WPCW
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| WPCW | |
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| Jeannette-Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | |
| Branding | Pittsburgh CW |
| Channels | 19 (UHF) analog, 49 (UHF) digital |
| Affiliations | The CW |
| Owner | CBS Corporation |
| Founded | 1952 (on channel 56, moved to channel 19 circa 1970) |
| Call letters meaning | We're Pittsburgh's CW |
| Former callsigns | WARD-TV (1952-c.1970) WJNL-TV (c.1970-83) WFAT-TV (1983-88) WPTJ-TV (1988-91) WTWB-TV (1997-98) WNPA-TV (1998-2006) |
| Former affiliations | CBS (1952-82) ABC (secondary, 1952-c.1970) Independent (1982-91) The WB (1997-98) UPN (1998-2006) |
| Website | www.wpcwtv.com |
WPCW is a CW Television Network owned and operated station that serves the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania DMA. Known on-air as Pittsburgh CW, the station is owned by the CBS Corporation and is a sister station of CBS O&O KDKA-TV. The two stations are the only O&Os of any network in the Pittsburgh market. It is licensed to Jeannette, a Pittsburgh suburb, but its operations are housed at KDKA-TV's studios in downtown Pittsburgh. WPCW offers off-network sitcoms, first-run talk shows, reality shows, court shows, CW Network programming, and news. WPCW's transmitter is located in Jennerstown, Pennsylvania.
WPCW also serves as the default CW affiliate for the Johnstown-Altoona-State College market since that market currently lacks a CW affiliate of its own.
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[edit] History
WPCW signed on in 1952--soon after the FCC opened the UHF band--as WARD-TV, licensed to Johnstown on channel 56, with its studio on Franklin Street in downtown Johnstown. The station was a CBS affiliate with a secondary ABC affiliation.
About 1970, the station changed its call letters to WJNL-TV, in reference to its new owner, Jonel Construction Company of Johnstown. It also moved to channel 19 and dropped ABC programming. The TV studio also located to a cinder-block building next to its broadcast tower atop Cover Hill in suburban Johnstown, although it produced virtually no local programming by this time. WJNL-TV's facilities were below the standards expected for a network affiliate. The station was also plagued by a weak signal. Most of western Pennsylvania is a very rugged dissected plateau, and at the time UHF stations usually did not get good reception in rugged terrain. In fact, Johnstown viewers got a better signal from WFBG-TV in Altoona and KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh. After WFBG-TV was sold in 1973, it changed its calls to WTAJ-TV in part to acknowledge its Johnstown viewership (its call letters stand for We're Television in Altoona and Johnstown).
The TV station's sister radio stations, WJNL-AM/FM (now WPRR and WFGI, respectively), joined WJNL-TV at the Benshoff Hill location after the Johnstown Flood of 1977 destroyed their studios in downtown Johnstown. WJNL-TV only stayed afloat because of the tremendous success of its FM sister, an adult contemporary powerhouse. Nevertheless, it had no luck whatsoever against dominant WJAC-TV.
In 1982, the Johnstown and Altoona-State College markets were collapsed into a single market. CBS gave its affiliation in the newly enlarged market to Altoona's WTAJ, which, as mentioned above, already had a large viewership in Johnstown. In contrast, channel 19 barely covered Altoona and could not be seen at all in much of the eastern part of the enlarged market. WJNL-TV became an independent station. It was sold a year later and renamed WFAT-TV. It was unable to afford programming for an additional 15 hours a day and failed to grow in the ratings. Also, the major Pittsburgh independents were available on cable. It changed its calls to WPTJ in 1988, but saw no change in its fortunes. The station finally went off the air in 1991.
Over in Pittsburgh, WBPA-LP, channel 29 signed on in 1994 as a low power TV station owned by Venture Technologies. It ran some ABC and NBC shows that WTAE-TV and WPXI-TV pre-empted, along with infomercials, religious and shop-at-home programming. It added WB programming in 1995 and a few syndicated shows in the fall of that year.
Also in 1995, Venture Technologies bought the dormant channel 19 license in Johnstown. The station returned to the air in early 1997 as WTWB-TV, a full-powered satellite of WBPA-LP.
In 1985 VHF channel 8 was dropped in by the FCC as a Pittsburgh license, but the operators of the new license made a case that the channel 8 allocation was needed in Johnstown more than it was in Pittsburgh. Other reason could have been concerns about interfence with WJW in Cleveland and cheaper advertising rates in Johnstown. The FCC approved channel 8's move to Johnstown, and 10 years later allowed WTWB to move its license to Jeannette (about 30 miles southeast of Pittsburgh) in 1997. This qualified it for "must-carry" status on Pittsburgh cable systems. In the wake of the move, WTWB-TV began to acquire more off-network sitcoms and first-run syndicated shows, alongside cartoons from Kids WB and prime time programming from the WB.
When WPTT acquired the WB affiliation and changed its call letters to WCWB in 1998, the UPN affiliation in the market became available. As such, channel 19 took the affiliation and changed call letters to WNPA-TV.
Viacom bought the station in 1998. It became a sister station to KDKA-TV after Viacom merged with CBS in 2000. The station is still licensed to Jeannette, but the studios were consolidated into KDKA's studios at Gateway Center by 2001. In August 2001, the station began to carry a 10pm newscast produced by KDKA and anchored by Ken Rice.
The station began to identify on air as "UPN Pittsburgh" in late 2003 as different cable systems carry it on different channels.
In 2005, the station launched a new two-hour morning newscast beginning at 7 a.m. Just like its evening counterpart, it is produced by KDKA-TV. Sonni Abatta and John Cater are the anchors, AMS meteorologist Rebecca Hower delivers the exclusive AccuWeather forecasts, and Jim Lokay gives the RealTime Traffic reports. Effective January 29th 2007, it will later be slashed to one-hour because of poor ratings.
On January 24, 2006 it was announced that the station would become an affiliate of the CW Network, which is a merger of both UPN and The WB. The changeover would start in the Fall of 2006. To coincide with this change the station changed its call sign to WPCW, and rebranded itself as "Pittsburgh CW" in August 2006.
To this day, its transmitter is still located on Laurel Mountain, which is 35 miles southeast of Jeannette. It still provides city-grade coverage to Johnstown, but only provides "rimshot" coverage to Pittsburgh. Its signal is marginal at best in several parts of the city (especially in low-lying city neighborhoods such as Lawrenceville and the Strip District), and can't be seen at all in many of the western suburbs. When it applied to move channel 19's license to Jeannette, Venture sought and received a waiver from the FCC rule requiring a station's transmitter to be no farther than 15 miles from the city of license. It successfully contended that there was no way it could build an analog tower within the 15-mile limit without interfering with WOIO in Cleveland.
According to an application for its digital signal, WPCW plans to build a new digital transmitter east of Pittsburgh, which will provide grade B coverage to Johnstown. It is not known as of yet whether WPCW will build a translator in Johnstown to make up for any loss in coverage that may occur. Since digital coverage is much stronger than analog coverage, a translator may not be necessary.
WPCW is one of three former CBS affiliates that have since become CW stations owned by CBS, along with WTVX in West Palm Beach and KSTW in Seattle; however, WTVX is being divested to Cerberus Capital Management.
[edit] Newscasts
Weekdays
- KDKA Morning News on Pittsburgh CW: 7 - 8 a.m. - Sonni Abatta, John Cater, meteorologist Rebecca Hower and traffic with Jim Lokay
- KDKA Ten O'Clock News on Pittsburgh CW: 10 - 10:35 p.m. - Ken Rice and chief meteorologist Jeff Verszyla
- The Subway Nightly Sports Call: 10:35 - 11 p.m. - Bob Pompeani, John Steigerwald or Mike Zappone
Weekends
- KDKA 10:00 News on Pittsburgh CW: 10 - 10:35 p.m. - Stephanie Watson or Don Cannon and Jon Burnett with weather
- The Subway Nightly Sports Call: 10:35 - 11 p.m. - Bob Pompeani, John Steigerwald or Mike Zappone
[edit] On-Air Personalities
See current KDKA-TV personalities list.
[edit] External links
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KDKA 2 (CBS) - WTAE 4 (ABC) - WPXI 11 (NBC) - WQED 13 (PBS) - WQEX 16 (ShopNBC) - WPCW 19 (The CW) - WPMY 22 (MNTV) - WNPB 24 (PBS/WVPB) - WIIC 29 (MTV2) - WBYD 35 (Ind) - WGPT 36 (PBS/MPT) - WPCB 40 (CSTV) - WLLS 49 (A1) - WPGH 53 (Fox) - WBGN 59 (Ind) - W63AU 63 (Ind) - WPTG 69 (Ind) |
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Significantly Viewed Out-of-Market Broadcast Stations |
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WLYH 15 (Lebanon) - WPCW 19 (Jeanette / Pittsburgh)* - WSEE-DT 35.2/WBEP (Erie) - WSWB 38 (Scranton) - WPSG 57 (Philadelphia) |
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*Also serves the Johnstown - Altoona market. See article. |
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| See also: ABC, CBS, Fox, MyNetworkTV, NBC, PBS, and Other stations in Pennsylvania | |
