WPXN-TV

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WPXN-TV
New York, New York
Branding	ION Television
Channels	31 (UHF) analog, 30 (UHF) digital
Translators	34 WPXO-LP East Orange, N.J. 38 WPXU-LP Amityville, N.Y.
Affiliations	ION Television
Owner	ION Media Networks
Founded	November 1, 1962
Call letters meaning	W PaXsoN
Former callsigns	WUHF-TV (1961 test period) WNYC-TV (1962-1996) WBIS-TV (1996-1997)
Former affiliations	noncommercial independent, with some NET/PBS (1962-1996) Independent (1996-1998) Pax TV (1998-2005)
Transmitter Power	2820 kW
Website	ionline.tv

WPXN-TV, which broadcasts on channel 31 in New York City, is the flagship station of the ION Television network, formerly known as Pax TV and i.

[edit] History

[edit] Municipal ownership

The City of New York, which was one of the country's first municipalities to enter into broadcasting with the 1924 sign-on of WNYC radio, was granted a commercial television license in 1952. Nine years later, in 1961, WUHF-TV took to the air for the first time. The City, led by then-mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr., used WUHF as an experiment to determine the viability of UHF broadcasts within an urban environment. Among the reported early broadcasts on WUHF-TV was a rundown of the New York City Police Department's "wanted" criminals list.

The Municipal Broadcasting System, which held the channel 31 license, returned the station to the air on November 1, 1962 as WNYC-TV, with new call letters to match its sister radio stations WNYC-AM (then at 830 kHz., and now at 820 kHz.) and WNYC-FM (93.9 MHz). Though the channel 31 license was classified as commercial, WNYC-TV was operated as a noncommercial station. Some of the early programming included live broadcasts of the United Nations' General Assembly meetings. As a municipally-owned station, WNYC-TV also devoted airtime to shows focused on civic affairs, along with other public-interest programs. The station also carried some programming from National Educational Television and its successor, the Public Broadcasting Service, but later increasingly ran more independent educational programs. For many years, WNYC-TV ran a 15-minute newscast on weekdays, called News From City Hall (later called News City and expanded to 30 minutes), highlighting the day's events in municipal government.

In 1979 the City (under mayor Edward I. Koch), then under a fiscal crisis, had considered selling the WNYC stations to other interests. Instead, the WNYC Foundation was established as an outlet to raise operating capital for the stations. Unlike other PBS-member stations, WNYC-TV did not run on-air pledge drives, mostly because of its commercial license status. During the 1980s, WNYC-TV began leasing blocks of airtime to foreign-language broadcasters. Among the largest providers of foreign programming were Japan's Fujisankei Communications Group, which aired a morning show on weekdays, and RAI, the Italian public broadcaster which programmed two hours on weeknights, and five hours on Sunday mornings (including airings of Italian soccer games).

Also during this era, WNYC-TV joined the music video phenomenon -- and in the process contributed to the growth of hip hop culture and rap music. In the summer of 1984 channel 31 premiered the hour-long Video Music Box, which started off with an eclectic selection of videos from pop, rock, and rhythm-and-blues artists. Rap music was also included, but eventually the program became exclusive to the rap and R&B genres. Video Music Box served as a launching pad for many rap music artists, and was said to have been the basis behind MTV creating Yo! MTV Raps several years later. Video Music Box would remain prominently on WNYC-TV's schedule for the next decade (the show now airs on WNYE-TV).

During its years of city ownership, WPXN-TV was housed in the Manhattan Municipal Building, located across from New York's City Hall.

[edit] Private ownership

In 1995 the City, now under the mayoralty of Rudolph W. Giuliani, decided that the time had come to get out of broadcasting, as radio and television were no longer essential as municipal entities. The WNYC radio stations were sold to the WNYC Foundation, while bids were solicited for WNYC-TV. A partnership of Dow Jones and Company and ITT won the WNYC-TV auction with a bid of $207 million, which at the time was the largest price ever paid for a UHF television station. The sale of channel 31 to commercial interests had many detractors. Foreign broadcasters complained, as they now found themselves without an outlet for their programming, and individual financial contributors criticized the Giuliani administration for selling the station to the highest commercial bidder, rather than to the WNYC Foundation. The foreign producers found new outlets through WNYE-TV, Newton, New Jersey-based WMBC-TV, and the City-owned Crosswalks cable network.

The sale took nearly a year to become official, and on Midnight, June 30, 1996, WNYC-TV signed off for the final time [1]. Twelve hours later, at Noon on July 1, channel 31 reappeared as WBIS-TV (or S+), carrying programming from the Classic Sports Network (now ESPN Classic) most of the day, and infomercials in overnights. Meanwhile, Dow Jones and ITT worked on their planned permanent format for WBIS, which would offer business news during the day and professional sports news and games at night. The new format would launch in January 1997, with business news from Dow Jones running for twelve hours, starting at 6 a.m.. At 6 p.m., the station began its sports programming. ITT, then co-owners of Madison Square Garden (and the teams that played in the venue) with Cablevision, offered the team coverage with the New York Knicks and New York Rangers, and sports news was provided from Fox Sports Net. WBIS-TV was also slated to carry some games of the New York Islanders, New Jersey Devils, and New Jersey Nets. Some Classic Sports Network programming remained on weekends and on evenings when there was no live sports coverage, and infomercials continued in overnights. There was some talk that WBIS would secure broadcast rights for the New York Yankees, but that team opted to remain with WPIX for the 1997 season.

The WBIS hybrid format, though ambitious, was a complete dud as the station failed to attract viewers or be profitable. In May 1997, ITT sold its share of the station, as well as its half of Madison Square Garden, in an effort to resist a hostile takeover attempt by the Hilton Hotels Corporation. Dow Jones continued to run the station alone, but within weeks decided it could no longer support the losses and looked to sell out. Paxson Communications, which owned several UHF stations nationwide, purchased WBIS for $225 million, topping the 1995 sale price by $18 million. The hybrid format was taken off the air in June, though reruns of WBIS' business programming, Fox Sports World, and documentaries from the CBS cable presence "Eye On People" ran in the interim. Paxson took control of the station in August, renaming it as WPXN-TV, and ran channel 31 under a local marketing agreement with a format that featured Bloomberg Business News in daytime, infomercials (from Paxson's inTV) and religious programs (from Paxson's Worship Network) the rest of the day. The LMA was necessary as Paxson was seeking FCC permission to keep both WPXN and WHAI-TV (channel 43) in Bridgeport, Connecticut, though Paxson later sold the Bridgeport station to other interests.

On August 31, 1998 WPXN, along with the rest of the Paxson stations, premiered the new Pax television network. Programming identified as "family entertainment" aired from Noon to Midnight, while the overnight schedule continued with the Worship Network. Mornings consisted of religious shows and infomercials. On Saturdays, children's programs were run from 8 a.m. to Noon, followed by infomercials in the early afternoon, and family entertainment until Midnight. Sundays were the same format, except for the religious programming. NBC purchased a 32 percent stake in Pax in 1999, and as part of the deal NBC encouraged its stations, both owned and affiliated, to enter into joint sales agreements with the local Pax outlet. In New York, WNBC-TV did just that with WPXN, and as a result channel 31 aired rebroadcasts of WNBC-TV's evening newscasts, at 7 and 11:30 p.m.. The LMA arrangements ended in July 2005, though NBC retains its ownership share in the network to the present day.

On September 11, 2001, the transmitter facilities of channel 31, as well as six other New York City television stations and several radio stations, were destroyed when two hijacked airplanes crashed into and destroyed the World Trade Center towers. When WPXN-TV returned to the air days later, channel 31 was broadcasting at low power from a temporary facility in northern New Jersey. It has since moved its transmitter to the Empire State Building, and also rebroadcasts its signal on two low-power stations: WPXU-LP (channel 38) in Amityville, New York, and WPXO-LP (channel 34) in East Orange, New Jersey.

In July 2005 Pax TV changed its name to "i", and on January 29, 2007, the network became ION Television. Like most ION stations, WPXN now runs infomercials until 5 p.m. on weekdays and 6 p.m. on weekends, except for some religious shows on weekday mornings and Sunday mornings, along with some educational shows on Saturdays, and ION's collection of off-network reruns filling the primetime portion of the schedule. WPXN programs its overnight hours with a simulcast of the Shop at Home cable shopping network.

[edit] Past Logos

WNYC-TV logo from 1989 to 1996

WPXN-TV logo as a Pax station (1998-2005)

[edit] External links

• ION Television website
• Current, September 3, 1990
• Current, November 25, 1996
• The final signoff of WNYC-TV on YouTube
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WPXN

Coordinates: 40° 42' 43" N 74° 0' 49" W