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WPWR-TV, virtual channel 50 (UHF digital channel 51), is a MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated television station serving Chicago, Illinois, United States that is licensed to Gary, Indiana. The station is owned by the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of 21st Century Fox, as part of a duopoly with Fox owned-and-operated station WFLD (channel 32). The two stations share studio facilities located at Michigan Plaza in the Chicago Loop; WPWR's transmitter is located atop the Willis Tower on South Wacker Drive. On cable, the station is available on Comcast and WOW! cable channel 8.

History

As an independent station

Early time-share arrangement with WBBS-TV

The station first signed on the air on April 4, 1982 as a shared station operation broadcasting on UHF channel 60, split between English-language WPWR-TV and Spanish-language WBBS-TV. The Federal Communications Commission awarded the license to two locally based station owners who had competed heavily for the construction permit, and were the top contenders among a half-dozen applicants for the channel 60 license. Metrowest Corporation – owned by Fred Eychaner, which would later become Newsweb Corporation – was the original applicant for the UHF channel 60 license in 1978, and was the original owner of WPWR. Chicago resident Marcelino Miyares – who owned WBBS – assisted Eychaner in completing the construction of channel 60, and was actually the one that was granted the license. Under the arrangement, the combined operation operated as an independent station.

A large percentage of WPWR's programming schedule was occupied by Sportsvision, a new pay television service which Eychaner had developed through a deal with Chicago White Sox co-owners Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn. To receive the service, viewers had to rent a set-top converter and pay a monthly fee in order to view Sportsvision's event telecasts, involving the Chicago sports teams. However, Sportsvision was not a success and transitioned into a cable channel in January 1983, eventually evolving into SportsChannel Chicago.

With Sportsvision removed from its schedule, Eychaner began acquiring public domain movies to air on weekends and a few shows that were still owned by fellow independent station WSNS-TV (channel 44, now a Telemundo owned-and-operated station), which began carrying the ONTV subscription entertainment service on a full-time basis in the fall of 1982. These programs ran weekdays from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m. and from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., as well as from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on weekends; public domain movies also ran during the overnight hours when WBBS signed off for the night. WPWR also chose to compete with rival independent WCIU-TV (channel 26)'s locally produced business news service, Stock Market Observer, by running national business programming from the Financial News Network each weekday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The FNN simulcast was dropped in January 1984, at which time the station added several classic sitcoms from the early to mid-1950s and older cartoons to its schedule. In 1984, more recognizable classic sitcoms and newer barter cartoons were mixed into the schedule.

While Miyares won the license, he was only able to acquire enough programming to run about eight hours per day. WBBS' schedule featured an array of Spanish-language programs – including telenovelas and movies, as well as locally produced shows, such as the popular music video program Imagen, hosted by local Spanish-language television personality (and now media executive) Rey Mena and Vivianne Plazas. One of the notable events for WBBS occurred in 1984, when the station introduced the Latin teen pop group Menudo (which included a young Ricky Martin), to Chicago's Latino community. WBBS programmed channel 60 daily from 7:00 p.m. to 2:30 a.m., with Eychaner's WPWR purchasing the rest of the time. Another twist in this arrangement was that although the two stations broadcast from the same transmitter, as per the FCC's channel assignment table, WBBS was actually licensed to West Chicago while WPWR was licensed to Aurora.

In the spring of 1985, WSNS-TV announced that station would become an affiliate of the Spanish International Network (the forerunner to the present-day Univision). Miyares subsequently realized that he could not hope to compete with SIN, and reduced the programming on WBBS' schedule to just Spanish-language movies that aired only on weekend evenings. He sold the rest of the weekday time periods that his station had occupied to Eychaner, allowing WPWR to broadcast full-time on channel 60, at least on weekdays.

Meanwhile, Eychaner acquired the construction permit for WGMI, a proposed station that would be licensed to Gary and broadcast on UHF channel 56, for $1.5 million. The permit had been held by a group of Indiana businessmen since 1976, but the station was never built and effectively, never signed on. Eychaner planned to move the WPWR intellectual unit and call letters to channel 56, while broadcasting its transmitter from a tower in downtown Chicago. However, he was unable to have the channel 56 transmitter relocated because of the presence of channel 60 there; FCC regulations in effect to prevent signal interference between analog UHF stations effectively required television stations broadcasting from nearby transmitter sites to be spaced at least six channels apart. However, Eychaner had a backup plan. Soon after acquiring the construction permit for channel 56, he also acquired the license for WCAE, a non-commercial station on UHF channel 50 in St. John, Indiana. He successfully petitioned the FCC to move the non-commercial allocation from 50 to 56, which would eventually became WYIN (now licensed to Gary) when that station signed on in November 1987. Eychaner then relocated the channel 50 transmitter to downtown Chicago, and moved WPWR's programming to that allocation.

Move to channel 50

WBBS shut down for good in early 1986.[1] However, Miyares still owned the channel 60 license; he then sold WBBS' remaining airtime on the channel to Eychaner, turning WPWR into a 24-hour operation. Later that year, Eychaner purchased the channel 60 license for $11 million, formally ending the split-channel arrangement when WPWR took over the station full-time on August 22, 1986. The following year, Eychaner sold the channel 60 allocation to Home Shopping Network for $25 million, in order to move the WPWR intellectual unit to UHF channel 50. When the frequency swap occurred on January 18, 1987,[2] WPWR moved to channel 50, with a rerun of the anthology series Night Gallery as the first program it aired on its new frequency; the now HSN-owned channel 60 simultaneously had its call letters changed to WEHS (now UniMás owned-and-operated station WXFT-DT).

As time went on, WPWR began acquiring many cartoons, more recent off-network sitcoms, drama series, movies and first-run syndicated shows (including Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987 and War of the Worlds in 1988; at least one Star Trek spinoff would air on WPWR from that time until June 2005, when UPN aired the last network episode of Star Trek: Enterprise). Within a year of starting full-time operation on channel 50, WPWR had firmly established itself as the third independent station in Chicago, behind WGN-TV (channel 9) and future sister station WFLD (channel 32). Although WFLD had become a charter owned-and-operated station of Fox in October 1986, that network would not air a full week's worth of programming until September 1993, so for all intents and purposes it was still programmed as an independent. In late August 1994, the station began carrying the Spelling Premiere Network syndication service, which featured a "Spelling Success" run of past series from the Spelling production portfolio.[3]

UPN affiliation

On November 10, 1993, WPWR-TV signed an affiliation agreement with Chris-Craft/United Television, to become a charter affiliate of the United Paramount Network (UPN); WPWR competed with WGN-TV – which initially turned down an affiliation with The WB, a joint venture between Time Warner and WGN parent Tribune Broadcasting that debuted the week before UPN launched – for the affiliation.[4] WGN, meanwhile, reversed course and signed an affiliation agreement with The WB one month later on December 3.[5]

WPWR-TV formally affiliated with UPN when the network launched on January 16, 1995; the station continued to adding syndicated programs to its lineup during this time.[6] As WPWR was never owned by either of UPN's parent companies, Chris-Craft Industries or Viacom (the latter – which maintained a program partnership with the network from its launch through Paramount Television – acquired 50% of UPN in 1996 and bought out Chris-Craft's stake in 2000), it was the largest UPN station that was not owned by the network.

On June 27, 2002, Newsweb Corporation sold WPWR to Fox Television Stations (at the time, a subsidiary of News Corporation, which in turn was the then-parent company of the Fox network) for $425 million – a handsome return on Eychaner's original investment from 20 years earlier. The sale closed on August 21, 2002. As a result of this transaction, Fox now owned UPN's three largest affiliates; it already owned WWOR-TV in New York City and KCOP-TV in Los Angeles as a result of its $5.5 billion purchase of most of Chris-Craft's television holdings the previous year.[7][8][9][10] Although rumors abounded that UPN's future was in jeopardy due to its three largest stations being effectively owned by the corporate parent of another network, Fox renewed the network's affiliation agreements for WPWR and the group's eight other UPN-affiliated stations for three additional years – through September 2006 – on September 24, 2003.[11]

MyNetworkTV affiliation

On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. Entertainment unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down their respective networks, The WB and UPN, and combine their individual programs to create a new "fifth" television network called The CW.[12][13] With the announcement, The CW signed a ten-year agreement with Tribune Broadcasting to affiliate 16 of the group's 19 WB affiliates – including Tribune flagship station WGN-TV – with the new network. In response to having its UPN affiliates be passed over for affiliations with The CW, Fox Television Stations stripped all network branding from and ceased promoting the network's programming on its UPN-affiliated stations. However, it is very unlikely that WPWR would have been selected as The CW's Chicago affiliate in any event. Representatives for The CW were on record as preferring to align with UPN and The WB's "strongest" affiliates; WGN-TV had been well ahead of WPWR in the ratings since the latter's sign-on.

One month later on February 22, 2006, Fox announced the launch of its own "sixth" network called MyNetworkTV, which would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its sibling subsidiary Twentieth Television,[14][15] with WPWR and the other Fox-owned UPN affiliates serving as the nuclei for the new network. In the interim, the station changed its on-air branding to "Power 50" (as a play on its call letters), which remained in use for most of the summer of 2006. However, the station simultaneously began to use the "My 50" brand in some advertisements to promote the change, particularly at station-sponsored events held during that timeframe (such as the Taste of Chicago); this brand began to be used by the station officially in July 2006. WPWR became a MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated station when the network launched on September 5, 2006.

In September 2014, the New York Post reported that Fox Television Stations was considering trading WPWR to Tribune Broadcasting (which would have created a new duopoly with WGN-TV), in exchange for acquiring that company's Seattle Fox affiliate KCPQ, as part of the company's efforts to purchase stations in markets with teams in the National Football Conference (to which the Fox network holds primary broadcast rights). Should the proposal have been accepted, Tribune would legally have been able to create a duopoly in Chicago as a result of the then-recent spin-off of its publishing business (which resulted in the severance of WGN-TV's 66-year ownership alongside the Chicago Tribune).[16] On September 23, Tribune announced that it had been notified by Fox that its affiliation with KCPQ would be terminated effective January 17, 2015, but that discussions between the two companies were still ongoing;[17] on October 7, The Wall Street Journal reported that WPWR was no longer included in the negotiations (Fox would subsequently back off its attempt to acquire KCPQ as well as a lame-duck purchase of KBCB in nearby Bellingham, Washington, opting to renew its affiliation agreement with the former on October 17).[18][19]

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

Channel Video Aspect PSIP short name Programming[20]
50.1 720p 16:9 WPWR-DT Main WPWR-TV programming / MyNetworkTV
50.2 480i Movies! Movies!
50.4 4:3 Buzzr Buzzr

WPWR-TV maintains a Mobile DTV feed of its main channel on 50.1 (labelled "WPWR"), as well as a mobile simulcast of sister station WFLD (labelled "WPWR"). Broadcasting at 3.67 Mbit/s, it is the highest bitrate of any Chicago television station's mobile feed.[21][22]

Analog-to-digital conversion

WPWR-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 50, on June 12, 2009, the official date in 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 UHF channel 51.[23] Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 50.

Programming

Syndicated programs broadcast on WPWR-TV (as of September 2015) includes The Big Bang Theory, Family Feud, The Dr. Oz Show, Divorce Court, and The Simpsons.[24]

Occasionally as time permits, WPWR may air Fox network programs whenever WFLD is unable to in the event of extended breaking news or severe weather coverage. In certain instances, WPWR may also interrupt regularly scheduled programming to simulcast live breaking news coverage, whether from WFLD or from Fox News. WPWR is the only major television station in the Chicago market that has never aired local news programming of any kind.

Sports programming

Starting with the 2008 season, WPWR obtained broadcast rights to games from the Major League Soccer franchise Chicago Fire S.C. In September 2009, the station acquired the partial local television rights to broadcast American Hockey League games involving the Chicago Wolves, carrying games to which Comcast Network 100 did not hold rights.[25][26][26] The over-the-air Wolves telecasts moved to independent station WMEU-CD (channel 48) in 2013.[27][28] Through WFLD's April 2008 programming agreement with the team, WPWR carries select preseason games and other team-related programming from the Chicago Bears (including the feature/interview program Inside the Bears).[29][30][31]

Through an agreement with Tribune Broadcasting, WPWR became a tertiary outlet for the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox beginning in the 2015 season, broadcasting occasional telecasts of the two teams' Major League Baseball games that are produced by WGN-TV (through its WGN Sports programming unit), due to that station's network affiliation contracts with The CW that limit the number of programming preemptions that WGN-TV is allowed on an annual basis (these telecasts were previously seen on WCIU-TV, which discontinued its overflow agreement with WGN as a result of the January 12, 2015 launch of a prime time newscast produced by ABC owned-and-operated station WLS-TV, channel 7).[32]

References

  1. ^ "Spanish Booming As A Broadcasting Voice In Chicago". Chicago Tribune. Tribune Publishing. August 22, 1986. Retrieved September 9, 2015.
  2. ^ Steve Daley (January 16, 1987). "WPWR-TV Moves Down The Dial". Chicago Tribune]. Tribune Publishing. Retrieved September 9, 2015.
  3. ^ Steve Nidetz (June 26, 1994). "Movies Losing Starring Role In WPWR's Lineup". Chicago Tribune. Tribune Publishing. Retrieved April 25, 2015.
  4. ^ Greg Burns (November 11, 1993). "Trib Loses as Paramount Lures Channel 50". Chicago Sun-Times. Knight Ridder. Retrieved September 10, 2015.
  5. ^ Joe Flint (December 6, 1993). "WB network signs WGN-TV". Broadcasting & Cable. Cahners Business Information. Retrieved May 28, 2013 – via HighBeam Research.
  6. ^ Steve Nidetz (January 15, 1995). "WB, UPN Are New Kids In The Network Game". Chicago Tribune. Tribune Publishing. Retrieved September 9, 2015.
  7. ^ Jim Kirk (June 28, 2002). "Fox outbids Viacom in deal for WPWR". Chicago Tribune. Tribune Publishing. Retrieved September 9, 2015.
  8. ^ Sallie Hofmeister (August 12, 2000). "News Corp. to Buy Chris-Craft Parent for $5.5 Billion, Outbidding Viacom". Los Angeles Times. Tribune Publishing. Retrieved March 23, 2011.
  9. ^ Steve McClellan (June 30, 2002). "Fox duops in Chicago". Broadcasting & Cable. Reed Business Information. Retrieved September 5, 2015.
  10. ^ Kathy Bergen (August 16, 2002). "Fox Takeover to Bring Changes to Chicago-Area Television Station". Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. Retrieved September 5, 2015 – via HighBeam Research.
  11. ^ "COMPANY NEWS; NINE FOX-OWNED STATIONS WILL REMAIN UPN AFFILIATES". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. September 25, 2003. Retrieved September 2, 2015.
  12. ^ Jessica Seid (January 24, 2006). "'Gilmore Girls' meet 'Smackdown'; CW Network to combine WB, UPN in CBS-Warner venture beginning in September". CNNMoney.com. Time Warner.
  13. ^ Bill Carter (January 24, 2006). "UPN and WB to Combine, Forming New TV Network". The New York Times. The New York Times Company.
  14. ^ "News Corp. to launch new mini-network for UPN stations". USA Today. Gannett Company. Associated Press. February 22, 2006. Retrieved January 21, 2013.
  15. ^ John Eggerton (February 22, 2006). "News Corp. Unveils My Network TV". Broadcasting & Cable. Reed Business Information.
  16. ^ Claire Atkinson (September 22, 2014). "Fox targets Tribune's Fox affiliation in Seattle over NFL revenues". New York Post. News Corp. Retrieved September 23, 2014.
  17. ^ Michael Malone (September 23, 2014). "Fox Gives Tribune Termination Notice For Seattle Affiliate". Broadcasting & Cable. NewBay Media. Retrieved September 23, 2014.
  18. ^ Joe Flint (October 7, 2014). "Eyeing NFL Value, 21st Century Fox Acquires Seattle Area TV Station". The Wall Street Journal. News Corp. Retrieved October 8, 2014. Fox has held talks with Tribune about trading one of its stations elsewhere in the country in exchange for KCPQ—at one point Fox even put a Chicago station on the table, though that offer no longer stands. (subscription required)
  19. ^ "Tribune To Keep KCPQ And Fox Affiliation". TVNewsCheck. NewsCheck Media. October 17, 2014. Retrieved September 9, 2015.
  20. ^ "RabbitEars TV Query for WPWR-TV". RabbitEars. Retrieved September 5, 2015.
  21. ^ "Mobile DTV Service List". RabbitEars. Retrieved September 3, 2015.
  22. ^ "Mobile DTV Station Guide". National Association of Broadcasters. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
  23. ^ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). U.S. Federal Communications Commission. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
  24. ^ "WPWR-TV schedule". Titan TV. Broadcast Interactive Media, LLC. Retrieved September 9, 2015.
  25. ^ Phil Rosenthal (September 30, 2009). "WPWR-Ch. 50 to air 15 Chicago Wolves hockey games". Chicago Tribune. Tribune Publishing. Retrieved September 9, 2015.
  26. ^ a b "WPWR Chicago Nets Wolves Hockey". TVNewsCheck. NewsCheck Media. September 30, 2009. Retrieved September 9, 2015.
  27. ^ "Wolves Partner With WCIU's U-Too Network". Chicago Wolves (Press release). October 1, 2013.
  28. ^ Danny Ecker (October 1, 2013). "Chicago Wolves doubling number of games on network TV". Crain's Chicago Business. Crain Communications. Retrieved September 8, 2015.
  29. ^ "WFLD Chicago new broadcast TV home of the Bears". TVNewsCheck. NewsCheck Media. April 22, 2008. Retrieved September 4, 2015.
  30. ^ "As The Chicago Bears Return To WFLD-TV, So Does WFLD-TV's Bears-Themed Local Programming". Chicagoland Radio and Media. August 30, 2012. Retrieved September 4, 2015.
  31. ^ Danny Ecker (July 17, 2013). "Chicago Bears launching new TV show Sept. 14". Crain's Chicago Business. Crain Communications. Retrieved September 4, 2015.
  32. ^ Ed Sherman (February 19, 2015). "White Sox add WPWR-Ch. 50 to station rotation". Chicago Tribune. Tribune Publishing. Retrieved September 8, 2015.
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