WMBC-TV

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WMBC-TV
Image:Wmbc2007.jpg
Newton, New Jersey -
New York, New York
Branding WMBC-TV 63
Slogan God Bless America
Channels Analog: 63 (UHF)

Digital: 18 (UHF)
Affiliations Independent
Owner Mountain Broadcasting Corporation
Founded April 26, 1993
Call letters’ meaning Mountain
Broadcasting
Corporation
Transmitter Power 2190 kW (analog)
1000 kW (digital)
Height 223 m (analog)
250 m (digital)
Facility ID 43952
Transmitter Coordinates 41°0′35.6″N, 74°35′37.3″W (analog)
40°51′53.6″N, 74°12′0.2″W (digital)
Website www.wmbctv.com

WMBC-TV is an independent television station broadcasting on channel 63 in Newton, New Jersey, serving the New York City metropolitan area. Founded and still owned by the Mountain Broadcasting Corporation (whose initials serve as the station's call letters), WMBC-TV's studios are located in West Caldwell, New Jersey, with transmitter located in Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey.

The station's lineup consists of brokered ethnic programs, a weekday one hour newscast (comprised mainly of repackaged CNN stories), infomercials and children's programs to satisfy the Federal Communications Commission's Educational / Informational (E/I) requirements.

Contents

[edit] History

The Mountain Broadcasting Corporation was founded in 1985 by a group of Korean Americans, led by the Reverend Sun Young Joo of Wayne, New Jersey. The group secured a construction permit from the FCC to build channel 63 in 1987 [1], and WMBC-TV began operations on April 26, 1993, with a Christian religious format, running mostly programs from FamilyNet. Later in 1993 they also began running public domain movies and film shorts from Main Street TV, along with FamilyNet programs.

In 1996, when New York City-based WNYC-TV became WBIS-TV (now WPXN-TV) and dropped its ethnic, foreign-language programming, WMBC-TV would pick up many hours of such offerings. WMBC also dropped FamilyNet and Main Street TV as well and began to air more infomercials and religious shows directly from ministries. By 1997 they ran a blend of religion and infomercials during the day and ethnic shows by night and on Saturdays. They also were running several hours a week of educational kids shows, and producing a local newscast by then.

On August 1998 WMBC ran Bloomberg News from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Weekdays. By December 2000 they were running infomercials before noon and Bloomberg News Noon to 5 p.m.. In September 2002 they dropped Bloomberg news and by then had the format they run today.

The station has an extremely weak over-the-air signal in New York City but is carried on most of the cable systems in the New York City market, including Time Warner Cable and Cablevision. Their signal was dropped from DirecTV's New York local stations package on December 31, 2005.

[edit] Digital television

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Subchannel Programming
63.1 / 18.1 main WMBC-TV programming
63.2 / 18.2 Korean-language programming
63.3 / 18.3 Unsíon (Spanish-language Christian network, based in Ecuador) ([1])
63.4 / 18.4 Mundo Hispano TV

[edit] Analog-to-digital conversion

After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, which is tentatively scheduled to take place on February 17, 2009 [2], WMBC-TV will remain on its current pre-transition channel number, 18. [3] However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers will display WMBC-TV's virtual channel as 63.

[edit] Previous logos

WMBC's logo used prior to 2006. This ident was seen from 2001 to 2006, after the fate of the 9/11 Attacks.

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Koreans win TV franchise." Associated Press, August 22, 1987.
  2. ^ http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1082A2.pdf
  3. ^ http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/cdbsmenu.hts?context=25&appn=101231966&formid=387&fac_num=43952

[edit] External links

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