| Lawrence-Boston, Massachusetts | |
|---|---|
| Branding | Me-TV Boston |
| Channels | Digital: 18 (UHF) |
| Subchannels | 62.1 Me-TV 62.2 RTV |
| Affiliations | Me-TV Retro Television Network |
| Owner | NRJ TV, LLC (NRJ TV Boston License Co, LLC) |
| First air date | October 16, 1987 |
| Call letters' meaning | We're Media For The People |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 62 (1987-2009) |
| Former affiliations | independent (1987-1995) Shop at Home (1995-2007) Jewelry Television (secondary, 2006-2007) Gems TV (2007-2008) Infomercials (2007-2009) |
| Transmitter power | 1 megawatt |
| Height | 289.2 m |
| Facility ID | 41436 |
| Website | www.wmfp-tv.com |
WMFP is a television station in the Boston market. The station is licensed to Lawrence, Massachusetts, and is owned by NRJ TV, LLC. The station is affiliated with Me-TV and the Retro Television Network. WMFP is carried on Metrocast channel 20, Comcast channel 20, RCN Cable channel 21, and Verizon FiOS channel 23.
WMFP signed on for the first time on October 16, 1987. Initially, the station broadcast approximately 8 hours per day, using a transmitter located on a hill behind the Baldpate Hospital in Georgetown, Massachusetts. In September 1992, a new broadcast antenna was mounted via a Sikorsky sky-crane helicopter on top of One Beacon Street in Boston. WMFP installed a new transmitter on an upper floor of the building, and started broadcasting from Boston in November 1992. The station's president at that time was Boston-area political commentator Avi Nelson. Bill Mockbee, well-known in radio and TV broadcasting in Boston, was the General Manager, and composer/conductor/actor David Morrow was the Operations Manager. WMFP began to carry several NBC programs in early 1993, including the soap opera Another World. Avi Nelson sold channel 62 to the Shop at Home Network in 1995,[1][2] which began airing the network's home shopping programming soon thereafter.
On May 16, 2006, Shop at Home's parent company E.W. Scripps announced that the network would be suspending operations, effective June 22, 2006.[3] However, Shop at Home temporarily ceased operations on June 21, and WMFP switched to Jewelry Television (and, on June 23, to a mixture of both networks).
On September 26, 2006, Scripps announced that it was selling its Shop at Home stations, including WMFP, to Multicultural Television of New York City for $170 million.[1] The sale of WMFP closed on April 24, 2007. Before the sale announcement, an affiliation with MyNetworkTV was discussed as a possible future course for the station.[4] Eventually, MyNetworkTV chose to affiliate with WZMY-TV.
In May 2007, Multicultural took over WMFP, and switched the station to a mix of infomercials and Gems TV; the Gems TV affiliation was dropped a year later.
On February 17, 2009, WMFP discontinued broadcasting in analog on channel 62. It is now broadcasting solely on digital UHF channel 18 (virtual channel 62.1) from a facility on the "FM-128" tower in Needham, Massachusetts.
It was announced on May 12, 2009 that WMFP would begin to offer Retro Television Network (RTN) within the following two weeks.[5] RTN programming was added to the station's second digital subchannel on May 20, though with its station identification showing the channel as 18.1. The next day, WMFP began showing RTN content on the main channel as well. (RTN was subsequently rebranded as RTV.)
After Multicultural ran into financial problems and defaulted on its loans, WMFP was placed into a trust;[6] in 2011, the station, along with KCNS in San Francisco, was sold to NRJ TV (a company unrelated to European broadcaster NRJ Radio).[7] The sale was consummated on May 13, 2011.[8] NRJ TV affiliated the station with Me-TV on December 15, 2011,[9] moving RTV to the second subchannel exclusively.
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