WUVP-TV

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WUVP-TV is the current Philadelphia affiliate of the Univisión Television network, licensed to Vineland, New Jersey. The station targets Spanish-speaking viewers.

The station signed on June 22, 1981 as WRBV. The station was owned by a local group called Renaissance Broadcasting of Vineland (not to be confused with the Renaissance Broadcasting Company, which was later sold to Tribune). Renaissance had hoped to operate the station as an ABC network affiliate; however, ABC decided not to add the station to its lineup, and when WRBV took to the air it was running syndicated shows by day, a half-hour local newscast at 7 p.m., and Wometco Home Theater subscription television evenings and late nights. The undercapitalized station ran into financial difficulties almost immediately; within a few weeks the newscast was discontinued and Renaissance filed for bankruptcy protection. Most of the syndicated shows were replaced by Financial News Network programming in 1982, when WWSG dropped FNN to run subscription television 24/7. Eventually WRBV began carrying a music video channel called Odyssey in the late-afternoon hours; by 1985 this service was seen in prime time as well after Wometco Home Theater abruptly ceased operations.

In June 1985 Press Broadcasting Company, a division of the Asbury Park Press, purchased the station and changed the call letters to WSJT, for South Jersey Television. WSJT ran mostly "evergreen" syndicated programs from the 1950s and 1960s. Press Broadcasting found itself competing unsuccessfully for newer programs against established Philadelphia stations as well as a well-funded new operation, Grant Broadcasting's WGBS-TV, which switched from pay television to general entertainment that fall. WSJT's signal, broadcast from a tower that was considerably east of the center of the Philadelphia market, covered a smaller potential audience than the Philadelphia stations and made it difficult for the station to recover the costs of more expensive programming.

In 1986, Silver King Broadcasting, the Home Shopping Network's television station group, bought WSJT and began running HSN programming on the station full time starting on December 31 of that year; the call letters were changed to WHSP, for "Home Shopping Philadelphia". The station was sold in a group deal to Univisión in 2001; on January 14, 2002, it picked up the Univision affiliation and became WUVP.

WUVP replaced the repeater of New York City's Univisión station, WXTV, which aired on WXTV-LP channel 28. Following the switch, that station became the affiliate of Univisión's new Telefutura network, as WFPA.

On March 10, 2008 the station began production of a local news program (Noticias 65) which airs Monday - Fridays at 6pm and 11pm. The program is anchored by news anchor Ilia Garcia.

On weekends, the station rebroadcasts newscasts from its sister station WLII in Puerto Rico.

[edit] External links

• Univision Website
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WUVP-TV
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WUVP-TV

[edit] References