WTCL-LD (channel 6) is a
low-power television station in
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
, United States, affiliated with
Telemundo
Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language Terrestrial television, terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Television and Streaming#NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a divi ...
. It is owned by
Gray Television
Gray Television, Inc. is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 stations across the United St ...
alongside two full-power sister stations:
Shaker Heights
Shaker or Shakers may refer to:
Religious groups
* Shakers, a historically significant Christian sect
* Indian Shakers, a smaller Christian denomination
Objects and instruments
* Shaker (musical instrument), an indirect struck idiophone
* Cockta ...
–licensed
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 Entertainm ...
affiliate
WOIO
WOIO (channel 19) is a television station licensed to Shaker Heights, Ohio, United States, serving the Cleveland area as an affiliate of CBS. It is owned by Gray Television alongside low-power Telemundo affiliate WTCL-LD (channel 6) and Lorai ...
(channel 19) and
Lorain–licensed
CW affiliate
WUAB
WUAB (channel 43) is a television station licensed to Lorain, Ohio, United States, serving the Cleveland area as an affiliate of The CW. It is owned by Gray Television alongside Low-power broadcasting#Television, low-power Telemundo affiliate WT ...
(channel 43); WTCL-LD also functions as an
ultra high frequency
Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequency, 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 ten ...
(UHF)
repeater
In telecommunications, a repeater is an electronic device that receives a signal and retransmits it. Repeaters are used to extend transmissions so that the signal can cover longer distances or be received on the other side of an obstruction. Some ...
for WOIO and WUAB. All three stations share studios at
Reserve Square
Reserve Square is a two-building skyscraper mixed use apartment complex in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Both buildings have 23 floors and are 266 feet (81 m) high. The Square is directly west of the senior residential Cuyahoga Metropol ...
in
downtown Cleveland
Downtown Cleveland is the central business district of Cleveland, Ohio. The economic and symbolic center of the city and the Cleveland-Akron-Canton, OH Combined Statistical Area, it is Cleveland's oldest district, with its Public Square laid out b ...
; WTCL-LD's transmitter is located in suburban
Parma
Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, Giuseppe Verdi, music, art, prosciutto (ham), Parmigiano-Reggiano, cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 ...
.
Founded as a mostly obscure low-power station in the Cleveland area on UHF channels 47 and 65, this station moved to channel 6 in 2012 after several failed attempts to convert the station for
digital broadcasting
Digital broadcasting is the practice of using digital signals rather than analogue signals for broadcasting over radio frequency bands. Digital television broadcasting (especially satellite television) is widespread. Digital audio broadcasting is ...
, enabling it to operate as WLFM-LP,
a ''de facto'' radio station on . After briefly carrying a hybrid
modern rock
Modern rock is an umbrella term used to describe rock music that is found on college rock radio stations. Some radio stations use this term to distinguish themselves from classic rock, which is based in 1960s–1980s rock music.
Radio format
Mod ...
/
talk
Talk may refer to:
Communication
* Communication, the encoding and decoding of exchanged messages between people
* Conversation, interactive communication between two or more people
* Lecture, an oral presentation intended to inform or instruct
...
format, a lease to
TSJ Media
La Mega Media, Inc., also known as La Mega Nota, is a chain of bilingual weekly newspapers, monthly magazines, and Spanish-language radio stations based in Columbus, Ohio, that serves Hispanic communities in several metropolitan areas of the Unit ...
resulted in the installation of 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 ...
radio format as "La Mega 87.7", the first such format to operate on a full-time basis in the market. Increasing technical complications and limitations forced WLFM-LP to convert to digital in July 2020. A sale to Gray Television the following year saw the station relaunched as the market's first Telemundo affiliate.
History
Early history and attempted digital conversion
This station signed on as a low-power station on channel 47 on November 30, 1989, using the sequentially assigned W47BE
call sign
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assigne ...
. Moving to channel 65 (which had been previously reserved for commercial
UHF broadcasts in the early 1950s which were never built
) on April 15, 1998, the calls were changed to W65DL, then adopted the WXOX-LP calls on January 12, 2000. In the final years as WXOX, the station was affiliated with the Home Shopping Network (
HSN
HSN, an initialism of its former name Home Shopping Network, is an American free-to-air television network owned by the Qurate Retail Group, which also owns catalog company Cornerstone Brands. Based in the Gateway area of St. Petersburg, Flo ...
).
WXOX-LP filed paperwork requesting the station move to channel 44 and increase power to 120 kW, but amended the request for
digital conversion.
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 ...
(FCC) findings stated channel 44 would cause interference with adjacent
WNEO
WNEO (channel 45) is a non-commercial educational television station licensed to Alliance, Ohio, United States. It is simulcast full-time over satellite station WEAO (channel 49) in Akron, Ohio. Both are member stations of PBS and jointly bran ...
, prompting WXOX-LP to request broadcasting over a subchannel of
WCDN-LP. WXOX-LP was then forced off the air on October 27, 2009, when wireless carrier
Verizon
Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...
purchased the part of the wireless spectrum where the station had been broadcasting. An attempt was made to convert WXOX to a low-power digital station on channel 31, which
WJW broadcast from prior to the June 12, 2009, analog shutoff date. Due to potential
co-channel interference
Co-channel interference or CCI is crosstalk from two different radio transmitters using the same channel. Co-channel interference can be caused by many factors from weather conditions to administrative and design issues. Co-channel interference ...
issues with
CITY-DT-2 in
Woodstock, Ontario
Woodstock is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. The city has a population of 40,902 according to the 2016 Canadian census. Woodstock is the seat of Oxford County, at the head of the non-navigable Thames River, approximately 128 km from ...
, which also broadcast on
RF channel 31, the application was abandoned.
As a "Franken-FM" radio station
''87.7 Cleveland's Sound''
In May 2011, the station's then-owner,
Venture Technologies Group
Venture Technologies Group, LLC is an American television broadcasting company that was founded in 1996 and based in Los Angeles, California. The company currently owns 14 television stations.
Stations owned
Stations owned through Four Season ...
, filed a new FCC request to move the station to channel 6 analog, leading to speculation that it could
carry the audio feed of an FM radio station due to analog transmissions on that frequency also being audible over . After entering into an operating agreement with Murray Hill Broadcasting—headed by former
WWWE,
WRMR and
WDOK
WDOK (102.1 FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio, known as "Star 102" and featuring an adult contemporary format. Owned by Audacy, Inc., the station serves Greater Cleveland and surrounding Northeast Ohio. WDOK's stud ...
co-owner Tom Wilson and aligned with Venture executive Paul Koplin—Wilson announced the launch of a personality-driven
alternative rock
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...
/
talk
Talk may refer to:
Communication
* Communication, the encoding and decoding of exchanged messages between people
* Conversation, interactive communication between two or more people
* Lecture, an oral presentation intended to inform or instruct
...
format,
using the WLFM-LP call sign which Venture transferred from their
low-power channel 6 station in Chicago.
With studios located within the
Cleveland Agora, what became known as "87.7 Cleveland's Sound" was originally scheduled to launch in July 2012, but did not debut until September 9, 2012.
WLFM-LP aired a taped loop of Cleveland-themed sports songs and "
My Town" as a prolonged
stunt
A stunt is an unusual and difficult physical feat or an act requiring a special skill, performed for artistic purposes usually on television, theaters, or cinema. Stunts are a feature of many action films. Before computer generated imagery spec ...
, while the TV signal displayed either a loop of slides of local landmarks, or a screensaver for
Western Digital
Western Digital Corporation (WDC, commonly known as Western Digital or WD) is an American computer drive manufacturer and data storage company, headquartered in San Jose, California. It designs, manufactures and sells data technology produc ...
. A
casting call
In the performing arts industry such as theatre, film, or television, casting, or a casting call, is a pre-production process for selecting a certain type of actor, dancer, singer, or extra (acting), extra for a particular role or part in a scr ...
was conducted for possible air talent, with former
WKRK-FM
WKRK-FM (92.3 MHz) is a commercial radio station licensed to Cleveland Heights, Ohio, known as "Sports Radio 92.3 The Fan" and carrying a sports format. Owned by Audacy, Inc., WKRK-FM serves Greater Cleveland and surrounding Northeast Ohi ...
host Rachel Steele named as afternoon host and former
WFBQ
WFBQ (94.7 FM, "Q95") is a radio station in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, owned by iHeartMedia. The studios are located at 6161 Fall Creek Road on the northeast side of Indianapolis. The transmitter and antenna are located on the northwe ...
program director Marty Bender assuming like duties. Former WMMS personalities Dan Stansbury and Chad Zumock were later added to the airstaff.
Readers of ''
Cleveland Scene
The ''Cleveland Scene'' is an alternative weekly newspaper based in Cleveland, Ohio. The newspaper includes highlights of Cleveland-area arts, music, dining, and films, as well as classified advertising. The first edition of the newspaper was pub ...
'' awarded WLFM-LP as "Best Local Radio Station" in 2013. The station also featured area local music show ''Inner Sanctum'' but the program was cancelled in September 2013; host Pat Johnson said the station "was hoping for a big summer and that hasn't translated into sales yet".
''La Mega 87.7''
![WLFM-LP logo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/WLFM-LP_logo.png)
Murray Hill Broadcasting announced a
local marketing agreement
In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or tim ...
(LMA) with
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
-based
TSJ Media
La Mega Media, Inc., also known as La Mega Nota, is a chain of bilingual weekly newspapers, monthly magazines, and Spanish-language radio stations based in Columbus, Ohio, that serves Hispanic communities in several metropolitan areas of the Unit ...
on December 11, 2013, effectively changing WLFM-LP to 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 ...
radio format, ''de facto'' becoming the first full-time Hispanic radio station in Cleveland proper. Tom Wilson viewed Murray Hill's LMA with TSJ Media as "a significant upgrade of an opportunity... sometimes you just don't realize what opportunity is there until somebody presents it to you. It's really the way to go".
When the LMA took effect on January 1, 2014, WLFM-LP was renamed "La Mega 87.7: Latino and Proud", boasting an airstaff that included several area disc jockeys. TSJ Media would later be acquired by
Columbus
Columbus is a Latinized version of the Italian surname "''Colombo''". It most commonly refers to:
* Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the Italian explorer
* Columbus, Ohio, capital of the U.S. state of Ohio
Columbus may also refer to:
Places ...
-based La Mega Media, Inc., on April 16, 2019.
Beginning with the
2014–15 NBA season, WLFM-LP carried Spanish-language broadcasts of the
Cleveland Cavaliers
The Cleveland Cavaliers (often referred to as the Cavs) are an American professional basketball team based in Cleveland. The Cavaliers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference (NBA), Ea ...
, then added Spanish-language broadcasts of the
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference ( ...
in 2018; Rafael Hernandez Brito served as
play-by-play announcer
In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real-time commentary of a game or event, usually during a live broadcast, traditionally delivered in the historical present tense. Radio was ...
for both teams.
Conversion to digital
WLFM-LP suspended operations on February 26, 2019, when
WOUC-TV in
Cambridge, Ohio
Cambridge is a city in and the county seat of Guernsey County, Ohio, United States. It lies in southeastern Ohio, in the Appalachian Plateau of the Appalachian Mountains 74 miles east of Columbus. The population was 10,635 at the 2010 census. I ...
, moved to RF channel 6 during the repacking of broadcast spectrum initiated by the FCC's
2016 auction; WLFM-LP returned to the air several days later with a power reduction to 3
watt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...
s. While low-power television stations operating as "Franken-FMs", including WLFM-LP, had deadlines for digital conversion extended multiple times by the FCC, the spectrum repack forced the station to convert to digital broadcasting on RF channel 20. Thus, WLFM-LP discontinued analog broadcasting on June 30, 2020, with the "La Mega 87.7" format moved to an internet-only platform.
On July 29, 2020, the renamed WLFM-LD launched, carrying
Jewelry Television
Jewelry Television is an American television network specializing in the sale of jewelry for both men and women. On-air and online, the network is mainly branded by its jtv initials in lower-case letters. It has an estimated reach of more than ...
as a temporary affiliation.
Sale to Gray and Telemundo affiliation
Murray Hill Broadcasting sold WLFM-LD to
WOIO
WOIO (channel 19) is a television station licensed to Shaker Heights, Ohio, United States, serving the Cleveland area as an affiliate of CBS. It is owned by Gray Television alongside low-power Telemundo affiliate WTCL-LD (channel 6) and Lorai ...
and
WUAB
WUAB (channel 43) is a television station licensed to Lorain, Ohio, United States, serving the Cleveland area as an affiliate of The CW. It is owned by Gray Television alongside Low-power broadcasting#Television, low-power Telemundo affiliate WT ...
owner
Gray Television
Gray Television, Inc. is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 stations across the United St ...
on July 29, 2021, for $1.65 million, which the FCC approved on September 13.
Shortly thereafter, Gray announced WLFM-LD would adopt the WTCL call sign and join
Telemundo
Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language Terrestrial television, terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Television and Streaming#NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a divi ...
on January 1, 2022; prior to this, Cleveland was the largest market in the United States not to have a dedicated Telemundo affiliate. The new station would also have evening newscasts in Spanish produced by WOIO, the first such newscasts to be broadcast in the Cleveland market, as
Univision
Univision () is an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. It is the United States' largest provider of Spanish-language content. The network's programming is aimed at the Latino public and includes ...
-owned
WQHS-DT
WQHS-DT (channel 61) is a television station in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-language Univision and UniMás networks. Owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision, it is the only full-power Spanish-language television st ...
only carries remotely-produced news briefs.
WOIO previously produced a daily Spanish-language newscast, ''Al Día'', for their website, social media and
OTT services, but was suspended due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
; WOIO retained both ''Al Día'' reporters and planned to hire two additional
bilingual
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...
reporters.
WLFM-LD was renamed WTCL-LP on October 15, 2021, and adopted the -LD suffix on August 5, 2022.
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
External links
*
{{Gray TV
Defunct radio stations in the United States
Television channels and stations established in 1989
1989 establishments in Ohio
TCL-LD
Low-power television stations in the United States
Gray Television
Telemundo network affiliates
Spanish-language mass media in Ohio
Circle (TV network) affiliates
CBS network affiliates
The CW affiliates