WGTW-TV

WGTW-TV, digital channel 27, is a Trinity Broadcasting Network-owned and operated television station licensed to Burlington, New Jersey, and serving the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area. With studios in suburban Folcroft, and transmitter in the nearby Roxborough section, its signal covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.

History

Channel 48 was once the home of WKBS-TV, which operated from 1965 until 1983, when owner Field Communications voluntarily took the station off-the-air and returned its license to the Federal Communications Commission. Six months later, the FCC put channel 48's license back up for auction. Among those bidding on the license were the late Dorothy Brunson, an African-American woman who previously worked in radio; and Cornerstone Television, a Christian television network based in Pittsburgh. After a two-year process, the auction ended with Brunson winning the license. Cornerstone had, during the interim, purchased channel 48's transmitter, moved it to Altoona, and used it to sign on a new station in 1985 on channel 47, ironically enough under the WKBS-TV call letters.

Channel 48 signed back on the air on August 15, 1992, under the call letters WGTW-TV (Good TV to Watch), an independent station. Initially the station ran public domain movies, infomercials (including religious programs), and home-shopping programs. By 1994, WGTW had a larger variety of programming, including off-network series, first-run syndicated shows, and children's programs. The station also aired NBC daytime programs that were pre-empted by then-affiliate KYW-TV. However, by 2001, many of WGTW's classic shows were no longer available, and the financial restraints of ownership made the station unable to acquire better syndicated programming. As a result WGTW moved to more paid programming but still retained some general entertainment programs.

In 2004, Brunson sold the station to the Trinity Broadcasting Network and on October 1 of that year, the station switched to TBN programming. TBN is known for purchasing television stations so that the network could get must-carry status on area cable systems, despite offering almost no local programming. However, WGTW (like all TBN stations) does broadcast two hours of original local programming weekly: a public-affairs show called Joy in Our Town and a local version of Praise the Lord, TBN's flagship program.

WKBS/WGTW License facts conflict

WGTW operates under the same allocation, but not the same license, as WKBS-TV. It has been argued about the link between the license for WKBS-TV and WGTW. Articles in The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News from over the years stated that Brunson did indeed purchase the same license that WKBS-TV vacated from the FCC. (The archives of these articles can be found at http://www.philly.com , however, there is a subscription fee). However, sometime between Brunson winning the license and 1988, the FCC deleted the license that WKBS operated on, thus the current channel 48 license is a new construction permit, dating from July 14, 1988.

As far back as when Field announced that WKBS was going dark, it was mentioned in several Inquirer articles that six months after the station went dark the license would be put up for auction, though with a preference to minority groups, so it was a foregone conclusion that channel 48 would return to the air in some form in the future.

News operation

In 2002, WGTW launched an hour-long news and public affairs show, known as 48 Update, which aired weeknights at 7:00 p.m.. The final edition of 48 Update aired on October 1, 2004, one hour before the station switched to TBN programming.

This station's digital signal, like most other full-service TBN owned-and-operated stations, carries five different TBN-run networks.

TBN-owned full-power stations permanently ceased analog transmissions on April 16, 2009.

External links

• TBN Website
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WGTW-TV