WZRA-CD, UHF digital channel 15, is a low-powered, Class A

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 ...

in the

Tampa Bay Tampa Bay is a large natural harbor and shallow estuary connected to the Gulf of Mexico on the west-central coast of Florida, comprising Hillsborough Bay, McKay Bay, Old Tampa Bay, Middle Tampa Bay, and Lower Tampa Bay. The largest freshwater in ...

area, reaching to ethnic groups in

Pinellas Pinellas is the name of a peninsula located roughly halfway down the west coast of Florida. It forms the western boundary of Tampa Bay and comprises the bulk of Pinellas County. There is a city named Pinellas Park in south Pinellas. The peninsula ...

, southwestern Pasco and northwestern Hillsborough counties. The station carries a variety of mostly news-oriented programming from broadcasters outside the United States, in several languages. In Pinellas County, WZRA is available on

WOW! WideOpenWest (doing business as WOW!) is the sixth largest cable operator in the United States with their network passing 3,248,600 homes and businesses. The company offers landline telephone, cable television, and broadband Internet services ...

cable TV 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 broadc ...

channel 122 and on

Spectrum A spectrum (plural ''spectra'' or ''spectrums'') is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary, without gaps, across a continuum. The word was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of colors i ...

digital channel 948. WZRA is also on channel 24 on Verizon FiOS throughout the market, as far south as

Sarasota County Sarasota County is a county located in Southwest Florida. At the 2020 US census, the population was 434,006. Its county seat is Sarasota and its largest city is North Port. Sarasota County is part of the North Port–Sarasota–Bradenton, FL m ...

. The station also offers a live feed of its programming on the Internet.

Programming

Most of WZRA's programming is

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, aimed for the Greek audience in

Tarpon Springs Tarpon Springs is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. The population was 23,484 at the 2010 census. Tarpon Springs has the highest percentage of Greek Americans of any city in the US. Downtown Tarpon Springs has long been a focal po ...

, but the channel also offers programming in other languages, such as

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

and

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

. WZRA also presents daily newscasts from

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

(from ERT), which (reflecting the station's Greek ownership) makes up the majority of the station's evening, overnight and Sunday programming. The station carries programs from the national broadcasters in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

( RT) and

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

(

RAI RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana (; commercially styled as Rai since 2000; known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane) is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many ter ...

) as well as local news from

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

NTV NTV may refer to: Television * NTV (Bangladesh), a Bengali-language satellite television channel in Bangladesh * NTV (India), Telugu regional channel * NTV (Kenya) * NTV (Mongolia), a television channel based in Mongolia * NTV (Newport Televis ...

, aimed at Canadian "

snowbirds The Snowbirds, officially known as 431 Air Demonstration Squadron (french: 431e Escadron de démonstration aérienne, links=no), are the military aerobatics flight demonstration team of the Royal Canadian Air Force. The team is based at 15 Wing ...

." WZRA carried

CTV Television Network The CTV Television Network, commonly known as CTV, is a Canadian English-language terrestrial television network. Launched in 1961 and acquired by BCE Inc. in 2000, CTV is Canada's largest privately owned television network and is now a divis ...

newscasts in the early 21st century; they also carried

Dini Petty Dini Petty (born January 15, 1945) is a Canadian television and radio host. At 22, wearing a trademark pink jumpsuit and working for Toronto radio station CKEY, she became the first female traffic reporter to pilot her own helicopter. She clock ...

's CTV talk show, via NTV, until CTV cancelled the series' repeats in the early-2000s. The station carries general entertainment programs from

Youtoo America YTA TV (an initialism for its former full name, Youtoo America; commonly referred to as just YTA) is an American television network which originally launched in February 1985 as a cable channel. Unusual for a network of its type, it has had multi ...

during the morning hours between Monday and Saturday.

History

When the station signed on the late-1990s, channel 48 went by the translator-style

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 ...

W48AY, and used the moniker "Bay TV". When the station became a Class A station in the early 2000s, the call sign changed to WZRA-CA, though at present, it is unknown for what the call sign meant, or if they were randomly chosen by the FCC. WZRA originally had its transmitter in Oldsmar, broadcasting at 41.7 kW. They since relocated to a 150 kW transmitter, broadcasting from facilities near the corner of

US 19 U.S. Route 19 (US 19) is a north–south U.S. Highway in the Eastern United States. Despite encroaching Interstate Highways, the route has remained a long-haul road, connecting the Gulf of Mexico with Lake Erie. The highway's southern ...

and Palmetto Road in Port Richey, increasing coverage in west Pasco and southwestern Hernando counties, but reducing coverage in Hillsborough and central Pinellas. They have since filed 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 ...

channel 48 to a digital signal, still broadcasting from Port Richey, but at 15 kW. On July 8, 2015, this construction permit was granted. As of April 2017, WZRA-CD only broadcast programming on Channel 48-3.

Bright House dispute in Tarpon Springs

Until mid-February 2006, WZRA was seen on Bright House channel 15 in the Tarpon Springs area. But on that date, WZRA was unceremoniously replaced with Tarpon Springs' local government channel, which, at its debut, was mainly a promo loop for an upcoming municipal election, plus live City Commission meetings. Prior to December 2007 (when all local public service channels moved to the digital tier), Bright House allocated channel 15 for local

Government-access television Government-access television (GATV) is a type of specialty television channel created by government entities (generally local governments) and broadcast over cable TV systems or, in some cases, over-the-air broadcast television stations. GATV pr ...

in Pinellas County, and had given that slot to WZRA on an interim basis, until Tarpon Springs started their own channel. And with WZRA being a low-powered station, Bright House is not obligated to carry the channel. Since being dropped, WZRA received thousands of calls in support of the station, especially from the Greek community. Support was so huge, WZRA's station manager Angelos Angelatos urged their viewers to call Bright House, as well as call its Vice-President, Mike Robertson, direct. Angelatos and his brother, talk show host Sam Angelatos, said that Bright House's discontinuation of WZRA was a form of discrimination, favoring the Hispanic community with four Spanish channels, while ignoring and mistreating other ethnic groups. In July 2006, Bright House gave WZRA a permanent home, on digital channel 948 in Northern Pinellas County. WZRA was slated to be dropped from Bright House by the end of April 2011; however, as of March 2014, the station is still part of the Bright House line-up. But despite the transmitter relocation to Port Richey, in Pasco County, WZRA is still available only to Bright House subscribers in Northern Pinellas.Pe
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zip codes 34652 (New Port Richey) and 33756 (Clearwater).

References

External links

*
Greek Voice
{{Other Florida Stations CTV Television Network stations Non-English-language television stations in Florida Greek-American culture in Florida Greek-language television stations German-American culture in Florida German-language television stations Italian-American culture in Florida Italian-language television stations ZRA-CD Foreign-language television stations in the United States 1990s establishments in Florida

Programming

History

Bright House dispute in Tarpon Springs

See also

References

External links