WVIZ is the flagship Public Broadcasting Service member station in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is owned by Ideastream and is sister station to the area's National Public Radio member, WCPN. The two stations share a studio at the Idea Center on Playhouse Square in downtown Cleveland.

WVIZ was the 100th public television station to sign on in America. Its founder was Betty Cope, a former producer at Cleveland's ABC affiliate, WEWS, who recognized the value of non-commercial educational television for the schools. After a long struggle to clear all the hurdles, WVIZ signed on Sunday, February 7, 1965, just in time for the start of the Cleveland school year's second semester. Original studios were located in Cleveland's Max Hayes Trade School.

The first voice heard on WVIZ was that of Alan R. Stephenson, Ph.D. He was the first director of WVIZ's Educational television services department. Stephenson's duties included casting, setting budgets, and acting as executive producer for dozens of local Non-commercial educational television productions.

American Masters is a PBS television show which produces biographies on the artists, actors and writers of the United States who have left a profound impact on the nation's popular culture. It is produced by WNET in New York City. The show debuted on PBS in 1986.

Groups or organizations featured include: Actor's Studio, Algonquin Round Table, Group Theatre, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Women of Tin Pan Alley, Negro Ensemble Company, Juilliard School, the Beat Generation, The Singer-songwriters of the 1970s, Sun Records, Vaudeville, and Warner Bros. Pictures.

American Masters, a series "devoted to America's 'greatest native-born and adopted' artists," was originally scheduled to premier in September 1985; for "logistical scheduling reasons" the premiere was delayed until summer 1986, though on October 16, 1985, an American Masters "special" called Aaron Copland: A Self-Portrait was aired.

The first of the 15 first-season episodes was Private Conversations, a "cinema-verite documentary by Christian Blackwood done in that trickiest of cinematic forms: a film about a film, in this instance the television version of Death of a Salesman, directed by Volker Schlöndorff". It aired on June 23, 1986, as one of two episodes not specifically commissioned for the show's first season.