WFXZ-CD (channel 24) is a Class A BizTV- 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 ea ...

licensed to Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The station is owned by the WGBH Educational Foundation. WFXZ-CD's studios are located in Woburn. Under a channel sharing arrangement, WFXZ-CD shares transmitter facilities with PBS member station

WGBH-TV WGBH-TV (channel 2), branded on-air as GBH or GBH 2 since 2020, is the primary PBS member television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship property of the WGBH Educational Foundation, which also owns Boston's se ...

(channel 2) on Cabot Street in Needham. Despite WFXZ-CD legally holding a low-power Class A license, it transmits using WGBH-TV's full-power spectrum. This ensures complete reception across the Boston television market.

History

The station's construction permit was originally granted on November 30, 1989 as W29BA, operating on channel 29, which would be licensed to nearby Lawrence. However, by the time finally it signed on the air with a

home shopping Home shopping is the electronic retailing and home shopping channels industry, which includes such billion dollar television-based and e-commerce companies as Shop LC, HSN, Gemporia, TJC, QVC, eBay, ShopHQ, Buy.com and Amazon.com, as well as ...

service in early 2000, it had moved to channel 24, was licensed to Boston and adopted the W24CM

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 ass ...

. A few months later, channel 24 changed its call letters to WVXN-LP. In 2001, the station was upgraded to Class A status as WVXN-CA and dropped home shopping programming in favor of affiliating with

MTV2 MTV2 (formerly M2) is an American pay television channel owned by the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. The channel launched initially as an all-music video service, once the original MTV had started to shift its programm ...

. The station changed its callsign to WFXZ-CA in 2003. In July 2006, the station became the Boston affiliate of the

Azteca América Azteca América (, sometimes shortened to Azteca) is an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network owned by INNOVATE Corp., which acquired the network from the Azteca International Corporation subsidiary of TV Azteca. Headquartere ...

network. WFXZ

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 d ...

its signal to digital transmission in 2010. Longtime owner Randolph Weigner agreed to sell WFXZ to Prime Time Partners in December 2011. The station became a charter MundoFox affiliate when the network formally launched on August 13, 2012, with Azteca America programming moving to 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 compres ...

; it returned to primary status early on December 1, 2016 due to MundoMax ending operations (shortly after Fox International Channels dropped out of the joint venture in 2015). During its affiliations with MundoFox/MundoMax and Azteca América, WFXZ-CD was carried on

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 ...

Xfinity Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, doing business as Xfinity, is an American telecommunications company and division of Comcast Corporation used to market consumer cable television, internet, telephone, and wireless services provided by the c ...

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 ...

channels 721 and 981, and Verizon FiOS channel 20. In the FCC's

incentive auction The 2016 United States wireless spectrum auction, officially known as Auction 1001, allocated approximately 100 MHz of the United States Ultra High Frequency (UHF) spectrum formerly allocated to UHF television in the 600 MHz band. The sp ...

, WFXZ-CD sold its spectrum for $63,949,770 and indicated that it would enter into a post-auction channel sharing agreement. On September 8, 2017, the station entered into a channel sharing agreement with

(channel 2); concurrently, Prime Time Partners agreed to donate the WFXZ license to the WGBH Educational Foundation. WFXZ shut down its UHF digital channel 24 transmitter on December 3, 2017 and began channel-sharing on

's channel 19 transmitter;

WGBH WGBH may refer to: * WGBH Educational Foundation, based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States ** WGBH (FM), a public radio station at Boston, Massachusetts on 89.7 MHz owned by the WGBH Educational Foundation ** WGBH-TV WGBH-TV (channel 2), ...

's acquisition of the station was completed on December 21, 2017, at which point the station dropped Azteca América for BizTV. Concurrently, the station's carriage on Comcast Xfinity and Verizon FiOS was discontinued.

Digital television

Digital channels

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wfxz-Cd Television channels and stations established in 2000 Low-power television stations in the United States FXZ-CD WGBH Educational Foundation