WUCW

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WUCW
Minneapolis-St. Paul
Branding	The CW Twin Cities
Channels	23 (UHF), five translators analog, 22 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	The CW
Owner	Sinclair Broadcast Group
Founded	September 22, 1982
Call letters meaning	WB + UPN = CW (The CW is a "merger" of WB and UPN)
Former callsigns	KTMA (1982-92) KLGT (1992-98) KMWB (1998-2006)
Former affiliations	Independent (1982-95) The WB (1995-2006)
Website	thecwtc.com

WUCW (Channel 23 analog, 22 digital) is an affiliate of The CW serving the Minneapolis-St. Paul area of Minnesota, currently owned and operated by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. As KTMA (WUCW's callsign from 1982-1992), this station gave a start to the cult television classic Mystery Science Theater 3000 from 1988-1989.

Contents 1 History 1.1 KTMA 1.2 KLGT 1.3 KMWB 1.4 WUCW 1.5 Logos 2 Broadcasting facilities 3 External links 3.1 References

[edit] History

[edit] KTMA

The first broadcast on channel 23 in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market was done under the call letters KTMA on September 22, 1982, as a scrambled pay-per-view UHF service called "Spectrum". The call sign stood for "K-Twin Metro Area". The pay-per-view broadcasts offered by KTMA in its early days featured sports (in the form of home games of the Minnesota Twins and Minnesota North Stars (now the Dallas Stars), and films (including pornographic movies). This service lasted just two years before the station was sold to the United Cable TV Corporation, who in turn began asking for bids one year later in 1985. The owners of radio station KTWN made a bid, and took some control of the channel for a while, broadcasting music videos. However, the eventual owner in 1986 was the KTMA-TV Acquisition Corp., which offered $12 million for the station. The station's new general manager Donald O'Connor soon transitioned to an independent format, broadcasting a number of old programs such as The Andy Griffith Show and Laurel and Hardy.

Despite a major marketing campaign, the station was only moderately successful at pulling in viewers and advertising dollars. In July 1987, Paramount Pictures pulled all of their programming from the station, leading to even lower-budget shows and, later that year, attempts at locally-produced material including comedy shows; some have compared this programming to that of the fictional "U62" channel in the "Weird Al" Yankovic film UHF. Production manager Jim Mallon sought to fill a hole in the Sunday night lineup. He talked to his contacts in the local comedy community and ended up meeting Joel Hodgson. After a particularly successful lunch meeting with Mallon, Hodgson created Mystery Science Theater 3000 (typically abbreviated MST3K), which began airing in November 1988.

In December of that year, KTMA attempted to create a new regional network called the Minnesota Independent Network (MIN) along with a media group based in Fargo, North Dakota, and KXLI channel 41 in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The network never got off the ground, but the parties involved spent a considerable amount of money in the planning and early development stages. This left KXLI teetering, forcing it to go off the air for two years. KTMA was also hit hard, leading the staff to file for bankruptcy in July 1989. This financial crisis forced MST3K to be cancelled. Hodgson and Mallon eventually took the show to the Comedy Channel (now Comedy Central) cable television network, and later to the Sci-Fi Channel.

Through the bankruptcy, the station still maintained a low-budget format with infomercials, religious shows, home shopping, public domain movies, low rated barter syndicated shows, and a few off network dramas. They moved into the former studios of local PBS station KTCA in St. Paul, Minnesota in December 1989 (KTCA had constructed a new building). After nearly two more years of bankruptcy proceedings, O'Connor was fired as general manager by a court-appointed trustee. In November 1991, the station was purchased by Christian broadcaster Lakeland Group Television.

[edit] KLGT

Lakeland started carrying "family friendly" programming, and changed the station's call letters to KLGT (for either "light" or "Lakeland Group Television") in 1992, identifying the station as "Sonlight 23". The format consisted of a few hours of religion a day along with a lot of family oriented off network sitcoms, cartoons, and old movies. However, the new format was not very popular but the station held its own. Sports, this time in the form of the St. Paul Saints, the Minnesota Timberwolves, and the Minnesota Moose, returned to the channel in 1994.

Around this time, KLGT began an association with longtime area broadcaster WCCO channel 4. At first, the station merely carried news updates during prime time, but in 1995, the two stations worked together on an innovative newscast known as "News of Your Choice." Essentially, two different newscasts were produced at the WCCO studios simultaneously, each one covering different stories. At regular intervals, the news anchors would say what was coming up on the other channel, allowing viewers to pick the story they were more interested in. Due to declining ratings at WCCO at the time, the project was canceled after a year in January 1996. Also in 1995, KLGT became one of the original members of TV network The WB.

[edit] KMWB

Following the sale of the station to Sinclair Broadcast Group (SBG) in 1998, the call sign was again changed to KMWB ("Minnesota's WB"). Programming has stayed fairly consistent over the last decade, airing courtroom shows like The People's Court, talk shows like Ricki Lake and The Jerry Springer Show, and dating shows like Elimidate. The station has continued to carry Minnesota Timberwolves basketball until recently (now carried by KSTC 45), and has broadcast M*A*S*H for many years.

The station was hit by the 2004 controversy surrounding the decision by corporate parent SBG to air the documentary Stolen Honor, which was critical of U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry's Vietnam War service record.

On January 24, 2006, it was announced that The WB and UPN networks would merge into The CW Television Network. It was very likely that KMWB would become the new network's Twin Cities affiliate, as News Corporation, parent company of Fox announced that all of its current UPN affiliates, including WFTC in the Twin Cities, would affiliate with My Network TV when both networks launched. Although Sinclair's later group deal with My Network TV involving several other stations around the country provided some doubt, on May 2, 2006, KMWB was confirmed as the Minneapolis-Saint Paul affiliate for The CW Television Network.

[edit] WUCW

On June 19, 2006, KMWB changed its call sign to WUCW to reflect its CW affiliaton. WUCW will join other Sinclair stations by adding The Tube Music Network to their digital subchannel, 23-2, on July 15, 2006. Effective January 1, 2007, The Tube has been dropped.

Today WUCW offers first run syndicated talk reality/court shows, syndicated sitcoms, cartoons from Kids WB, and CW programming.

On August 16, WUCW replaced the WB23 watermark with the CW Twin Cities watermark on its syndicated programs.

[edit] Logos

KTMA logo, recognized worldwide by fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000, used from 1986-1991.	KLGT logo from 1992 to 1995	KLGT WB23 logo from 1995 to 1996	WB23 logo used from 1996 to 2004, used as both KLGT and KMWB
The WB Minnesota logo used 2004-2006.	"The CW Twin Cities" logo, Used since August, 2006

[edit] Broadcasting facilities

WUCW still broadcasts from the St. Paul studios, located near the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, that they moved into in 1989. The station's main transmitters are at the Telefarm installation in Shoreview, Minnesota. The station also uses a network of five broadcast translators to carry the signal greater distances:

• K26CL 26 Alexandria
• K31EF 31 Frost
• K57GE 57 Jackson
• K42AV 42 St. James
• K14LF 14 Willmar

[edit] External links

• The CW Twin Cities
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WUCW
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K26CL
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K31EF
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K57GE
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K42AV
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K14LF

[edit] References

• "TV23 History" (archived file downloaded October 2003 or earlier) from NebraskaRadio.com