WPFO (channel 23) 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

Waterville, Maine Waterville is a city in Kennebec County, Maine, United States, on the west bank of the Kennebec River. The city is home to Colby College and Thomas College. As of the 2020 census the population was 15,828. Along with Augusta, Waterville is ...

, United States, serving the Portland area as an affiliate of the Fox network. It is owned by

Cunningham Broadcasting Cunningham Broadcasting Corporation is an owner of broadcast television stations in the United States. The company currently owns fifteen stations – eight affiliated with Fox, three affiliated with The CW, two affiliated with ABC, and two affi ...

, which maintains 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

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, ...

, owner of CBS affiliate

WGME-TV WGME-TV (channel 13) is a television station in Portland, Maine, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which provides certain services to Waterville-licensed Fox affiliate WPFO (channel 23) under a loc ...

(channel 13), for the provision of certain services. However, Sinclair effectively owns WPFO as the majority of Cunningham's stock is owned by the family of deceased group founder Julian Smith. The stations share studios on Northport Drive in the North Deering section of Portland, while WPFO's transmitter is located on Brown Hill west of Raymond.

History

The station began broadcasting on August 27, 1999, as WMPX-TV and was a Pax TV (now

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 ...

) affiliate owned by Paxson Communications (now Ion Media Networks). In addition to Pax programming, WMPX carried a small amount of local programming and in 2001, the station began airing rebroadcasts of

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 ...

affiliate WCSH (channel 6)'s 11 p.m. newscasts when NBC had a partnership with Pax. Paxson sold the station in December 2002 to Corporate Media Consultants Group who changed the call sign to the current WPFO. The new calls reflected an affiliation change to Fox, which took place on April 7, 2003, filling a gap created in fall 2001 when WPXT (channel 51) switched to

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 broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. ...

. In the interim, prime time and children's programming from the Fox network was provided exclusively on WFXT (which was owned by the network at the time) for those living on the New Hampshire side of the market, and on Foxnet for cable subscribers throughout the entire state of Maine; WCKD-LP served as a secondary affiliate of Fox during that time, but only carried the network's sports programming. In July 2007, WPFO debuted a new logo and updated website. The website's design was outsourced to Fox Interactive Media which also develops websites for Fox's owned-and-operated stations. WPFO switched website providers to Broadcast Interactive Media in March 2010. Currently WPFO's website provider is Sinclair Interactive Media. As WPFO, in addition to Fox prime time, sports and syndicated programming, the station produces and airs local paid programming under the titles ''Fox 23 Lifestyle'' and ''Your Hometown''. It was announced by the

Maine Lottery The Maine Lottery is run by the government of Maine. It is a member of the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL), whose flagship game is Powerball. It was founded in 1974 after being approved through a voter referendum. Maine originally joined MU ...

on April 16, 2010, that starting May 11, WPFO would begin airing the

Mega Millions Mega Millions (originally known as ''The Big Game'' in 1996 and renamed, temporarily, to ''The Big Game Mega Millions'' six years later) is an American multi-jurisdictional lottery game; as of January 30, 2020, it is offered in 45 states, the D ...

lottery drawings Tuesday and Friday nights at 11 following the hour long 10 o'clock newscast. Maine joined the Mega Millions lottery on May 9 starting ticket sales on that date. On October 31, 2013, Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired the non-license assets of WPFO from Corporate Media Consultants Group for $13.6 million; the deal made it a sister station to

, which already produced newscasts for the station. On November 20, it was announced that

would acquire the license assets for $3.4 million. The sale of the license assets was approved on June 23, 2017. The sale was completed on August 1.Consummation Notice
''CDBS Public Access'',

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 jurisdicti ...

, Retrieved 4 August 2017.

Programming

Syndicated programming on WPFO includes '' Maury'', '' Hot Bench'', '' The Doctors'', ''

Family Feud ''Family Feud'' is an American television game show created by Mark Goodson. It features two families who compete to name the most popular answers to survey questions in order to win cash and prizes. The show has had three separate runs, th ...

'', and ''

The Big Bang Theory ''The Big Bang Theory'' is an American television sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, both of whom served as executive producers on the series, along with Steven Molaro, all of whom also served as head writers. It premiered on CBS ...

''.

News operation

For a time in the early-2000s, WMPX re-aired some newscasts from WCSH and WLBZ as part of a larger deal between Paxson Communications and

Gannett Gannett Co., Inc. () is an American mass media holding company headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. In 2003, a three-hour-long weekday morning talk show with a call-in format called ''So Goes the Nation'' began airing. It was hosted by Alan Silberberg and former WVOM host Charlie Horne from the studios of Bangor's Fox affiliate WFVX-LP. Originally seen only on WFVX, simulcasts were later added on WPFO and area radio station WLOB. ''So Goes the Nation'' was canceled in September 2004. From November 9, 2005 until March 27, 2009, WPFO simulcasted WLOB's weekday morning show under the branding ''The Fox Morning News'' hosted by Ray Richardson and Ted Talbot. There were short features and news stories from

Fox News Channel The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is ...

and weather forecasts with former WGME-TV meteorologist Paul Cousins during breaks in the show. Appropriately for WLOB's

conservative talk Conservative talk radio is a talk radio format in the United States and other countries devoted to expressing conservative viewpoints of issues, as opposed to progressive talk radio. The definition of conservative talk is generally broad enough ...

format, it also featured live call-ins from viewers and listeners. On March 30, 2009, it was replaced by the nationally syndicated morning show '' The Daily Buzz''. WLOB's program moved to MNTV affiliate WPME as ''The Ray Richardson Show'' and aired from 6:30 to 7:30 until June, 2013. On February 5, 2007, WGME began producing a nightly 10 o'clock newscast on WPFO called ''News 13 on Fox'' after a news share agreement was established between the two. It is aired from a secondary set at WGME's studios on the corner of Washington Avenue and Northport Drive in the North Deering section of Portland. Starting April 5, 2010, the Sunday-Friday 10 o'clock broadcast was expanded to an hour. The newscast features national content from CBS, CNN, and Sinclair. The newscast was renamed ''Fox 23 News at Ten'' on January 30, 2014. A morning show was launched on WPFO called ''Good Day Maine'' also produced by WGME. It is a talk, entertainment, news, weather, and sports program that airs from 7 to 8. The show is the only local morning broadcast during the time slot and competes against ''

CBS This Morning ''CBS This Morning'' (''CTM'') is an American morning television program that aired on CBS from November 30, 1987, to October 29, 1999, and again from January 9, 2012, to September 6, 2021. The program was aired from Monday through Saturday. ...

'' (on WGME), ''

Good Morning America ''Good Morning America'' (often abbreviated as ''GMA'') is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday edition on January 3, 1993. ...

'' (on WMTW), and ''

Today Today (archaically to-day) may refer to: * Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now'' * Current era, present * The current calendar date Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 ...

'' (on WCSH). This newscast airs from the secondary set at WGME's facilities (which received an update) along with a new secondary weather set (while also using the main weather center outside of WGME's ''CBS This Morning'' cut-ins) to deliver weather reports. There is also a live interview desk that was previously used on WGME during news headline updates on that station's weekday morning show and a new light story room which includes a nighttime backdrop of the Portland skyline along with several couches and armchairs. WPFO's website hosted video from both of the WGME-produced newscasts through April 2013; subsequently viewers were directed to a third-party website where individual segments could be purchased for a fee. Launched as a two-hour broadcast, ''Good Day Maine'' was shortened to one hour by October 2013 before returning to the two-hour format on September 30, 2019. On September 15, 2014, WPFO launched ''Fox 23 News at 6:30'', a half-hour weekday newscast scheduled directly against the evening news on the

Big Three television networks In the United States, there are three major traditional commercial broadcast television networks — CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System), NBC (National Broadcasting Company), and ABC (American Broadcasting Company) — that due to their lon ...

. It was cancelled on December 23, 2016; ''

Seinfeld ''Seinfeld'' ( ) is an American television sitcom created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. It aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, over nine seasons and 180 episodes. It stars Seinfeld as a fictionalized version of himself and ...

'' reruns began airing in the time slot on December 26. All WGME-produced newscasts on WPFO were made available in high definition format starting on February 8, 2012; the newscasts are presented in widescreen (letterboxed) format on WPFO's standard definition feed. 10 p.m. newscasts that start late due to sports overruns or other special programming are typically recorded in advance and most often a half-hour in length even on those days when a typical 10 p.m. newscast would be an hour.

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

References

External links

*
WGME-TV website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wpfo Fox network affiliates Charge! (TV network) affiliates Comet (TV network) affiliates PFO Sinclair Broadcast Group Television channels and stations established in 1999 1999 establishments in Maine