WLMA (channel 44) 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 ...

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...

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 ...

Lima, Ohio Lima ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Ohio, United States. The municipality is located in northwest Ohio along Interstate 75 in Ohio, Interstate 75 approximately north of Dayton, Ohio, Dayton, southwest of Toledo, Ohio, T ...

, United States. Owned by American Christian Television Services, the station maintains studios and transmitter facilities on Baty Road northwest of the city. WTLW-LD ( UHF channel 17, also mapped to

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 ...

44) in Lima operates as a

translator Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

of WLMA. The station's owner should not be confused with the

American Christian Television System The American Christian Television System (ACTS) was an American religious television network that was founded by the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Plans for the network involved a distribution reach through a combination of low-power and fu ...

, a defunct television network, or Associated Christian Television System, which owns

WACX WACX (channel 55) is a religious independent television station licensed to Leesburg, Florida, United States, serving the Orlando area. Locally owned by Associated Christian Television System, Inc., the station maintains studios on Central Parkw ...

Orlando, Florida Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...

History

WLMA has its roots in

Christian radio Christian radio is a Christian media radio format that focus on programming with a Christian message. Many such broadcasters play contemporary Christian music, though many programs include sermons, radio dramas, as well as news and talk progra ...

station WTGN-FM, also in Lima. In 1976, WTGN solicited its listeners for seed money for a new television station. Before the station received

FCC 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 ...

approval, however, WTGN opted not to own nor operate the new station, and the people behind the drive to get channel 44 on the air decided to incorporate as American Christian Television Services, Inc. The station chose a hangar at the former site of

Lima Allen County Airport Lima Allen County Airport is six miles southeast of Lima, in Allen County, Ohio. It is owned by the Allen County Regional Airport Authority. History The airport is near the corner of Hanthorn Road and SR 117 east of Lima. It moved to this site ...

on Baty Road near Elida, northwest of Lima, to build a

studio A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design ...

. The new studios, measuring , was believed by the station founders to be the largest television studio in

Northwest Ohio Northwest Ohio, or Northwestern Ohio, consists of multiple counties in the northwestern corner of the US state of Ohio. This area borders Lake Erie, Southeast Michigan, and northeastern Indiana. Some areas are also considered the Black Swamp are ...

. The hangar was converted into a television studio in 1980, through the efforts of volunteers. On June 13, 1982, the station signed on the air as WTLW. In 1988, the station expanded its focus from religious broadcasts to incorporate full length broadcasts of local

high school basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

games. Eventually,

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 were added as well. In the fall of 2010, WTLW launched a 24-hour all-sports network on its digital subchannel, 44.2. The station was called WOSN, standing for West Ohio Sports Network. WOSN now covers 70 schools and several colleges and airs hundreds of full length sporting events throughout the year. WOSN is also home to several sports related shows – ''The Sports Report'', ''Big Sports Weekend'', '' Buckeye Insider'' and ''Marks Madness''. The majority of games aired on WOSN are

and

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 ...

contests, but

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

track Track or Tracks may refer to: Routes or imprints * Ancient trackway, any track or trail whose origin is lost in antiquity * Animal track, imprints left on surfaces that an animal walks across * Desire path, a line worn by people taking the shorte ...

bowling Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), though ...

and even

Soap Box Derby The Soap Box Derby is a youth soapbox car racing program which has been run in the United States since 1933. World Championship finals are held each July at Derby Downs in Akron, Ohio. Cars competing in this and related events are unpowered, ...

racing have been featured. As a result of the 600 MHz

spectrum auction A spectrum auction is a process whereby a government uses an auction system to sell the rights to transmit signals over specific bands of the electromagnetic spectrum and to assign scarce spectrum resources. Depending on the specific auction form ...

, WTLW was required to move to VHF 4. The station then moved a low-powered translator (WTLW-LD) to its main tower as a nested translator to broadcast on UHF 17 at 15 kW of power, and became the temporary originating station for its signals (with a PSIP of 44.1 and 44.2) while WTLW moved frequencies. The station changed its call sign to WLMA on October 13, 2022, with WOIW-LD changing its call sign to WTLW-LD on October 17.

Programming

WLMA runs

infomercial An infomercial is a form of television commercial that resembles regular TV programming yet is intended to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website. Most often used as a form of dire ...

s and religious programming before 5 p.m.; and family

dramas Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been c ...

, first-run

talk show A talk show (or chat show in British English) is a television programming or radio programming genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Show ...

s, family

movies A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

, local sports programming, and

reality shows Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...

after 5 p.m.

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 ...

References

{{Other Ohio Stations Television channels and stations established in 1982 1982 establishments in Ohio LMA Religious television stations in the United States