| Orlando, Florida | |
|---|---|
| Branding | My65 |
| Slogan | Orlando's My65 |
| Channels | Digital: 41 (UHF) Virtual: 65 (PSIP) |
| Affiliations | MyNetworkTV |
| Owner | Fox Television Stations (Fox Television Stations, Inc.) |
| First air date | June 6, 1994 |
| Call letters' meaning | RainBoW Media (original owner and station branding) |
| Sister station(s) | WOFL |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 65 (UHF, 1994-2009) |
| Former affiliations | independent (1994-1995) UPN (1995-2006) ABC secondary (late 1990s) |
| Transmitter power | 763 kW (digital) |
| Height | 515.4 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 54940 |
| Website | www.my65orlando.com |
WRBW is the MyNetworkTV owned and operated station serving the Orlando/Daytona Beach/Melbourne, Florida television market. It is owned by the Fox Television Stations Group, along with Fox station WOFL Channel 35. Known on-air as "My65", the station offers sitcoms, cartoons, court shows, and talk/reality shows. Its transmitter is located in Christmas, Florida. WRBW can be seen on Bright House Networks channel 6 where the area's location WKMG-TV is seen on cable channel 5.
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The station began operation as a locally owned independent station in June 1994, airing vintage sitcoms, cartoons, and old movies. It was owned by Rainbow Media, a subsidiary of Cablevision. In January 1995 it affiliated with the newly-launched UPN. Since UPN only provided limited network programming, WRBW still programmed as an independent station.
Chris-Craft Industries, part owner of UPN (through its United Television unit) bought WRBW in 1998, making WRBW the first network-owned station in Orlando. Fox acquired most of Chris-Craft's television stations in 2001, including WRBW. Fox did not consider moving its affiliation from WOFL to WRBW, however; not only was WOFL one of Fox's strongest affiliates, but WRBW was located on a very high channel number. A few months after the Chris-Craft deal closed, Fox traded KPTV in Portland to Meredith Corporation in return for WOFL, giving itself a duopoly in the Orlando market. Both stations are also the only ones in the market to be O&Os of any major network, with WRBW being the first under United as a UPN affiliate. Fox subsequently moved WRBW's operations to the WOFL studios in Lake Mary.
In the 1990s, the station aired a 10pm newscast produced by WFTV; the newscast later moved to WRDQ. In this period, especially during the wildfire plagued summer of 1998, there were occasions to which ABC Sports programming was moved to channel 65 in order for WFTV to provide wall to wall coverage. Some ABC Saturday morning programs also aired on WRBW until WRDQ was put on the air in 2000.
There continues to be speculations that a 10pm newscast may return to WRBW. Station officials have not ruled out that possibility, even though it would place WRBW in direct competition against its sister station, WOFL. However, that may not be the case if WOFL moves its newscast to 11 PM (as many Fox O&Os are doing).
In January 2006 UPN and The WB announced that they would merge into a new network, The CW. The new network did not include any of Fox's UPN affiliates. As a result, Fox scrubbed all UPN branding from its UPN affiliates, and stopped promoting UPN programming. Accordingly, WRBW began branding itself as WRBW 65. WRBW's website, however, retained the "UPN 65" logo until more than a week after this change. On March 1, 2006, WB affiliate WKCF was announced as the CW affiliate for Orlando. It was very unlikely, however, that WRBW would have been selected in any event. Officials with The CW were on record as preferring the "strongest" UPN and WB affiliates for their network, and WKCF had been The WB's strongest affiliate for virtually all of The WB's run.
On February 22, 2006, Fox announced that WRBW would be part of a new primetime network called MyNetworkTV to launch September 5, 2006. The new network is operated by Fox Television Stations, Inc. and Twentieth Television. Accordingly, the station has now rebranded to my65, reflecting the naming conventions of the new network. The website has also changed in keeping with the new name.
Occasionally, WRBW may now air Fox network programming whenever WOFL cannot in the event of an emergency. WRBW has normally broadcast just a color bar test pattern and tone on its digital sub-channel (65.2). However, the subchannel has also been used occasionally to provide a standard definition (480i) feed of the signals of co-owned WOFL (Orlando), WOGX (Ocala), or even WRBW's own programming at times. There appears to be no rationale for these sporadic and irregular changes apart from possibly using these video sources for testing purposes.
WRBW shut down its analog TV transmitter on June 12, 2009 as mandated by the FCC, and continued to broadcast on its pre-transition digital channel 41. [1] However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display WRBW's virtual channel as 65.
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