Weigel Broadcasting
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Weigel Broadcasting is an American locally-based television broadcasting company. The company is based in downtown Chicago, Illinois, alongside its flagship station WCIU-TV (Channel 26).
The company founded by Chicago broadcasting veteran John Weigel, whose career dated back to the 1930s. With $1,000 of his own money, and another $1,000 from his attorney, Daniel J. McCarthy, Weigel bought the broadcasting license for what became the first UHF television station in the Chicago area. WCIU signed-on the air on February 6, 1964.
Over the years, the company began to acquire and also launch new stations in the adjacent markets of Milwaukee and South Bend, Indiana, at first by placing WCIU translators in those markets to gain a foothold in each market, before programming the stations indepedently. Weigel would end up an unexpected benefactor of the Fox affiliate switches of 1994, as their full power independent station WDJT-TV in Milwaukee ended up with the CBS affiliation late that year, while WBND-LP became the home of ABC programming in South Bend the next year when the original stations of the networks in each market switched to Fox.
Also in that same year, WCIU would drop the Spanish-language Univision network and become Chicago's only true full-power independent station when WGN and WPWR joined The WB and UPN networks respectively, while WGBO became a Univision O&O, allowing the station to pursue sports rights and syndicated programming not previously available and giving WCIU some strength in the market.
Most of the stations are categorized into separate limited partnerships for licensing purposes.
[edit] Stations owned by Weigel Broadcasting
| Current DMA# | Market | Station-Channel-(Digital) | Current Affiliation | Official Licensee |
| 3. | Chicago, Illinois | WWME-CA 23 (39, also 26.21) | Independent (MeTV) | "Channel 23 Limited Partnership" |
| WCIU-TV 26 (27) | Independent | "WCIU-TV Limited Partnership" | ||
| WFBN-LP 33 | Independent | Weigel Broadcasting (Rockford, IL) | ||
| FBT (26.61, 3) | Foreign language programming | "WCIU-TV Limited Partnership" | ||
| WMEU-CA 48 (26.31) | Independent (MeToo) | "Channel 48 Limited Partnership" | ||
| 34. | Milwaukee, Wisconsin | WMLW-CA 41 (13, also 58.22) | Independent | "Channel 41/63 Limited Partnership" |
| WBME-TV 49 (48, also 58.32) | Independent (MeTV) | "TV-49" | ||
| WDJT-TV 58 (46) | CBS | "WDJT-TV Limited Partnership" | ||
| WYTU-LP 63 (17) | Telemundo | "Channel 41/63 Limited Partnership" | ||
| 89. | South Bend, Indiana | WCWW-LP 25 (27) | CW | "WCWW-TV Limited Partnership" |
| WBND-LP 57 (49) | ABC | "WBND-TV Limited Partnership" | ||
| WMYS-LP 69 (23) | MyNetworkTV | Weigel Broadcasting Company |
[edit] Notes
1Carried on a digital subchannel of WCIU
2Carried on a digital subchannel of WDJT
3No equivalent analog channel; subchannel has market-wide cable coverage
[edit] External links
- WCIU official page, contains corporate information
- John Weigel - Man of UHF
|
|||||
