| Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | |
|---|---|
| Branding | Win Pittsburgh Over |
| Channels | Digital: 38 (UHF) Virtual: 16 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | 16.1 ION 16.2 qubo 16.3 ION Life |
| Affiliations | Ion Television qubo ION Life |
| Network | ION |
| Owner | ION Media Networks (Ion Media of Scranton, Inc.) |
| First air date | August 31, 1953 (First incarnation as ABC affiliate)[1] March 1959 (Second incarnation) January 1963 (Current incarnation)[2] |
| Call letters' meaning | I O N Pittsburgh |
| Former callsigns | WENS (1953–1959) WQEX (1959–2011) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 16 (1963–2009) |
| Former affiliations | NET (1959–1961, 1963–1970) PBS (1970–2004) America's Store (2004–2007) ShopNBC (2007–2011) |
| Transmitter power | 500 kW |
| Height | 213 m |
| Facility ID | 41314 |
WINP-TV is a television station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania broadcasting on digital channel 38,[3] but through the use of PSIP, uses virtual channel 16, its former analog television channel number. WINP is owned by ION Media Networks. It currently airs programming from ION.
Contents |
Channel 16 in Pittsburgh started as WENS-TV, a commercial station that operated from August 31, 1953[1] until 1957 before going dark because of storm damage and mediocre ratings. The station became WQEX in March 1959, after WQED acquired the station as a secondary channel for airing educational programs. WQEX went dark again in November 1961, but returned to the air over a year later, in January 1963.
WQEX was one of the last stations in Pittsburgh (if not North America) to convert to color. For decades, the station broadcast with WENS's black-and-white transmitter. However, in February 1985, the transmitter broke down completely, and the parts required to fix it were no longer available. With limited time to restore WQEX to the air and avoid forfeiture of the license, WQED-TV diverted pledge monies to WQEX and also cut back its own broadcast hours in an attempt to lower its operating costs. Under WQED managers Lloyd Kaiser and Jay Rayvid, the new WQEX was set up as an almost autonomous station within a station. In addition to a new NEC transmitter, WQEX took over Studio C at WQED and built its entire studio, offices and technical space within the 36 by 32 square-foot area.
It took six months from April 1, 1986 until launch on October 16, 1986 to build the station, train the personnel and organize the programming, all of this under the direction of Kenneth Tiven as general manager. Tiven, with years of experience in local television, produced a station unlike any other in the PBS system. Station management explained their extended time off the air between programs with a vignette called "The Little Transmitter That Could... couldn't anymore." One Pittsburgh radio engineer said there was nothing little about the old transmitter, that it "was the size of a Port Authority transit bus".
In 1986 WQEX was one of the most automated channels in the world. It was the first channel to adopt the then-state-of-the-art Beta tape technology and the Betacart player for airing all of its programs. Local programming by its competitors had been delivered on film, reel videotape and U-matic videocassettes. The Betacam professional format, which is different from the failed Betamax consumer format, produced a high-quality picture with crisp on-air resolution. The tape gained popularity among television stations not only because of its quality, but also because of its smaller size and ease of storage. In addition the channel designed a database system for managing the program playout. It was this list which told the Betacart machine what to do.
In its return to the air, WQEX' schedule resembled that of a commercial independent station, with reruns, movies and British situation comedies, often called "Britcoms". The station even had on-camera hosts. Pip Theodor was one several personalities who introduced the programs, similar to what was done on MTV and Britain's ITV.
What was notable about the station during this era was its nightly sign-off. WQEX ended each night with a comedy sketch involving some men trying to make it home from a bar after 2 am, set to the song "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from Monty Python's The Life of Brian. The sketch was accompanied by fake closing credits. Viewers could have their names in the credits by making a pledge to WQEX and becoming members of the "QEX Sign-Off Society."[4]
The station's sign-on message also developed an on-air persona of its own, with the message followed by the 1955 Chuck Berry hit "Sweet Little Sixteen" introduced as a "morning wake-up call from Mr. Charles Berry."
From 1986 through to 1990 the station's quirky persona stayed intact. It produced a 10 pm news program from Monday through Friday in conjunction with the reporters at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper. Reporters were debriefed about their stories. These video clips were then played back in the Betacart automation system as a complete program. This innovation, called modular production, later became the keystone of several television news channels, including the Orange County Newschannel (OCN) and New York 1.
When funding became tight in the mid-1990s, WQED began using WQEX to simulcast its own programming.
WQEX signed off its analog signal as part of the analog television shutdown and digital conversion on February 17, 2009,[5] even though the deadline had been extended to June 12.[6] WQEX was one of three stations in the Pittsburgh market to still use the original signoff date, alongside the Sinclair Broadcasting duopoly of WPGH-TV and WPMY.
Sometime between April 1 and the new June 12 deadline, WQEX moved its digital broadcasts to channel 38,[7][8] which was used by sister station WQED until April 1 after the end of its annual PBS pledge drive in March.[9] The early signoff for WQED gave the station time to move its own digital signal to channel 13 while moving WQEX from channel 26 to channel 38.
Due to a combination of high costs of continuing national programming production, bloated payroll expenses, and what the station's critics identify as a top-heavy management structure and a long history of mismanagement,[10] WQED's total liabilities at one point had mounted beyond $10 million. station debts were being paid four months behind schedule and approximately 100 of the 220 staff jobs at WQED were abruptly eliminated. A station once-respected for having originated programming such as Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and National Geographic specials was quickly finding itself relegated to the role of a primarily-local producer of educational programming.
WQED began to seek a removal of the non-commercial educational status which restricted the WQEX license as early as 1996, with the intention of selling the secondary UHF station outright in the hope that an infusion of cash would solve some of the financial woes of the main station. WQED's initial application to take WQEX commercial was rejected outright by the Federal Communications Commission,[11] leaving it to pursue an alternate plan by which the station was almost sold to religious broadcaster Cornerstone Television in 1999. The original plan was to move WPCB-TV from channel 40 (a commercial license) to channel 16 (non-commercial educational WQEX), with Paxson Communications buying channel 40 and converting it to a Pax TV affiliate. This move, which would have led to a $35 million payout being split equally between Cornerstone and WQED, was approved conditionally by the Federal Communications Commission in 2000, after lobbying by Republican Senator John McCain on behalf of PAX's Lowell Paxson,[12] an intervention which Senator McCain would later deny having made.[13] However, in response to vociferous concerns from members of the Pittsburgh local community,[14][15] the FCC did impose one condition on the sale: half of Cornerstone's programming needed to be of educational value, effectively respecting the non-commercial educational condition of WQEX's existing license.[16] Cornerstone flatly refused, abruptly backing out of the proposed deal.[17] Religious programming doesn't qualify as educational if it's "primarily devoted to religious exhortation, proselytizing or statements of personally held religious views or beliefs," according to the FCC's ruling conditionally allowing religious broadcaster Cornerstone TV to take over WQEX and add educational content to the station.[18][19] Although the FCC abruptly reversed its position less than a month later[20] removing the condition in response to intense political and legislative pressure,[21] Cornerstone withdrew its application and the sale was cancelled, keeping WQEX as a WQED-TV simulcast.[22]
In July 2002, the FCC abandoned its long-held position on instructional content, removing WQEX's non-commercial educational status outright in response to continued claims of economic hardship by WQED[23] – hardships which the station has long blamed not on its own past management practices but on the local economic situation and the long-term decline of Pittsburgh's industrial base.[24]
From 2004 to March 2007, WQEX brokered much of its airtime to America's Store, a discount shopping channel from Home Shopping Network, with WQED-TV presenting a total of three hours of required Educational/Informational (E/I) programming for kids on Monday and Tuesday mornings, plus repeats of WQED's news magazine, OnQ, on Monday mornings.[25] In January 2007, America's Store announced it would cease operations on April 3 of the same year; WQEX switched its programming to ShopNBC on March 26.[26]
Rumors and actual proposals of a sale of WQEX have come up from time to time, the most noteworthy of which was a proposed 2002 sale to Shooting Star Broadcasting, a company headed up by Pittsburgh native and former Shamrock Broadcasting president Diane Sutter, that was never consummated.[27]
On November 8, 2010, it was announced that WQED reached a deal with ION Media Networks (the former Paxson Communications) to sell WQEX to Ion for $3 million.[28][29] The sale was consummated (after FCC approval) on May 2, 2011, at which time the station's call sign changed from WQEX to WINP,[30][31] making it the first Ion-owned station without the Pax-era "PX" in its call sign. (The new calls stand for IoN Pittsburgh or, to note one news article on the sale, "WIN Pittsburgh Over.")[32] WINP was still currently carrying ShopNBC programming to fill their contractual obligations; however, as of October 1, 2011, it now carries ION Television on its main channel (currently only in 480i), with Ion Life and qubo on subchannels. This is the network's first over-the-air presence in Pittsburgh, the largest media market in which Ion and its predecessors had never had an over-the-air signal (Pittsburgh is the 24th largest TV market for 2010–2011 according to AC Nielsen).
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||||||||