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WMKE-CD, VHF digital channel 21, is a television station located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. The station is owned by LocusPoint Networks. WMKE maintains studio facilities located at 3974 South 27th Street in Milwaukee, and its transmitter is co-located at the Milwaukee Public Television tower on Milwaukee's northwest side.

History

The station first signed on the air in November 1985, broadcasting on VHF channel 8; it offered a mix of locally produced programming, public domain movies and television series, and music videos, with the rest of its broadcast day filled by programming from the Canadian music video channel MuchMusic; MuchMusic programming was dropped in 1990, and replaced with the viewer request music network The Box. After The Box was acquired by Viacom in 2001, the station became an MTV2 affiliate with some programming in Korean (the station's ownership, KM Communications, is made up of Korean Americans). In August 2000, WMKE moved to VHF channel 7 to allow for PBS member station WMVS (channel 10) to operate its digital signal on channel 8.

As an analog station, the station's transmitter was located atop the Hilton Milwaukee City Center in downtown Milwaukee (which was previously used by WVTV, channel 18, and WDJT-TV, channel 58, before both stations moved their transmitter facilities to Milwaukee's northeast side). The station's signal was directed north from that site to prevent interference with the former main digital signal of WLS-TV in Chicago (which broadcasts on virtual channel 7 and used that allocation until 2012 to carry the station inner-city after a move of the main signal to digital channel 44), and was localized to within Milwaukee County.

In 2006, WMKE-CA dropped MTV2 as well as its Korean programming and became an affiliate of America One (the network had previously been affiliated with WMLW-CA – channel 41, now WBME-CD – and its forerunner low-power station W65BT had previously carried the network until 2002). In October 2012, WMKE-CA affiliated with the Georgia-based Gem Shopping Network. Throughout all of this, the only pay TV carriage obtained by the station was over AT&T U-Verse on their channel 7 throughout southeastern Wisconsin. Time Warner Cable and Charter have never carried the station on their systems.

The station had a construction permit to operate a low-power digital signal on UHF channel 20. This permit expired on May 21, 2012, with KM Communications later re-filing to construct a digital transmitter facility on UHF channel 21.

In July 2014, the station was taken dark for financial reasons, likely due to fines from the FCC resulting from the station's lack of updates to both its public file and educational and informational programming reporting file, the latter of which had not had the public file components updated for 3½ years; this resulted in a fine total of $20,000, with an appeal of the amount for financial purposes denied as the FCC determined that WMKE-CA and Chicago sister station WOCK-CD were under the same ownership and had the financial ability to pay the fine.[1]

On July 30, 2014, the sale of WMKE-CA was announced for $2.5 million to LocusPoint Networks, which is known for purchasing television stations as part of the FCC's upcoming spectrum incentive auction.[2] As of January 2015 returned to the air on its digital channel 21 allocation from the traditional Milwaukee tower farm. It now holds the new calls WMKE-CD, as an affiliate of the Soul of the South Network. The station's digital signal is now unrestricted and fully covers the core Milwaukee metro area, including the Washington County, Waukesha County and Ozaukee County suburbs. At times, the station's PSIP system does not work, and the station eventually decided to use their digital channel allocation, 21.1 rather than their assigned virtual channel 7.1 to display their channel number.

Due to Soul of the South's various financial and technical issues which eventually resulted in it ending operations, WMKE eventually picked up Luken Communications's automotive-focused Rev'n network in January 2016.

References

  1. ^ "Memorandum Opinion and Order in the matter of: KM LPTV of Milwaukee, LLC" (Press release). Federal Communications Commission. 28 May 2014. Retrieved 9 July 2014.
  2. ^ "LocusPoint Buys LPs In Milwaukee, Erie". TVNewsCheck. 30 July 2014. Retrieved 30 July 2014.

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