WOCH-CD,
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 ...
41 (
UHF digital channel 49), was a
low-powered,
Class A Charge!-
affiliated 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 eart ...
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 ...
to
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
,
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...
, United States. The station was owned by NRJ TV, LLC.
History
WOCH started broadcasting on September 27, 1989 as W04CK and later broadcast on several channels. In 2005, it moved to its final channel location on channel 41 to avoid interference with the digital signal of
Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
affiliate
WTMJ-TV
WTMJ-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside Kenosha-licensed Ion Television station WPXE-TV (channel 55). WTMJ-TV's studios are ...
(channel 4). WOCH upgraded to Class A status on December 29, 2005, thus protecting their channel position from further displacements. During its days on channel 28 (which was its location prior to moving to channel 41), it ran
The Box Music Network from midnight to noon with Korean American Broadcasting Company (or KBC) programming from noon to midnight. In 2001, when
Viacom took over The Box and switched it to
MTV2, WOCH began running an MTV-2 feed from DirecTV during the Midnight to Noon timeslot, but gradually phased it out by 2003-2004.
On September 15, 2010, KBC-TV started its carriage on Comcast Channel 338 in the Chicago television market. This move came after years of effort by KBC to secure carriage on the Comcast system. In addition to programming from
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...
, and some locally produced programs, WOCH aired non-Korean ethnic programming on weekends (such as programming from local
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 bro ...
network
Bostel), in a format similar to that of
FBT 26.6.
In September 2012,
KM Communications
KM Communications, Inc. is the owner of several television and radio stations throughout the United States. The company, based in Skokie, Illinois, gets its name from the first names of its President, Myoung Hwa Bae and her husband, Kun Chae Bae. T ...
filed to sell WOCH to NRJ TV (a company unrelated to European broadcaster
NRJ Radio
NRJ (NRJ is an acronym read as Nouvelle Radio Jeune, or ''énergie'' in French, pronounced , literally "energy") is a private French radio station created by Jean-Paul Baudecroux and Max Guazzini in June 1981, and was widely popularized than ...
).
The sale was completed on July 30, 2013.
In April 2014, the station became an affiliate of the classic movie network The Works.
On October 31, 2015, the WOCH 41.2 subchannel began airing the
Comet
A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ...
TV network.
On April 13, 2017, 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 jurisdicti ...
(FCC) announced that WOCH-CD was a successful bidder in the spectrum auction; NRJ TV would be surrendering the station's license in exchange for $9,219,110. NRJ TV surrendered WOCH-CD's license to the FCC for cancellation on August 14, 2017.
Digital television
Digital channels
The station's digital signal was
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
As a low-powered analog television station, WOCH-CA was not required to broadcast a digital signal as of the 2009
digital television transition. The station had reported, however, that viewers installing
coupon-eligible converter box
A coupon-eligible converter box (CECB) was a digital television adapter that met eligibility specifications for subsidy "coupons" from the United States government. The subsidy program was enacted to provide terrestrial television viewers with ...
es were, in some cases, unable to tune into low-powered analog stations such as WOCH-CA after conversion as many models of the digital converters lack
analog passthrough.
On April 27, 2010, the
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 jurisdictio ...
granted WOCH-CA a construction permit to
flash cut
A flash cut, also called a flash cutover, is an immediate change in a complex system, with no phase-in period.
In the United States, some telephone area codes were split or overlaid immediately, rather than being phased in with a permissive dia ...
from analog channel 41 to digital channel 49.
As of July 2013 WOCH-CD began broadcasting exclusively in digital.
See also
* Lily Kim: former producer and anchor for Asian American Network (AAN) News
References
External links
*
{{New World TV Group
OCH-CD
Television channels and stations established in 1992
Low-power television stations in the United States
Comet (TV network) affiliates
1992 establishments in Illinois
Defunct television stations in the United States
Television channels and stations disestablished in 2017
2017 disestablishments in Illinois
OCH-CD