WPME
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| WPME-TV | |
|---|---|
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| Lewiston / Portland, Maine | |
| Branding | My Portland |
| Channels | 35 (UHF) analog, 28 (UHF) digital |
| Affiliations | MyNetworkTV |
| Owner | CP Media, LLC (pending) |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Call letters meaning | Portland, ME |
| Former affiliations | UPN (1997-2006), The WB (secondary) (1997-2001) |
| Website | mytvportland.com |
WPME-TV "My Portland" is a television station licensed to Lewiston, Maine, but with studios in Westbrook. The station is the MyNetworkTV affiliate for Portland, southern Maine, and parts of New Hampshire. WPME broadcasts its analog signal on channel 35 and digital on channel 28. The station shares its Westbrook studios with sister station and CW affiliate WPXT.
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[edit] History
The station went on the air on August 13, 1997 under a time brokerage agreement with its then-owner New England Television, Inc. as a sister to WPXT, then a FOX affiliate. Pegasus Communications purchased the station outright in February 2001. WPME maintained a primary affiliation with UPN and a secondary affiliation with The WB, airing WB prime time programming on a tape delay starting at 10pm. When WPXT switched its network from FOX to the WB, this secondary affiliation was dropped.
WPME aired Boston Celtics and Bruins games in the late 1990's and Red Sox Baseball until 2002. The Red Sox, owning most/all of NESN, have moved their games to cable TV.
WPME's only attempt at local news was a 7 PM broadcast in 2001 that was quickly cancelled. The station did not air local news at 10 PM like many other UPN stations because sister station WPXT airs a newscast produced by NBC affiliate WCSH, and previous to that, used the third hour of prime time for WB programming. WPME and WPXT share the website, ourmaine.com, and occasionally use on-air time to cross-promote their sister station.
Station owner Pegasus declared bankruptcy in June 2004 over a dispute with DirecTV, which is co-owned with FOX by News Corporation, over marketing of the direct broadcast satellite service in rural areas. The Pegasus station group was sold in August 2006 to private investment firm CP Media, LLC of Wilkes-Barre, PA for $55.5M. The sale is subject to FCC approval.
In early September 2006 to coincide with affiliation changes, WPME's website was changed from showing UPN info to MNTV. At that point, the web address for WPME became "mytvportland.com".
[edit] Logos
 WPME's old UPN logo, used until 9/06. |
Current station logo for WPME. |
 Online variation of current logo. |
[edit] MyNetworkTV
On January 24, 2006, the WB and UPN networks announced that they would merge. The newly combined network would be called The CW, the letters representing the first initial of its corporate parents CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. The merger took effect on-air in September 2006. Current WB affiliate WPXT will be the CW affiliate for Portland. [1]
WPME has now affiliated with FOX's new sister network MyNetworkTV since the network's launch on September 5, 2006. As a UPN affiliate, WPME was branded as Maine's UPN, which the old logo shows. Although WPME was not the only UPN affiliate in Maine, its signal does not reach areas to the north and east of Bangor, which did not have a UPN affiliate of its own. However, WSBK from Boston, which use to be a UPN affiliate as well, is carried on most cable systems in northern and eastern Maine and has an over-the-air signal that reaches as far north as Portland. WAGM in Presque Isle, a primary CBS affiliate had secondary affiliation with UPN that serves the area from Presque Isle to Caribou. WAGM has droped UPN and it has been carrying FOX on its DT1 digital subchannel since September 2006. Like WPXT's logo with The CW, the current logo for WPME with MNTV affiliation includes "Portland" in it, which is more specific in referencing the Portland-Auburn market that the station covers.
Until December 6, 2006, WPME was the only MNTV affiliate in the state of Maine. Since them, WFVX-LP, Bangor's low-powered FOX affiliate, has begun showing MNTV programming. It was possible, when WAGM was in the process of creating a FOX affiliate on its DT1 digital subchannel, that it would also be a secondary MNTV affiliate. A preliminary schedule released by Time Warner Cable for the new channel indicated that WAGM DT1 would also carry the two-hour MNTV programming block. However, the channel's current listings indicate that this is not the case.
