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WWPX-TV

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WWPX-TV
CityMartinsburg, West Virginia
Channels
BrandingIon
Programming
Affiliations
Ownership
Owner
WPXW-TV, WMAR-TV
History
FoundedMay 21, 1990
First air date
October 1, 1991 (33 years ago) (1991-10-01)
Former call signs
  • WYVN (1991–1996)
  • WSHE-TV (1996–1998)
Former channel number(s)
  • Analog: 60 (UHF, 1991–2009)
  • Digital: 12 (VHF, 2000–2020)
Call sign meaning
West Virginia's Pax; satellite of WPXW-TV
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID23264
ERP4.2 kW
HAAT327.5 m (1,074 ft)
Transmitter coordinates39°14′21″N 77°46′16″W / 39.23917°N 77.77111°W / 39.23917; -77.77111
Links
Public license information
Websiteiontelevision.com

WWPX-TV (channel 60) is a television station licensed to Martinsburg, West Virginia, United States, broadcasting the Ion Television network to the northwestern portion of the Washington, D.C., television market.[2] Owned and operated by Ion Media, the station maintains transmitter facilities on Blue Ridge Mountain east of Charles Town, West Virginia.

WWPX-TV operates as a full-time satellite of the main Ion station for the Washington area, Manassas, Virginia–licensed WPXW-TV (channel 66), whose offices are located in Fairfax Station, Virginia. WWPX covers areas of West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle, northern Virginia, central Maryland and south-central Pennsylvania that receive a marginal to non-existent over-the-air signal from WPXW, although there is significant overlap between the two stations' contours otherwise. WWPX is a straight simulcast of WPXW; on-air references to WWPX are limited to Federal Communications Commission (FCC)-mandated hourly station identifications during programming. Aside from the transmitter, WWPX does not maintain any physical presence locally in Martinsburg.

History

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Channel 60 signed on October 1, 1991, as WYVN ("Your Valley News"), with studios located in a renovated barn on Discovery Place in Martinsburg. WYVN was the second Fox affiliate in West Virginia, behind Charleston's WVAH-TV (now a Catchy Comedy affiliate). Unusually for Fox stations in the network's early years, WYVN made a commitment from the beginning to local news and public affairs programming.[3] However, owner Flying A Communications found itself in financial trouble due to the cost of the local news operation and poor ratings from competition with Washington, D.C.–based stations. Flying A Communications filed for bankruptcy in October 1992, and the station suspended newscasts in May 1993.[4]

WYVN was forced off the air when Flying A went into receivership on September 17, 1993. A sale to WUSQ-FM owner Benchmark Communications, who would have converted the station to CBS affiliate WUSQ-TV, was worked out and approved by the station's bankruptcy trustee, but fell through at the last minute; the license was instead sold to Green River Broadcasting, who returned the station to air on September 24 while it worked out a financing plan.[5][6] Having lost its Fox affiliation, WYVN soldiered on as an independent, and briefly attempted a return of local news from January through February 1994.[7][8] The station remained unable to emerge from bankruptcy; the studio and equipment were sold to its creditors on April 1, 1994, and they locked out the staff and suspended broadcasting.[6] Paxson Communications acquired the license out of bankruptcy for $1.9 million in late 1994.[9]

The station returned again on September 1, 1996, as WSHE-TV, a Paxson station that aired the company's standard infomercial format, with religious programming in some dayparts. The change was made as a clean break with the troubled history of WYVN, but also to "park" a heritage call sign that Paxson had recently removed from one of its FM stations in Miami (now WMIB).[10] The station changed its call letters to WWPX at the beginning of 1998 and became a charter member of Pax TV along with most of Paxson's other stations on August 31 of that year. It has remained with the network, later known as i: Independent Television and now known as Ion Television, ever since.

WWPX was originally a full affiliate of Pax. In 2002, it converted to a satellite of WPXW. The station could no longer afford its own staff of five master-control operators, and becoming a satellite allowed it to carry only the legal minimum of one manager and one engineer.[11]

Technical information

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Subchannels

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The station's signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of WWPX-TV[12]
Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
60.1 720p 16:9 ION Ion Television
60.2 Bounce Bounce TV
60.3 480i CourtTV Court TV
60.4 Laff Laff
60.5 Defy TV Ion Plus[13]
60.6 Scripps Scripps News
60.7 Jewelry Jewelry TV
60.8 HSN HSN

Analog-to-digital conversion

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WWPX-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 60, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition VHF channel 12, using virtual channel 60.[14]

References

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  1. ^ "Facility Technical Data for WWPX-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. ^ Hughes, Dave. "Washington DC/Baltimore Area TV Stations". dcrtv.com. Archived from the original on May 19, 2006. Retrieved May 21, 2006.
  3. ^ "Martinsburg gets new TV station". Frederick News-Post. Associated Press. October 2, 1991. p. D-7.
  4. ^ "W.Va. Judge Approves Sale of TV Station to Kentucky Company". Associated Press News. October 11, 1993.
  5. ^ "Trustee recommends WYVN-TV sale". Frederick News-Post. Associated Press. September 2, 1993. p. B-2.
  6. ^ a b "Lights out at Martinsburg, W. Va., TV station". Frederick News-Post. Associated Press. April 6, 1994. p. B-7.
  7. ^ "WWPX-TV Facility Data". FCCData.
  8. ^ "West Virginia Station Suspends News Programming". Associated Press News. February 16, 1994.
  9. ^ "TV station purchased". Cumberland Times-News. Associated Press. November 29, 1994. p. 2B. Retrieved June 17, 2020.
  10. ^ Foreman, David (March 13, 1997). "inTV Now On TV". The Winchester Star. pp. C1, C3. Retrieved February 1, 2021.
  11. ^ Greene, Julie (February 1, 2002). "Financial woes hit area TV stations". Hagerstown Herald-Mail. Archived from the original on April 26, 2018. Retrieved April 25, 2018.
  12. ^ "RabbitEars TV Query for WWPX". Archived from the original on February 22, 2014. Retrieved February 6, 2014.
  13. ^ Keys, Matthew (June 28, 2024). "Scripps replacing Defy TV with Ion Plus on broadcast TV". TheDesk.net. Retrieved June 28, 2024.
  14. ^ "DTV Tentative Channel Designation for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
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