WORO-DT (channel 13) is an

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San Juan, Puerto Rico San Juan (, , ; Spanish for "Saint John") is the capital city and most populous municipality in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2020 census, it is the 57th-largest city under the jur ...

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. The station is owned by Grupo RTC under Puerto Rico's Roman Catholic Church - San Juan Archdiocese, and is branded as TeleOro Canal 13. WORO-DT's studios are located on Ave. Iturregui in Carolina, and its transmitter is located in the

El Yunque National Forest El Yunque National Forest ( es, Bosque Nacional El Yunque), formerly known as the Caribbean National Forest (or ''Bosque Nacional del Caribe''), is a forest located in northeastern Puerto Rico. It is the only tropical rainforest in the United Sta ...

History

A 25-year legal fight

On July 16, 1958, Continental Broadcasting Corporation, owner of radio station WHOA in San Juan, was awarded a construction permit to build channel 13 in Fajardo, the first television station to be licensed there. The new station, which took the call letters WSTE (unrelated to the current WSTE on channel 7), proposed a transmitter in the

Sardinera Sardinera is a barrio in the municipality of Fajardo, Puerto Rico. Its population in 2010 was 1,190. History Puerto Rico was ceded by Spain in the aftermath of the Spanish–American War under the terms of the Treaty of Paris of 1898 and became a ...

neighborhood of Fajardo. Continental's primary stakeholder, Carmina Méndez de Miller, sold the construction permit three years later to WSTE-TV, Inc., receiving 20 percent of the new company's stock; the new company was owned by the Griffin-Leake group. Under Griffin-Leake control, WSTE set its sights on more powerful facilities. On November 10, 1961, just days after consummating its purchase, WSTE-TV, Inc., filed to move the tower to El Yunque, from which it would put a signal into San Juan. 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 ...

initially awarded the grant in May 1962, but a group of objectors soon emerged to appeal the grant in the

United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. federal appellate cou ...

. This group consisted of San Juan television stations

WAPA-TV WAPA-TV (channel 4) is a Spanish language in the United States, Spanish-language Independent station (North America), independent television station in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is owned by :es:Hemisphere Media Group, Hemisphere Media Group, w ...

and

WKAQ-TV WKAQ-TV (channel 2) is a television station in San Juan, Puerto Rico, airing programming from the Telemundo and NBC networks. It is Owned-and-operated station, owned and operated by the Telemundo Station Group subsidiary of NBCUniversal. WKAQ-T ...

, a consortium of mobile radio users, and San Juan's only UHF outlet, WTSJ-TV (channel 18), alleging potentially harmful interference, misrepresentations with the FCC, and potential harm to the development of UHF broadcasting. Two more site change amendments were made by WSTE in response to interference concerns to radar and aviation systems. However, these were not sufficient to cure the deficiencies, and in February 1968, the FCC rescinded the grant and designated WSTE's transmitter site application for hearing. In 1972, the FCC denied the revised application, this time on technical grounds, because the proposed station would not have provided a city-grade signal to 100 percent of Fajardo, the city of license. WSTE-TV appealed to the court of appeals, proposing to add a UHF translator on channel 56 in order to fill in gaps in coverage in Fajardo. The FCC had found in a 1971 case that the island's rugged terrain had merited tempering of the application of its rules. After the court found in WSTE's favor in 1977 in large part due to the translator application, the FCC granted the application in 1979 and denied a petition for reconsideration by WAPA in 1980.

As an English-language station

On November 1, 1984, channel 13 finally appeared in Puerto Rico, under the new call letters WPRV-TV. The station, with facilities in Fajardo and the Río Piedras area of San Juan, was primarily an English-language outlet, affiliated with

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

and in the late 1980s and early 1990s with

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(

WUJA WUJA (channel 58), branded on-air as Pura Palabra Television, is a Spanish-language religious television station licensed to Caguas, Puerto Rico. Founded July 25, 1983, the station is owned by Pura Palabra Media Group, which is a subsidiary of Co ...

was the island's original Fox affiliate from 1986 to 1989). WPRV-TV struggled financially throughout its history. In December 1987, it filed for

Chapter 11 Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, wheth ...

bankruptcy; the case was converted to Chapter 7 in 1989. The largest creditor of the television station, Ponce Federal Bank, was bypassed in favor of an attempt to sell channel 13 to Puerto Rico Family Channel, Inc. (PRFC). Problems soon emerged with the proposed buyer. The trustee appointed to manage the television station could not identify the principals of the buyer, and questions arose about its financial capacity; further, one of the representatives of the company, Norman González Chacón, was facing felony criminal charges that the court feared could jeopardize the license transfer. Amid the proceedings, channel 13 went silent on September 22, 1992.

Archdiocesan ownership

In March 1994, WPRV-TV was sold to the Archdiocese of San Juan, which was allowed to own the failing TV station alongside its AM and FM outlets. Channel 13 returned to the air on October 11, 1995 as "Teleoro", a Catholic television station under the management of Cardinal Luis Aponte Martinez. The call letters were changed to WORO-TV in 2006 to match the archdiocese's WORO (92.5 FM) serving San Juan. In 2002, WORO-TV leased its prime time hours to local producer Angelo Medina for his sport programming block branded as "Deportes 13". During these hours, ''Deportes 13'' transmit sport-related programming and events such as

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(NBA), ''

Liga de Voleibol Superior Masculino The Liga de Voleibol Superior Masculino (LVSM) is a men's professional volleyball league in Puerto Rico. The competitions are organized by the Puerto Rican Volleyball Federation (Federación Puertorriqueña de Voleibol, FPV). League Champio ...

'' among others. The format was discontinued on May 13, 2007. Singer, writer and producer Silverio Pérez had a variety show called ''Buenas Noches con Silverio'' (Good Night with Silverio). In August 2008, TeleOro announced that the station would develop a news program titled "Hora Informativa". The program's goal is to cover local news as well as material that other channels consider "soft". Segments were led by Luis Penchi and José Ángel Cordero and covered controversial themes that might not be covered otherwise due to the station's religious focus. Today, WORO produces local news (branded as ''Noticias 13'') weeknights at 6:00 and 11:00, as well as Saturday nights at 5:00 and Sunday afternoons at 4:00 p.m. On September 20, 2017, in the aftermath of

Hurricane Maria Hurricane Maria was a deadly Saffir–Simpson scale#Category 5, Category 5 Tropical cyclone, hurricane that devastated the northeastern Caribbean in September 2017, particularly Dominica, Saint Croix, and Puerto Rico. It is regarded as the wo ...

, WORO-DT was forced to go off the air, suffering damage to the station's building, transmitter and equipment. The station then broadcast as a subchannel of

Hector Marcano In Greek mythology, Hector (; grc, Ἕκτωρ, Hektōr, label=none, ) is a character in Homer's Iliad. He was a Trojan prince and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. Hector led the Trojans and their allies in the defense o ...

WWXY-LD WWXY-LD (channel 38) is a independent television station licensed to San Juan, Puerto Rico. The station is owned by Héctor Marcano Martinez. WWXY-LD's studios are located at the Metro Tower in Ave. Ponce de Leon in Santurce and its transmitter ...

on channel 38.3 until August 1, 2018. The station returned to the air on August 27, 2018 from a provisional antenna. On February 5, 2019, WORO-DT resumed full-power broadcasts from its new and powerful transmitter from the top of El Yunque, that covers the entire island. Repairs to the old transmitter equipment were made by the engineering department.

Digital television

Digital channels

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

On February 17, 2009, WORO signed off its analog signal and completed its move to digital.

Local Programs produced by WORO-DT

* Santa Misa * Ábrete Corazón * En Espíritu y Verdad * Familia, Activa tu Fe * Mente y Corazón * Aviva * Alpha y Omega * Ecclesia de Eucaristía * Maria: Modelo de la Iglesia * El Pan de la Palabra * Mundo Natural * Coronilla de la Divina Misericordia * Shabum y su Tienda Mágica * Aprendo con Shabum * Noticias 13 (produced by Spanish Television News) * Entre Lineas * En Cuerpo y Alma * Agenda Abierta * Desde mi Cocina a Tu Corazón * Contigo Siempre * Más con Isamari * Mi Gente * De Que se Trata * Reconstrucción Ideal * Con la Música por Dentro * Historias Deportivas * Tu Salud Financiera * Industria y Comercio en Acción

References

External links

Canal 13Shabum TV
* {{Puerto Rico TV ORO-DT Mass media in San Juan, Puerto Rico Television channels and stations established in 1984 Religious television stations in the United States Catholic television channels