WUXP-TV

WUXP-TV

Nashville, Tennessee
Branding	My30
Channels	Digital: 21 (UHF) Virtual: 30 (PSIP)
Subchannels	30.1 MyNetworkTV 30.2 theCoolTV
Affiliations	MyNetworkTV (since 2006)
Owner	Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (WUXP Licensee, LLC)
First air date	February 18, 1984
Call letters' meaning	exploits the U and P from UPN (former affiliation)
Sister station(s)	WNAB, WZTV
Former callsigns	WCAY-TV (1984-1989) WXMT (1989-1996)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 30 (1984-2009)
Former affiliations	independent (1984-1987, 1990-1995) Fox (1987-1990) UPN (1995-2006)
Transmitter power	1000 kW
Height	413 m
Facility ID	9971
Transmitter coordinates	36°15′50″N 86°47′39″W
Website	www.mytv30web.com

WUXP, channel 30 (digital 21) is the MyNetworkTV affiliate in Nashville, Tennessee. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, and is a sister station to Fox affiliate WZTV channel 17 and the CW affiliate WNAB channel 58. It is currently branded as My 30. Its transmitter is located in Whites Creek, Tennessee. Syndicated programming on WUXP includes: Swift Justice with Jackie Glass, Jeopardy!, Judge Judy, The People's Court, and Family Feud.

History

The station signed on the air on February 18, 1984 as WCAY-TV, owned by the TVX Broadcast Group, which had signed on a few other stations in other markets. The station had a general entertainment format with cartoons, sitcoms, movies, and dramas.

Along with the other TVX stations, WCAY became a Fox affiliate at the network's 1986 inception as part of a group deal. Fox affiliated with all of TVX's stations as a condition of affiliating with WNOL-TV in New Orleans. However, there was a catch: if one of TVX's underperforming stations were sold, it could lose its Fox affiliation.

In 1987, TVX acquired Taft Broadcasting's non-Big Three stations. Unfortunately, the deal left TVX heavily leveraged. After the 1987 stock market "bump", the larger investors started pulling their funding. One large investor used his voting shares and influence to force TVX to sell some of its underperforming medium-market stations. WCAY and sister station WMKW in Memphis (now WLMT) were sold to MT Communications, which was headed by -- and named after -- Michael Thompson. WCAY then changed its call letters to WXMT.

In 1990, WZTV's owner, Act III Broadcasting -- who was known for buying its competitors' stronger programming assets and having the competitor change formats to religion or shopping or go dark altogether in one case -- offered to buy WXMT's entire syndicated programming inventory and move most shows onto WZTV mixing with shows WZTV had. Fox also was planning to exercise their option of moving affiliation to WZTV as well. Originally, WXMT was to switch to home shopping 18 hours a day and religion 6 hours, but MT Communications still wanted some of the programming and to keep some entertainment on the schedule. The deal was called off early in February. But in the middle of the month when Fox moved over, negotiations resumed and immediately it was decided that WZTV would get only cash programming (sitcoms, movies, some of the cartoons), while WXMT would keep barter cartoons, a few barter sitcoms plus some religious shows.

The deal took effect in February. WXMT's schedule now looked like this: cartoons from 7-9 AM, religion 9 AM-noon, home shopping noon to 4 PM, low rated barter syndicated shows from 4 to 9 PM and home shopping after 9 PM. In 1991, WXMT provided Nashville its first-ever 9PM newscast in a deal with WSMV, Nashville's NBC affiliate. The hour-long weeknight newscast, which featured WSMV's anchors and reporters, lasted less than two years before being replaced with syndicated programming.

Gradually, more first run talk shows, sitcoms and cartoons were added. By 1994, WXMT was once again running general entertainment full time. On January 16, 1995, the station became an affiliate of the United Paramount Network (UPN), and branded itself UPN 30. By then, WZTV was owned by Abry, and later that year, WZTV entered into a local marketing agreement with WXMT. MT Communications sold the station to a local owner, but WZTV would program the station. The call letters changed to the current WUXP on August 23, 1996 and would rebrand itself UXP30 and UPN Nashville before going back to UPN 30 in 2002.

The LMA continued after Sinclair acquired Abry. As time went on, cartoons disappeared gradually and more first run reality and talk shows would be added. In 2000, Sinclair bought WUXP outright.

In February 2006, WUXP, along with most of Sinclair's WB and UPN affiliates, was announced as an affiliate of MyNetworkTV. On September 5 of that year, WUXP rebranded as My 30 and moved the last three weeks of UPN programming to late nights. WUXP may carry CW or Fox programming should WNAB or WZTV preempt in the event of a local special or an emergency such as a breaking news story.

Before the LMA with WZTV began, WXMT had planned to build a state-of-the-art studio facility along the "south loop" of Interstate 40 in Nashville. For many years, even after the plans had been abandoned, a retaining wall on the site featured a mural reading "Future Home of WXMT-30".

Digital television

Channel	Video	Aspect	Label	Programming
30.1	720p	16:9	WUPX-MY	Main WUXP programming / MyNetworkTV
30.2	480i	4:3	WUPX-CO	TheCoolTV

Post-analog shutdown

WUXP-TV discontinued regular analog programming in 2009. The station remained on its pre-transition channel 21. However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display WUXP-TV's virtual channel as 30. As a part of a deal involving several Sinclair Broadcast Group owned stations, WUXP added a subchannel for theCoolTV on RF channel 21.2 (virtual channel 30.2) as of September 18, 2010, while WUXP still uses MyNetworkTV programming on RF channel 21.1 (virtual channel 30.1).

External links

• Official site
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WUXP-TV
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WUXP-TV