WPMT,
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 ...
43 (
UHF
Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...
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 36), is a
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
-
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 earth ...
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
York, Pennsylvania
York ( Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Yarrick''), known as the White Rose City (after the symbol of the House of York), is the county seat of York County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located in the south-central region of the state. The populati ...
, United States, and serving the
Susquehanna Valley
The Susquehanna Valley is a region of low-lying land that borders the Susquehanna River in the United States, U.S. states of New York (state), New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. The valley consists of areas that lie along the main branch o ...
region (
Harrisburg
Harrisburg is the capital city of the Pennsylvania, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Dauphin County. With a population of 50,135 as of the 2021 census, Harrisburg is the List of c ...
–
Lancaster–
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...
–York). The station is owned by
McLean, Virginia
McLean ( ) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia. McLean is home to many diplomats, military, members of Congress, and high-ranking government officials partially due to its proxim ...
–based
Tegna Inc.
Tegna Inc. (stylized in all caps as TEGNA) is an American publicly traded broadcast, digital media and marketing services company headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia. It was created on June 29, 2015, when the Gannett Company split into tw ...
WPMT's studios are located on South Queen Street in
Spring Garden Township (with a York
mailing address), and it shares transmitter facilities with Harrisburg-licensed
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
member station WITF-TV
WITF-TV (channel 33) is a non-commercial television station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States, a member station of PBS serving the Susquehanna Valley region (Harrisburg– Lancaster–Lebanon–York). It is owned by WITF, Inc., alongs ...
(channel 33) in
Susquehanna Township. It is also rebroadcast on 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 ...
, W34FM-D in
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
Chambersburg is a borough in and the county seat of Franklin County, in the South Central region of Pennsylvania, United States. It is in the Cumberland Valley, which is part of the Great Appalachian Valley, and north of Maryland and the Mas ...
.
History
Early history
The station first signed on the air on December 21, 1952, as WSBA-TV, originally operating as an
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 ...
affiliate. It was owned by the
Susquehanna Radio Corporation
The Susquehanna Radio Corporation was a media corporation which operated from 1941 to 2006 that was headquartered in York, Pennsylvania. The company was a unit of Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff, a conglomerate more widely known for the Pfaltzgraff ki ...
, a subsidiary of the
Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff The Susquehanna Pfaltzgraff Company was a conglomerate of companies that started in the 19th century with Johann George Pfaltzgraff's emigration from Germany to York, Pennsylvania (in the Susquehanna Valley).
Johann Pfaltzgraff was a potter and, ...
conglomerate, along with radio station
WSBA (910 AM). It was one of the first commercially licensed UHF television stations in the United States, signing on the air just over three months after
KPTV
KPTV (channel 12) is a television station in Portland, Oregon, United States. affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Gray Television alongside Vancouver, Washington–licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate KPDX (channel 49). Both stations s ...
in
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
which originally broadcast on channel 27 when it signed on in 1952, before moving to
VHF
Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter.
Frequencies immediately below VHF ...
channel 12 five years later. This makes WPMT the second-oldest continuously broadcasting UHF station in the country, only behind
WSBT-TV
WSBT-TV (channel 22) is a television station in South Bend, Indiana, United States, affiliated with CBS and Fox. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, the station maintains studios on East Douglas Avenue in Mishawaka, and its transmitter is locate ...
in
South Bend, Indiana
South Bend is a city in and the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, St. Joseph County, Indiana, on the St. Joseph River (Lake Michigan), St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2020 United S ...
(although WSBT moved from its original channel 34 to channel 22 in the late 1950s, making WPMT the oldest UHF station that broadcasts continuously on the same virtual channel number to this day).
In 1963, the station became a
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 Entertainmen ...
affiliate and joined
WHP-TV
WHP-TV (channel 21) is a television station licensed to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States, serving the Susquehanna Valley region as an affiliate of CBS, MyNetworkTV, and The CW. Owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, the station has studio ...
(channel 21) in Harrisburg and
WLYH-TV (channel 15) in Lebanon to form the Keystone Network. The three stations provided a strong combined signal with about a 55% overlap. Initially, WHP-TV, WLYH, and WSBA aired the same programming despite separate ownership. By the late 1960s, while all three stations ran most of the CBS programming schedule, WHP-TV ran different local programming during non-network hours, while WLYH and WSBA continued to simulcast for nearly the entire broadcast day. WHP ran CBS shows that WSBA and WLYH preempted, while the latter two stations ran programming that WHP preempted, allowing most of the market to view the entire CBS schedule. All three ran most of the CBS lineup, duplicating over three-quarters of the network's programs. This arrangement was necessary for the days before cable gained significant penetration.
In April 1983, Susquehanna sold WSBA-TV to
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...
-based Mohawk Broadcasting, who changed its call letters to the current WPMT. The station signed off in August and returned to the air the following month as the Susquehanna Valley's first general entertainment
independent station
An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, market ...
. Until then, the only over-the-air source of non-network programming in South Central Pennsylvania was
WGCB-TV
WLYH (channel 49) is a religious independent television station licensed to Red Lion, Pennsylvania, United States, serving the Susquehanna Valley region. Owned by Sonshine Family Television, it is a sister station to Bethlehem-based flagship W ...
(channel 49) in
Red Lion, 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 ...
station that had been on the air since 1979. WPMT was a typical UHF independent with a schedule heavy on
cartoons
A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images ...
,
sitcom
A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...
s,
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 ...
,
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 ...
,
sports
Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, th ...
and
westerns
The Western is a genre set in the American frontier and commonly associated with folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada. It is commonly referred ...
.
As a Fox affiliate
In 1986, Mohawk sold the station to
Renaissance Broadcasting
Renaissance Broadcasting, founded in 1982 by Michael Finkelstein, was a company that owned several UHF television stations, it was sold to Tribune Broadcasting in 1997. The company was headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut.
History
Renaissan ...
. On October 9, 1986, WPMT became one of the charter affiliates of the newly launched
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
network. From 1990 to 2004, WPMT featured original children's programming hosted by the station's mascot, a
clown
A clown is a person who performs comedy and arts in a state of open-mindedness using physical comedy, typically while wearing distinct makeup or costuming and reversing folkway-norms.
History
The most ancient clowns have been found in ...
named
Pete McTee (a play on the station's call letters). The station was acquired by
Tribune Broadcasting
Tribune Broadcasting Company, LLC was an American media company which operated as a subsidiary of Tribune Media, a media conglomerate based in Chicago, Illinois. The group owned and operated television and radio stations throughout the United Sta ...
following the company's purchase of Renaissance in 1996. A year earlier, WPMT had added programming from
The WB
The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. ...
, half-owned by Tribune, in off-hours. However, cable customers could watch the full WB schedule on
sister station
In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement.
Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...
WPHL-TV
WPHL-TV (channel 17) is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, affiliated with MyNetworkTV. The station is owned by Nexstar Media Group and has studios in the Wynnefield section of West Philadelphia; it maintains a ...
from
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 ...
.
The station's newscasts were seen in a fictional sense in the 2010 film ''
Unstoppable
Unstoppable may refer to:
Film and television
* Unstoppable (2004 film), ''Unstoppable'' (2004 film), an American film directed by David Carson
* ''Unstoppable: Conversation with Melvin Van Peebles, Gordon Parks, and Ossie Davis'', a 2005 America ...
'', which is set in the station's market area.
Aborted sale to Sinclair Broadcast Group
On May 8, 2017,
Hunt Valley, Maryland
Hunt Valley is an unincorporated community in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States, near the site of the Maryland Hunt Cup Steeplechase. It lies just north of the city of Baltimore, along York Road (Maryland Route 45), parallel to Intersta ...
–based
Sinclair Broadcast Group
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, t ...
—which has owned WHP-TV since 2012, through its acquisition of several television stations owned by
Newport Television
Newport Television, LLC was a television station holding company founded by Providence Equity Partners and Sandy DiPasquale in 2007 to acquire the television stations owned by Clear Channel Communications.
History
In September 2007, Newport ag ...
—entered into an agreement to acquire Tribune Media for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in debt held by Tribune. However, Sinclair was precluded from acquiring WPMT directly, as both WHP and WPMT rank among the four highest-rated stations in the Harrisburg–Lancaster–Lebanon–York market in total day viewership, and there are too few independently owned full-power stations in the Susquehanna Valley area to permit legal duopolies in any event. On April 24, 2018, Sinclair announced that it would sell WPMT and eight other stations – Sinclair-operated
KOKH-TV in
Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, a ...
,
WRLH-TV
WRLH-TV (channel 35) is a television station in Richmond, Virginia, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, it has studios on Westmoreland Street in the North Side area of Richmond, and its transmitte ...
in
Richmond
Richmond most often refers to:
* Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States
* Richmond, London, a part of London
* Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England
* Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada
* Richmond, California, ...
,
KDSM-TV
KDSM-TV (channel 17) is a television station in Des Moines, Iowa, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. The station is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, and has studios on Fleur Drive in Des Moines; its transmitter is located in Allem ...
in
Des Moines
Des Moines () is the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small part of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines, ...
,
WOLF-TV
WOLF-TV (channel 56) is a television station licensed to Hazleton, Pennsylvania, United States, serving Northeastern Pennsylvania as an affiliate of the Fox network. It is the flagship property of locally based New Age Media, LLC, and is co-ow ...
(along with LMA partners
WSWB
WSWB (channel 38) is a television station licensed to Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States, serving as the CW affiliate for Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is owned by MPS Media, which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) with New Age M ...
and
WQMY
WQMY (channel 53) is a television station licensed to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, United States, serving Northeastern Pennsylvania as an affiliate of MyNetworkTV. It is owned by locally based New Age Media, LLC, alongside Hazleton-licensed Fox a ...
) in
Scranton
Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U ...
/
Wilkes-Barre
Wilkes-Barre ( or ) is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Luzerne County. Located at the center of the Wyoming Valley in Northeastern Pennsylvania, it had a population of 44,328 in the 2020 census. It is the secon ...
and
WXLV-TV
WXLV-TV (channel 45) is a television station licensed to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States, serving as the ABC affiliate for the Piedmont Triad region. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Greensboro-licensed MyNetworkTV ...
in
Greensboro
Greensboro (; formerly Greensborough) is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte and Raleigh, the 69th-most populous city in the Un ...
/
Winston-Salem
Winston-Salem is a city and the county seat of Forsyth County, North Carolina, United States. In the 2020 census, the population was 249,545, making it the second-largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region, the 5th most populous city in N ...
/
High Point, and Tribune-owned
WXMI
WXMI (channel 17) is a television station licensed to Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States, serving West Michigan as an affiliate of the Fox network. Owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, the station maintains studios on Plaza Drive (near M-37) o ...
in
Grand Rapids
Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the second most-populated city in the state after Detroit. Grand Rapids is the ...
—to
Standard Media Group (an independent broadcast holding company formed by
private equity firm
A private equity firm is an investment management company that provides financial backing and makes investments in the private equity of startup or operating companies through a variety of loosely affiliated investment strategies including leve ...
Standard General to assume ownership of and absolve ownership conflicts involving the aforementioned stations) for $441.1 million.
Three weeks after the FCC's July 18 vote to have the deal reviewed by an
administrative law judge
An administrative law judge (ALJ) in the United States is a judge and trier of fact who both presides over trials and adjudicates claims or disputes involving administrative law. ALJs can administer oaths, take testimony, rule on questions of evid ...
amid "serious concerns" about Sinclair's forthrightness in its applications to sell certain conflict properties, on August 9, 2018, Tribune announced it would terminate the Sinclair deal, intending to seek other
M&A opportunities. Tribune also filed a
breach of contract
Breach of contract is a legal cause of action and a type of civil wrong, in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party ...
lawsuit in the
Delaware Chancery Court
The Delaware Court of Chancery is a court of equity in the American state of Delaware. It is one of Delaware's three constitutional courts, along with the Supreme Court and Superior Court. Since 2018, the court consists of seven judges. The chie ...
, alleging that Sinclair engaged in protracted negotiations with the FCC and the DOJ over regulatory issues, refused to sell stations in markets where it already had properties, and proposed divestitures to parties with ties to Sinclair executive chair David D. Smith that were rejected or highly subject to rejection to maintain control over stations it was required to sell. The termination of the Sinclair sale agreement places uncertainty for the future of Standard Media's purchases of WPMT and the other six Tribune- and Sinclair-operated stations included in that deal, which were predicated on the closure of the Sinclair–Tribune merger.
Sale to Nexstar Media Group and resale to Tegna
On December 3, 2018,
Irving, Texas
Irving is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. Located in Dallas County, it is also an inner ring suburb of Dallas. The city of Irving is part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. According to a 2019 estimate from the United States Census Bureau, ...
–based
Nexstar Media Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...
—which has owned ABC affiliate
WHTM-TV
WHTM-TV (channel 27) is a television station licensed to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States, serving the Susquehanna Valley region as an affiliate of ABC. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, the station maintains studios on North 6th Street in H ...
(channel 27) since January 2017—announced it would acquire the assets of Tribune Media for $6.4 billion in cash and debt. Nexstar was precluded from acquiring WPMT directly or indirectly, as FCC regulations prohibit common ownership of two or more of the four highest-rated stations in the same media market. (Furthermore, any attempt by Nexstar to assume the operations of WPMT through
local marketing or
shared services
Shared services is the provision of a service by one part of an organization or group, where that service had previously been found, in more than one part of the organization or group. Thus the funding and resourcing of the service is shared and th ...
agreements would have been subject to regulatory hurdles that could have delayed completion of the FCC and Justice Department's review and approval process for the acquisition.) As such, Nexstar was required to sell either WPMT or WHTM to a separate, unrelated company to address the ownership conflict.
On March 20, 2019,
McLean, Virginia
McLean ( ) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia. McLean is home to many diplomats, military, members of Congress, and high-ranking government officials partially due to its proxim ...
–based
Tegna Inc.
Tegna Inc. (stylized in all caps as TEGNA) is an American publicly traded broadcast, digital media and marketing services company headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia. It was created on June 29, 2015, when the Gannett Company split into tw ...
announced it would purchase WPMT from Nexstar upon consummation of the merger, as part of the company's sale of nineteen Nexstar- and Tribune-operated stations to Tegna and the
E. W. Scripps Company
The E. W. Scripps Company is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a media conglomerate. The company is he ...
in separate deals worth $1.32 billion; along with Scranton sister station
WNEP-TV
WNEP-TV (channel 16) is a television station licensed to Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States, serving as the ABC affiliate for Northeastern Pennsylvania. Owned by Tegna Inc., the station maintains studios on Montage Mountain Road in Moosic. Th ...
(which was also acquired by Tegna as part of the spin-offs), this would make WPMT among the first television properties in Pennsylvania for Tegna.
The sale was consummated on September 19, 2019.
News operation
WPMT presently broadcasts 47 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with nine hours each weekday and one hour each on Saturdays and Sundays); in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the highest local newscast output of any television station in the Harrisburg–Lancaster–Lebanon–York market.
As a CBS affiliate, WSBA-TV ran a small news department branded as ''NewsWatch 43''. In 1980, the station relaunched its news department as a much larger operation, and retitled its newscasts to ''TeleJournal News''. The station's signal prevented the competitive newscast from being seen throughout the market, however, preventing it from adequately competing against the established news departments of the other local
Big Three network affiliates in the
Susquehanna Valley
The Susquehanna Valley is a region of low-lying land that borders the Susquehanna River in the United States, U.S. states of New York (state), New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. The valley consists of areas that lie along the main branch o ...
(including NBC affiliate and longtime market leader WGAL, ABC affiliate WHTM, fellow CBS affiliates WHP-TV and WLYH); as a result, the news department was discontinued in 1983.
With Fox preparing to heighten its profile once Fox took over the contractual rights to the
National Football Conference
The National Football Conference (NFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest professional level of American football in the United States. The NFC and its counterpart, the American Football Conference ...
television package in the Fall of 1994 (as part of December 1993 contract deal with the
NFL
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...
that transferred the NFC contract 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 Entertainmen ...
), Fox began urging management at
owned-and-operated and affiliated stations that had limited to no local news presence to develop full-scale news departments. Renaissance Broadcasting agreed to Fox's request and commenced development of a full-scale news department for Channel 43. Long-form newscasts would return to WPMT on September 12, 1994, when the station premiered its flagship prime time newscast, ''Fox 43 News at Ten''. Originally airing Monday through Fridays for a half-hour, it was first anchored by Evan Forrester and Donya Archer, who were accompanied by weather anchor Susan Schrack and
sports director
The title of sports director can refer to the director of a live sports broadcast. It can also refer to an individual at a television or radio station who is in charge of the sports department.
Director
Director may refer to:
Literature
* ...
Tom Werme. (As of 2021, the weeknight editions of the 10:00 broadcast compete with prime time newscasts on
CW affiliate WHP-DT3
hannel 21.3 and
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 ...
affiliate
WGAL-DT2 hannel 8.2) Half-hour Saturday and Sunday editions of the newscast were subsequently added on January 7, 1995; this was followed by the expansion of the weeknight editions of the newscast to one hour on September 13, 1997, with the weekend editions following suit on January 9, 1999.
News programming on Channel 43 expanded on January 16, 2006, with the addition of the ''Fox 43 Morning News'', an hour-long weekday morning newscast at 7:00 a.m.; the newscast, which was formatted to feature updated traffic and weather segments in 10-minute intervals, gradually expanded within the next decade: the ''Morning News'' added two additional hours (expanding it to run from 5:00 to 8:00 a.m.) by September 2007 and expanded to include an 8:00 a.m. hour in September 2008. On February 13, 2013, WPMT expanded the weekday morning newscast to five hours (moving its start time one hour early to 4:00 a.m.), becoming the first and only station in the market, and the fifth Tribune-owned station to begin its morning newscast at 4:00 a.m. (WGAL and WHTM start their morning newscasts at 4:30, while WHP's continues to start at 5:00 a.m.) The weekday morning show later expanded to six hours (with the addition of a 9:00 a.m. block) on September 17, 2018.
On September 4, 2009, WPMT began airing a local sports highlight program called ''High School Football Frenzy'', that airs Friday nights at 6:00 during the
high school football
High school football (french: football au lycée) is gridiron football played by high school teams in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both countries, but its popularity is declining, part ...
season.
On September 21, 2009, the station debuted a half-hour weeknight newscast at 6:30, that competed against the national network newscasts on WHP, WGAL, and WHTM.
The station launched a weeknight 11:00 p.m. newscast on January 11, 2010.
On January 15, 2011, WPMT became the first station in Central Pennsylvania and the last Tribune-owned Fox affiliate to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition (rival WGAL was the first station in the market to offer local newscasts in the
16:9 format, albeit in
enhanced definition widescreen
Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than t ...
in mid-December 2010; WGAL switched to full HD on August 29, 2011). WPMT was the first television station in the market to provide news video from the field in true high definition, as it upgraded its
ENG vehicles, satellite truck, studio and field cameras and other equipment in order to broadcast news footage from the field in high definition, in addition to segments broadcast from the main studio.
On January 9, 2012, WPMT expanded its early evening newscast to one hour with the addition of a half-hour at 6:00 p.m. WPMT debuted two hour-long newscasts at 4 and 5 p.m. weekdays on August 5, 2013, while discontinuing its hour-long 6:00 p.m. newscast. The station's 11:00 p.m. newscast was discontinued the following month on September 6, and was replaced by the second incarnation of ''
The Arsenio Hall Show
''The Arsenio Hall Show'' is an American syndicated late-night talk show created by and starring comedian Arsenio Hall.
There have been two different incarnations of ''The Arsenio Hall Show''. The original series premiered on January 3, 1989, ...
'' (which was produced by Tribune) three days later.
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 ...
:
On October 26, 2009, WPMT launched a
24-hour news channel, known as "Fox 43 News 24/7", which is available on its 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 ...
, and on
Blue Ridge Communications
Blue Ridge Communications is a regional cable television, Internet and voice over IP provider that serves much of the Poconos area and central Pennsylvania in the United States. Products available include analog and digital cable television, HD t ...
digital channel 126 and
Comcast
Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...
digital channel 244. Programming consists of simulcasts and rebroadcasts of local news programming from the station's main channel. Beginning on January 1, 2011, WPMT began carrying the Tribune-owned network
Antenna TV
Antenna TV is an American digital television network owned by Nexstar Media Group. The network's programming consists of classic television series, primarily sitcoms, from the 1950s to the 1990s. Antenna TV's programming and advertising operati ...
on digital subchannel 43.2. On July 18, 2015, WPMT began carrying
This TV
This TV (also known as This TV Network and alternately stylized as thisTV) is an American free-to-air television network owned by Allen Media
Broadcast Networks, LLC, part of the Allen Media Group division of Entertainment Studios. Originally fo ...
on digital subchannel 43.3, replacing the 24-hour news channel, known as "Fox 43 News 24/7". Fox 43 News 24/7 can still be viewed through a
livestream
Livestreaming is streaming media simultaneously recorded and broadcast in real-time over the internet. It is often referred to simply as streaming. Non-live media such as video-on-demand, vlogs, and YouTube videos are technically streamed, but no ...
link on their webpage. As part of a channel sharing agreement with WITF, the This TV subchannel on 43.3 was dropped.
Analog-to-digital conversion
WPMT discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over
UHF
Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...
channel 43, on June 12, 2009, as part of the
federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.
[List of Digital Full-Power Stations](_blank)
/ref> The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 47,[CDBS Print](_blank)
/ref> using 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 A ...
to display WPMT's 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 ...
as 43 on digital television receivers.
WPMT sold its spectrum for $50 million in the 2016–2017 FCC incentive auction and the station will have to cease broadcasting on its current digital channel 90 days after it receives payment from the FCC. On August 31, 2017, it was announced that WPMT had entered into a channel sharing agreement with PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
member station WITF-TV
WITF-TV (channel 33) is a non-commercial television station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States, a member station of PBS serving the Susquehanna Valley region (Harrisburg– Lancaster–Lebanon–York). It is owned by WITF, Inc., alongs ...
.Modification of a Licensed Facility for DTV Application
/ref>
References
External links
*
WPMT.AntennaTV.tv
- Antenna TV Harrisburg official website
Livestream.com/WPMT/live
- WPMT Livestream Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wpmt
Fox network affiliates
Antenna TV affiliates
Tegna Inc.
PMT
York, Pennsylvania
Television channels and stations established in 1952
1952 establishments in Pennsylvania