WMJF-CD,

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 ...

39 ( UHF digital channel 23), is a low-powered, Class A

Ion Television Ion Television is an American broadcast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented en ...

- affiliated station serving

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, United States that is

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 ...

Towson Towson () is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The population was 55,197 as of the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Baltimore County and the second-most populous unincorp ...

. The station is owned by HME Equity Fund II, LLC. WMJF-CD's transmitter is located on

Maryland Route 45 Maryland Route 45 (MD 45) is a state highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. Known for most of its length as York Road, the state highway runs from U.S. Route 1 in Maryland, U.S. Route 1 (US 1) and U.S. Route 40 Truck (Baltimore, Maryland), U ...

near the Towson Town Center mall.

History

Towson University Towson University (TU or Towson) is a public university in Towson, Maryland. Founded in 1866 as Maryland's first training school for teachers, Towson University is a part of the University System of Maryland. Since its founding, the university h ...

(then Towson State University) applied for a construction permit on channel 61 in 1988 as a student television station. After eight extensions of the permit into 1994, Towson applied to reduce the station's

effective radiated power Effective radiated power (ERP), synonymous with equivalent radiated power, is an IEEE standardized definition of directional radio frequency (RF) power, such as that emitted by a radio transmitter. It is the total power in watts that would h ...

by a factor of ten to just 521 watts. Station W61BT then applied for its license January 30, 1995. W61BT was the Baltimore market's charter affiliate for

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 terrestrial television, broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture be ...

, which launched the same month. At the time "Towson State Television" was largely invisible to local viewers, as its coverage radius was about from the university and it did not have

must-carry In cable television, governments apply a must-carry regulation stating that locally licensed television stations must be carried on a cable provider's system. North America Canada Under current CRTC regulations, the lowest tier of service on ...

rights on cable as a low-powered station. Station management took the chance on joining The WB after no full-powered station in the city was willing to join the network, and expressed optimism that the network affiliation for the new station would lead to cable carriage and provide a unique learning opportunity for students. By the fall, when the network was also available from WBDC (channel 50, now CW affiliate

WDCW WDCW (channel 50), branded on-air as DCW 50, is a television station in Washington, D.C., airing programming from The CW. It is owned and operated by network majority owner Nexstar Media Group alongside Hagerstown, Maryland–licensed independen ...

) in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, this had not materialized and '' Baltimore Sun'' sports media critic Milton Kent called on local cable providers to carry that station instead. The station changed its callsign to WMJF-LP in February 1996, reflecting its network's mascot,

Michigan J. Frog Michigan J. Frog is an animated cartoon character from the Warner Bros.' ''Merrie Melodies'' film series. Originally a one-shot character, his only appearance during the original run of the ''Merrie Melodies'' series was as the star of ''One Fro ...

. The WB signed a deal to move to

UPN The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that launched on January 16, 1995. It was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries' United Television. Viacom (through its Paramount Television unit, which pr ...

affiliate

WNUV WNUV (channel 54) is a television station in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of Fox/MyNetw ...

(channel 54) in July 1997, effective the following January, and a network spokesman referred to Baltimore as one of the network's "five biggest holes" in coverage. After a brief stint as an

America One America One was an American television network established in 1995 by USFR Media Group through its America One Television subsidiary.

affiliate, WMJF became an independent station and also carried MTV2 in 2004. WMJF was also a

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

student bureau, one of only two in the country. WMJF was a 90% student run organization, operated under faculty advisers Dr. John MacKerron and Dr. David Reiss, and an executive board of five elected and appointed positions that they deemed necessary to help operate the station. Towson University sold WMJF-LP to

LocusPoint Networks LocusPoint Networks LLC was an owner of television stations in the United States. The company is 99% owned by The Blackstone Group. After selling off most of their in 2017 and 2018 in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) spectrum auction a ...

in December 2012. The deal closed on August 8, 2013. LocusPoint then sold WMJF-CD to HME Equity Fund II on April 8, 2018. Towson University continued to operate the station until 2019. Programming and operations are handled remotely via satellite feed.

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 ...

Spectrum reallocation

As a part of the repacking process following the 2016–2017 FCC incentive auction, WMJF-CD relocated to UHF channel 23 in summer 2020, 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 AT ...

to display its

number as 39.

Programming

As of 2021, WMJF-CD carries the entire Ion Television schedule. The station no longer broadcasts local student programming.

WMJFNow

WMJFNow was launched in August 2006, after a beta run the previous spring. The program is run using

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

Video. WMJFNow is the creation of webmaster and station president, Christopher Taydus with help from many station members including Josh Eisenberg, Joe Achard and Diego Torres. It was created to help find a new audience for the station. Taydus was quoted as saying, "I have a friend who goes to Northeastern who has been watching our sitcom ''Film School''. We've even had guys from other countries watching." When asked about the numbers that some shows were receiving, Josh Eisenberg said, "In the college television market those are incredible numbers to be receiving. It used to be just a five-mile radius, and now anyone can see it."

References

External links

WMJF website (no longer actively maintained, but left online as an archive)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wmjf-Lp Ion Television affiliates True Crime Network affiliates Quest (American TV network) affiliates Laff (TV network) affiliates Defy TV affiliates Heroes & Icons affiliates TrueReal affiliates MJF-CD Television channels and stations established in 1995 1995 establishments in Maryland