WFPX

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WFPX
Fayetteville, North Carolina
Branding ION Television
Channels Analog: 62 (UHF)

Digital: 36 (UHF)

Affiliations ION Television
Owner ION Media Networks, Inc.
(Paxson Communications License Company, LLC)
First air date March 1985[1]
Call letters’ meaning Fayetteville's PaX
Former callsigns WFCT (1985-1993)
WFAY (1993-1998)
Former affiliations independent (1985-1994)
Fox (1994-1998)
Transmitter Power 933 kW (analog)
1000 kW (digital)
Height 256 m (analog)
242 m (digital)
Facility ID 21245
Transmitter Coordinates 34°53′5.3″N, 79°4′27.9″W
Website www.ionline.tv

WFPX is one of two ION Television affiliates for the Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina, USA, television market, licensed to nearby Fayetteville. The station is owned by ION Media Networks (the former Paxson Communications), and is a full-time satellite of WRPX. WFPX operates on UHF channel 62, with a digital signal on channel 36. Its transmitter is located in Lumber Bridge, North Carolina.

[edit] History

Channel 62 signed on in 1984 as WFCT, an independent broadcaster owned by Fayetteville/Cumberland Telecasters. Attorneys Robinson and Katherine Everett of Durham, founders of what is now present-day WRDC-TV in Raleigh, along with WJKA (now WSFX) in Wilmington and WGGT (now WMYV) in Greensboro, were two of the principals in this company.

The station changed call letters to WFAY 1993 and became a Fox affiliate in 1994. Even though WFAY was located in the same market as WLFL (a Fox affiliate at the time), it mainly focused on communities located south of Fayetteville that didn't get a good signal from WLFL. Some of its non-network programming was also simulcast to the Raleigh-Durham area on WRAY-TV for a couple of years in the mid-1990s until it was acquired by the Shop at Home network.

WFAY later became WFPX and dropped Fox after being bought out by Paxson in 1998. Later that year, newly-minted Fox station WFXB out of the Florence/Myrtle Beach market expanded its signal to cover areas formerly served by WFAY. It is worthy of note that WFPX's signal isn't seen at all in the northern portion of the Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville market, but covers northern portions of the Florence-Myrtle Beach market, which does not have its own ION affiliate.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Broadcasting and Cable Yearbook says March 14, while the Television and Cable Factbook says March 4.