WAST-LP (channel 25) was a low-power television station in

Ashland, Wisconsin Ashland is a city in Ashland and Bayfield counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is the county seat of Ashland County. The city is a port on Lake Superior, near the head of Chequamegon Bay. The population was 7,908 at the 2020 census, al ...

, United States. The station was a

semi-satellite A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tran ...

of the

UPN The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that launched on January 16, 1995. It was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries' United Television. Viacom (through its Paramount Television unit, which prod ...

-affiliated second

digital subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...

KBJR-TV KBJR-TV (channel 6) is a television station licensed to Superior, Wisconsin, United States, serving the Duluth, Minnesota, area as an affiliate of NBC and CBS. It is owned by Gray Television alongside CW+ affiliate KDLH (channel 3). Both statio ...

Duluth, Minnesota , settlement_type = City , nicknames = Twin Ports (with Superior), Zenith City , motto = , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top: urban Duluth skyline; Minnesota ...

, then-called ''Northland UPN'' and ''Northland 9'', but was owned by a separate entity, Martinsen Investments. WAST-LP sold local advertising specifically for the Ashland area, preempting KBJR-DT2's advertising breaks. Since 1997, WAST-LP had been owned by Superior Water Logged Lumber. It struggled financially. A 2001 attempt to sell the station to ESI Broadcasting Corporation of Montana failed; ESI hoped to combine the station with KDUL-LP, a UPN affiliate. The station then went off the air. In December 2005, Hank Martinsen and Julie Nuutinen put WAST-LP back on the air. The station featured two daily newscasts focusing on Wisconsin-area news. It had news sharing agreements with

and

KUWS KUWS is a public radio station in Superior, Wisconsin, licensed to the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and operated by the University of Wisconsin–Superior since January 21, 1966.Gitche Gumee (yearbook)(1967), p. 19. Wis ...

radio in

Superior Superior may refer to: *Superior (hierarchy), something which is higher in a hierarchical structure of any kind Places *Superior (proposed U.S. state), an unsuccessful proposal for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to form a separate state *Lake ...

. The effort was short-lived. On May 2, news director Julie Moravchik was fired; she claimed she was dismissed for not making ownership-ordered staffing cuts. Newsroom employees refused to work for anyone else; 10 of them were fired the following day. To fill the void, newscast replays from

KDLH-TV KDLH (channel 3) is a television station in Duluth, Minnesota, United States, affiliated with The CW Plus. It is owned by Gray Television alongside Superior, Wisconsin–licensed dual NBC/CBS affiliate KBJR-TV, channel 6 (and its Chisholm, Minn ...

, commonly operated with KBJR, were added to the station's programming. Moravchik was then hired to set up the newsroom at

KQDS-TV KQDS-TV (channel 21) is a television station in Duluth, Minnesota, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. Owned by Red River Broadcasting, the station has studios on London Road in Duluth (along I-35), and its transmitter is located west ...

in Duluth. On August 1, 2006, the station ended operations and went off the air, a month short of KBJR-DT2's conversion to

MyNetworkTV MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as My Network) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its ...

. Despite being off the air for eight years, long after most stations licenses are canceled for not broadcasting, WAST-LP's license remained active until January 3, 2014, when its previous license to broadcast was fully exhausted.

References

External links

Business North: "Mavericks plan to relaunch Ashland TV station" (from March 2005)
1995 establishments in Wisconsin 2006 disestablishments in Wisconsin Ashland, Wisconsin AST-LP Defunct television stations in the United States Television channels and stations disestablished in 2006 Television channels and stations established in 1995 {{Wisconsin-tv-station-stub