oldest educational television station, behind WKNO-TV in Memphis, established six years earlier in 1956. It was originally licensed to the board of Nashville Public Schools, which became an arm of the metropolitan government when Nashville and Davidson County merged in 1963. Like most eventual PBS member stations, WDCN was mainly established to serve area school children with educational programming.