WOPX-TV (channel 56) is 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 ea ...

licensed to

Melbourne, Florida Melbourne is a city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. It is located southeast of Orlando. As of th2020 Decennial Census there was a population of 84,678. The municipality is the second-largest in the county by both size and population. ...

, United States, broadcasting the

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 ...

network to the

Orlando Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures re ...

area. Owned and operated by the

Ion Media Ion Media (formerly known as Paxson Communications Corporation and Ion Media Networks) was an American broadcasting company that owned and operated over 71 television stations in most major American markets (through its television stations group ...

subsidiary of the E.W. Scripps Company, the station maintains offices on Grand National Drive in Orlando, and its transmitter is located on Nova Road east of St. Cloud.

History

WAYK

WAYK signed on December 30, 1985, as an

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, marke ...

. In 1988, Beach TV Partners signed on

WAYQ Ayers Rock Airport (also known as Connellan Airport) is situated near Yulara, around (5 hrs drive) away from Alice Springs, Northern Territory, and 20 minutes drive from Uluru / Ayers Rock itself. An average of just under 300,000 passengers p ...

at channel 26 as a simulcast of WAYK, giving them a signal in

Daytona Beach Daytona Beach, or simply Daytona, is a coastal resort-city in east-central Florida. Located on the eastern edge of Volusia County near the Atlantic coastline, its population was 72,647 at the 2020 census. Daytona Beach is approximately nort ...

. In early August 1990, owner Beach Television Partners based in

Vero Beach Vero Beach is a city in and the seat of Indian River County, Florida, United States. Vero Beach is the second most populous city in Indian River County. Abundant in beaches and wildlife, Vero Beach is located on Florida's Treasure Coast. It is thi ...

filed for

Chapter 11 Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, wheth ...

reorganization over an inability to renegotiate a loan payment schedule. At the time, the station was only carried part-time on CableVision of Central Florida, Orlando's major cable system. WAYK was affiliated with the Beach TV investor, Harry Handley, who founded the Star Television Network. The network launched in September 1990 only to close down on .

WIRB

In 1992, the stations were both sold to Robert Rich, who added more

paid programming Paid or PAID may refer to: * ''Paid'' (1930 film), an American film starring Joan Crawford * ''Paid'' (2006 film), a Dutch film *''Personality and Individual Differences'', a journal See also * Paide Paide is a town in Estonia and the ...

to the channels. WAYK became WIRB, and WAYQ became WNTO. WIRB continued as a low budget independent station but also aired some

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

programs that were not cleared by

WESH Wesh or WESH may refer to: *Wesh in Spin Boldak, Kandahar province, Afghanistan *Wesh–Chaman border crossing one of the major international border crossings between Afghanistan and Pakistan *Darrell Wesh (1992), Haitian-American sprinter *Marlena ...

most notably ''

Leeza ''Leeza'' is an NBC and syndicated daytime television talk show. It premiered on June 14, 1993 as ''John & Leeza from Hollywood'', hosted by John Tesh and Leeza Gibbons. Tesh left the show after seven months, and on January 17, 1994, the ...

'' (before it went into

syndication Syndication may refer to: * Broadcast syndication, where individual stations buy programs outside the network system * Print syndication, where individual newspapers or magazines license news articles, columns, or comic strips * Web syndication, ...

) and ''

California Dreams ''California Dreams'' is an American teen sitcom that aired on NBC. It was part of the network's Saturday morning block, TNBC, premiering on September 12, 1992. Created by writers Brett Dewey and Ronald B. Solomon, and executive produced by Pet ...

''. WIRB would broadcast

Florida Marlins The Miami Marlins are an American professional baseball team based in Miami. The Marlins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East division. The club's home ballpark is LoanDepot Park. The fran ...

baseball,

Florida Panthers The Florida Panthers are a professional ice hockey team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference, and initially played their home g ...

hockey, and

Tampa Bay Lightning The Tampa Bay Lightning (colloquially known as the Bolts) are a professional ice hockey team based in Tampa, Florida. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Eastern Conference. They play ...

hockey to Central Florida from around 1993 to 1996. In 1996,

Christian Television Network Christian Television Network (CTN) is a non-profit broadcast television network of small owned-and-operated stations (O&O) that broadcasts religious programming. It is based in Largo, Florida (with a mailing address of Clearwater), and the flagsh ...

would buy WIRB (Paxson Communications, the predecessor to Ion Media, took a LMA on the station at the same time) while Florida Media Broadcasters would buy WNTO (which would be later sold to

Entravision Entravision Communications Corporation is an American media company based in Santa Monica, California. Entravision primarily caters to the Spanish-speaking Hispanic community and owns television and radio stations and outdoor media, in several of ...

and became

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 include ...

affiliate WVEN). WIRB then ran

religious Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...

shows in the morning, infomercials in the afternoon and evening, and Christian praise and worship music on overnights in addition to the NBC programs not cleared by WESH.

WOPX

In January 1998, Paxson bought the station from CTN and renamed it WOPX (the -TV callsign would be added in 2012) and continued with the same format until August 31, 1998. At that point, WOPX took the Pax TV affiliation along with other stations owned by Paxson. Pax TV introduced family entertainment like

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 ...

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 atmospher ...

reality shows Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...

aimed at the family,

game show A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or demonstrative and are typically directed by a host, ...

s and other programming. Originally, Pax TV ran from noon to midnight, but has since reduced its schedule several times. At one point, it ran from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., and there are no original programs on the network, which has been renamed Ion. WOPX still fills the rest of its schedule with infomercials and religious shows. WOPX of recent has also carried

Tampa Bay Rays The Tampa Bay Rays are an American professional baseball team based in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Rays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since its inception, the team's home v ...

baseball and Tampa Bay Lightning hockey from Ion's Tampa affiliate and produced by

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the F ...

. On September 4, 2004, WOPX aired the

NASCAR Xfinity Series The NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) is a stock car racing series organized by NASCAR. It is promoted as NASCAR's second-tier circuit to the organization's top level Cup Series. NXS events are frequently held as a support race on the day prior to a ...

(then Busch) race from

California Speedway Auto Club Speedway, originally opened as California Speedway, is a , low-banked, D-shaped oval superspeedway in unincorporated San Bernardino County, California, near Fontana. It has hosted NASCAR racing annually since 1997. It was also previo ...

due to local

(who at that time broadcast NBS races) affiliate WESH's coverage of Hurricane Francis. Until the summer of 2005, WOPX had a JSA with WESH, which, during that time, WOPX aired a rebroadcast of WESH's 6 p.m. newscast at 7 p.m.. In July 2005, Paxson dissolved all relationships with other stations, mostly NBC stations—at that time, WESH's news repeats on WOPX ended. On December 15, 2014, Ion reached a deal to donate WOPX-TV's low-power repeater in

, WPXB-LD (channel 50), to Word of God Fellowship, parent company of the Daystar network.

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 ...

Analog-to-digital conversion

WOPX-TV shut down 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 56, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 48. Through the use of

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 ...

, digital television receivers display the station'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 its former UHF analog channel 56, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wopx-Tv Ion Television affiliates Bounce TV affiliates Grit (TV network) affiliates Defy TV affiliates TrueReal affiliates Newsy affiliates E. W. Scripps Company television stations Television channels and stations established in 1985 OPX-TV National Hockey League over-the-air television broadcasters 1985 establishments in Florida Melbourne, Florida