WXPO-TV

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WXPO-TV
Manchester, New Hampshire/Lowell, Massachusetts
Channels	50 (UHF) analog, N/A digital
Affiliations	Defunct, deleted
Owner	Merrimack Valley Communications
Founded	1969
Former affiliations	Independent (1969-70)

WXPO-TV was a short-lived television station that was licenced to Manchester, New Hampshire; but mainly targeted the Boston market. Owned by Merrimack Valley Communications, the station aired on channel 50.

[edit] History

WXPO-TV signed on early in October 1969, from two studios. Its offices and master production facilities were located on Dutton Street in downtown Lowell, Massachusetts; however, its transmitter and "main" studio was on Governor Dinsmore Road in Windham, New Hampshire to comply with FCC regulations requiring that a station's transmitter be located within 15 miles of the city of licence. The original vision was to air business news during the daytime, and a general entertainment format -- including sports -- late in the afternoon and in the evening.

Its Treehouse 50 program in the afternoons gained a cult following with Boston-area college students, as it had slapstick comedy and the Warner Brothers cartoons that had been released to television stations at that time. In addition, channel 50 was the first station to have news updates every hour, long before the 24-hour news sources of the early 1990s, was the first New England television station (beating WKBG, now WLVI) to air a ten o'clock newscast (however, it had no newsfilm to use), and attempted to do live remotes with some mixed success. In addition, WXPO was infamous for a New Year's Eve show that by 1:00 a.m. had started to become particularly strange.

However, the station's coverage in many parts of Greater Boston was spotty at best. The station's transmitter was located less than 1,000 feet from WLLH-AM 1400, making high-quality production impossible during the day due to RF interference with the cameras. Advertisers were scared off when the Lowell Sun blacklisted anyone who advertised on the station. Bills went unpaid for several months.

By early 1970, the vast majority (90%) of the staff was removed from the payroll, although many continued with the station, believing it could pull through. Unfortunately for them, the spring of that year saw the Lowell studio closing its doors. Finally, in June the power company pulled the plug at the Windham studios during a Maverick rerun, taking WXPO off the air.

On July 17, 1973, channel 50 returned to the air with a test transmission, with plans to return the station to the air later that year, possibly as New Hampshire's CBS affiliate. Unfortunately, those plans were never realized, and the WXPO-TV license was deleted in 1975.

[edit] External links

• WXPO-TV 50 at UHF Morgue