WBGR-LD (channel 18) is a low-power television station licensed to both Bangor and

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, United States, affiliated with

MeTV MeTV, an acronym for Memorable Entertainment Television, is an American broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. Marketed as "The Definitive Destination for Classic TV", the network airs a variety of classic television program ...

. The station is owned by James McLeod, and maintains studios and transmitter facilities on Ohio Street in

Glenburn, Maine Glenburn is a town in Penobscot County, Maine, United States. The population was 4,648 at the 2020 census. When originally incorporated in 1822, it was called "Dutton" in honor of Bangor's Samuel Dutton, a judge and founder of the Bangor Theolo ...

History

WBGR first went on the air on August 28, 1995 as Bangor's WB affiliate to become the first commercial UHF station in the market and the first new commercial station locally built in over 30 years. That relationship ended in 1998 when The WB created a cable-only channel for its smaller markets (known as WBAN in Bangor); around the same time, the station added programming from the Pax (now

Ion Television Ion Television is an American broadcast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented enter ...

) network, which launched at that time. WBGR has aired local programming from local churches, civic organizations and high school sports at various times during its history. The station also carried late afternoon

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

games from

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

, as

WABI-TV WABI-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Bangor, Maine, United States, affiliated with CBS and The CW Plus. Owned by Gray Television, the station has studios on Hildreth Street in West Bangor, and its transmitter is atop Peaked Mountain in ...

(channel 5) chose to preempt football in order to air a local 6 p.m. newscast. WBGR also aired

Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight ...

baseball games in 2002, syndicated from

WFXT WFXT (channel 25) is a television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, affiliated with the Fox network and owned by Cox Media Group. Its studios are located on Fox Drive (near the Boston-Providence Turnpike) in Dedham, and its t ...

. Daytime programming was filled with family-oriented programming as well as religious programming from several leading Bible teachers. In 2010,

Liberty University Liberty University (LU) is a private Baptist university in Lynchburg, Virginia. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia (Southern Baptist Convention). Founded in 1971 by Jerry Falwell Sr. and Elmer L. Towns, Liberty i ...

's Flames Sports NetworkFlames Sports Network
/ref> began airing live sporting events, as well as daily convocation services. In April 2014, WBGR-LP became an affiliate of MeTV.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

: The station was issued its license for digital operation on March 12, 2015. By early September 2019, WBGR-LD commenced digital operations, adding Heroes & Icons and Antenna TV programming to their 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 ...

. By November of that year, RabbitEars.Info listed six new feeds (LD3 through LD8) for WBGR-LD, those new feeds remaining Blank at first.

References

{{Other New England Stations MeTV affiliates BGR-LD Television channels and stations established in 1995 1995 establishments in Maine Low-power television stations in the United States