WBPH-TV,

virtual channel In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...

60 ( VHF

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Technology and computing Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals **Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...

channel 9), is a

religious Religion is usually defined as a social system, social-cultural system of designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morality, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sacred site, sanctified places, prophecy, prophecie ...

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

that is

licensed A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

Bethlehem Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital o ...

. The station is owned by Sonshine Family Television. WBPH-TV's studios are located in

Allentown Allentown may refer to several places in the United States and topics related to them: * Allentown, California, now called Toadtown, California * Allentown, Georgia, a town in Wilkinson County * Allentown, Illinois, an unincorporated community in T ...

, and its transmitter is located on South Mountain in Salisbury Township in the

Lehigh Valley The Lehigh Valley (), known colloquially as The Valley, is a geographic region formed by the Lehigh River in Lehigh County and Northampton County in eastern Pennsylvania. It is a component valley of the Great Appalachian Valley bound to the no ...

region of the state.

History

The station was an outgrowth of

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

programming that Pat Huber had begun on a local public-access

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broa ...

channel. In 1985, Huber formed the Sonshine Family Television Corporation and applied for a television broadcast license with the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...

. The station first signed on the air on December 27, 1990.

Programming

Current programming

WBPH broadcasts select programs from locally produced special interest programs,

televangelism Televangelism ( tele- "distance" and "evangelism," meaning "ministry," sometimes called teleministry) is the use of media, specifically radio and television, to communicate Christianity. Televangelists are ministers, whether official or self-proc ...

, three hours per week of legally mandated secular educational programming for children, and

Lafayette College Lafayette College is a private liberal arts college in Easton, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1826 by James Madison Porter and other citizens in Easton, the college first held classes in 1832. The founders voted to name the college after General Laf ...

sports events. Since the station's inception, two of WBPH's original programs have been ''60 Live'' and ''Bethlehem Glory'', both hosted by station owner Pat Huber. The station affiliated with FamilyNet until it converted to a secular classic sitcom format in 2013 and ended all over-the-air affiliate contracts in 2017 after converting to a new Western sports format as

The Cowboy Channel The Cowboy Channel (formerly FamilyNet) is an American cable television network in over 42 million cable and satellite homes, which carries Western and rodeo sports. The network was founded in 1979 as the National Christian Network, and took the ...

, and with

The Worship Network The Worship Network, or Worship, was a broadcast television service that provided alternative Christian worship-themed programming 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The network was based in Nashville, Tennessee, in the United States, and is av ...

until that network shut down in 2015. Unfilled airtime is occupied with "Song and Scripture" from Radiant TV, a service of

WLMB WLMB (channel 40) is a religious independent television station in Toledo, Ohio, United States, owned by Dominion Broadcasting. The station's studios are located on Capital Commons Drive in Toledo, and its transmitter is located in Jasper, Michi ...

. WBPH is also an affiliate of the Lafayette Sports Network. Broadcasts are produced by RCN channel 4 and include all of Lafayette College's

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

games (including early rounds of the playoffs) and all men's and women's

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

home games. Very few of the basketball team's away games are televised by the station, though one notable exception are men's games played at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

. WBPH also carries a

Spanish-language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 millio ...

newscast produced by

WFMZ-TV WFMZ-TV (channel 69) is an independent television station in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Locally-based Maranatha Broadcasting Company owns the station and Wilmington, Delaware–licensed MeTV affiliate WDPN-TV. Both stations share studios on Eas ...

Past programming

Through the course of its existence, the station has also produced shows in conjunction with area radio stations and churches. One program that had short-lived popularity among area church youth was ''Live from Studio 60''. Produced along with

WBYO WBYO (88.9 FM) is a radio station licensed to Sellersville, Pennsylvania, United States, and serves the Philadelphia area. The station also serves as the flagship station for "Word FM", a network of Contemporary Christian radio stations in eas ...

(88.9 FM), ''Live from Studio 60'' showcased local Christian bands performing to a live audience at the WBPH-TV studio in Allentown. The program reached its peak in 2000 when it played host to Christian band The Waiting, in conjunction with the Fallout concert, a large

Christian music festival A Christian music festival (also known as a Jesus music festival or simply a Jesus festival) is a music festival held by the Christian community, in support of performers of Christian music. The festivals are characterized by more than just music ...

held annually in the

as a promotional event for

See You at the Pole See You at the Pole is an annual gathering of thousands of Christian students at school flag poles, churches, and the Internet for the purposes of worship and prayer. It is now an international event; in 2005, over two million students in the U.S. p ...

. The end of the program was brought on by the need to put efforts into the building of their three megawatt transmitter facility to reach beyond the Lehigh Valley into Philadelphia. WBPH also previously carried the Easton–Phillipsburg Thanksgiving football game; that game, as of 2015, now airs on WFMZ.

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 ...

Analog-to-digital conversion

In 2002, WBPH applied to have its digital channel assignment reallocated from UHF channel 59 to VHF channel 9. The reason for this was that both the station's analog and digital channels were among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that would be removed from broadcasting use upon the formal transition to digital broadcasts. With the FCC's approval of this application, WBPH became the first station in the Lehigh Valley to broadcast on a VHF channel. WBPH shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 60, 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 continued to broadcasts on its pre-transition VHF channel 9. Through the use of

PSIP The Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) is the MPEG (a video and audio industry group) and privately defined program-specific information originally defined by General Instrument for the DigiCipher 2 system and later extended for the AT ...

, digital television receivers display the station's

as its former UHF analog channel 60, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.

Availability

Cable

Presently, WBPH-TV is seen on cable systems in most of the Philadelphia media market. Exceptions are a majority of

Chester County Chester County may refer to: * Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States * Chester County, South Carolina, United States * Chester County, Tennessee, United States * Cheshire or the County Palatine of Chester, a ceremonial county in the North Wes ...

, most of southern New Jersey, and

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

. The majority of areas in which WBPH-TV is carried are those within reach of the station's over-the-air broadcast signal. Verizon FiOS began carrying WBPH on April 17, 2020.

Satellite

WBPH-TV is carried on

Dish Network DISH Network Corporation (DISH, an acronym for DIgital Sky Highway) is an American television provider and the owner of the direct-broadcast satellite provider Dish, commonly known as Dish Network, and the over-the-top IPTV service, Sling TV. A ...

channel 8169. It is also carried on

DirecTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. It ...

channel 60 in the Philadelphia market.

References

External links

WBPH website
{{Other Pennsylvania Stations Religious television stations in the United States Television channels and stations established in 1990 1990 establishments in Pennsylvania

WBPH-TV WBPH-TV, virtual channel 60 ( VHF digital channel 9), is a religious independent television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that is licensed to Bethlehem. The station is owned by Sonshine Family Television. WBPH-TV's studios are located in ...

Mass media in Allentown, Pennsylvania BPH-TV