WEPT-CA

WEPT-CA, channel 15, is a television station licensed to serve Kinderhook, New York from a transmitter in New Baltimore.^[1] The station is owned by Venture Technologies Group, and is an AMGTV affiliate.^[2] In addition to its analog signal, WEPT holds a construction permit for a digital signal on channel 22, to broadcast from Overlook Mountain in Woodstock.^[3]

History

What today is WEPT-CA originated on January 24, 1996^[4] as a construction permit for W02AJ,^[5] which was to have operated on channel 2 in Manchester, Vermont from a tower at the studios of radio station WJAN (95.1 FM, now WVTQ).^[4] However, that facility was never built, and later that year owners Ronald and Jan Morlino, who also owned WJAN, transferred W02AJ to Vision 3 Broadcasting,^[6][7] which on May 9, 1997 modified the permit to instead serve Easton, Glens Falls, Hudson Falls, and Saratoga Springs on channel 39 from Willard Mountain,^[8] making the station W39CE.^[5] The station was designed to be a repeater of WVBG-LP (channel 25) from Albany; however, when channel 39 signed on in December 1997 as an independent station, it was the first of Vision 3's three stations to launch,^[9] ahead of W49BU (channel 49, later renamed WVBK-LP; now WYCX-CD channel 2) in Manchester, which signed on in March 1998,^[10] and WVBG itself, which debuted in August 1998.^[11] Channel 39 became WVBX-LP on April 10, 1998.^[5]

On October 5, 1998, WVBX, along with parent station WVBG, became a UPN affiliate;^[12] it already carried the UPN Kids block,^[13] but the network's primetime programming had previously been seen in the Capital District through secondary affiliations with Fox affiliate WXXA-TV (channel 23)^[13] and Pax station WYPX (channel 55),^[14] as well as cable carriage of WSBK-TV from Boston.^[12][14] However, from its inception, the station could not get carriage on Time Warner Cable,^[13] which chose to continue its carriage of WSBK;^[12] this was despite acquiring several sports packages, including Big East football and basketball, the Boston Red Sox (the telecasts of which were dropped following a territorial complaint by the New York Yankees),^[15] and the Boston Celtics.^[16]

Vision 3 did win must-carry rights in Washington County (in the WVBX coverage area) on December 3, 1999.^[17] However, the UPN affiliation ended at the start of 2000 when cable-only "WEDG-TV" (known later as "UPN 4") signed on as a joint operation between Time Warner Cable and WXXA.^[18] WVBX would then revert to being an independent station, heavily emphasizing its status as a primarily over-the-air station;^[19] that June, Vision 3 put WVBG and WVBX up for sale,^[20] and by 2001 much of the station's schedule was taken up by America One^[21] and Resort Sports Network programming.^[22]

In 2002, a year after parent station WVBG was sold to Wireless Access, Vision 3 was granted a construction permit to move WVBX to channel 15 from a transmitter on the Helderberg Escarpment in New Scotland, near the location of the WVBG transmitter, in effect moving the station to Albany.^[23] The new facility was also granted class A status,^[23] with the call sign WVBX-CA.^[5] On May 22, 2003, Vision 3 sold WVBX to Venture Technologies Group,^[24] who took channel 39 off-the-air that June.^[25] During this time, Venture built the channel 15 facility, gave it the call letters WNYA-CA on June 30, 2003,^[5] and announced that the station would serve as a repeater of WNYA (channel 51) from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, which Venture was in the process of launching; this resulted in the unusual circumstance of a repeater station older than its parent station.^[26] Together, the two stations came on the air September 1, 2003 as the Capital District's new UPN affiliate (replacing "WEDG-TV"),^[26] operated by Freedom Communications, then-owner of WRGB (channel 6), under a joint sales agreement.^[27]

On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced that they would end broadcasting and merge to form a new network, The CW; the new network immediately named WEWB-TV (channel 45, now WCWN) its Capital District affiliate after then-owner Tribune Broadcasting signed a ten-year affiliation deal with the new network on most of its WB stations.^[28] On February 22, News Corporation announced that it would start up another new broadcast television network called MyNetworkTV; on March 9, it was announced that WNYA (and in turn WNYA-CA) would join this network, which launched on September 5.^[29] A few months after the affiliation change, on December 5, 2006, Freedom Communications purchased WCWN from Tribune, in effect giving it control over three stations in the Capital District;^[30] in February 2007, the joint sales agreement with WRGB was terminated,^[26] and WNYA moved from WRGB's studios in Niskayuna to a facility in Rotterdam that formerly housed WMHT-FM-TV.^[31] In April 2011, WNYA-CA replaced WNYA's main programming with Antenna TV, simulcast from WNYA's second digital subchannel.^[32]

On February 25, 2013, Hubbard Broadcasting announced that it would purchase WNYA to form a duopoly with its local NBC affiliate WNYT, for $2.3 million, pending FCC approval.^[33][34] The sale did not include WNYA-CA, which remained with Venture Technologies.^[35] Under a clause of the sale of WNYA that required WNYA-CA to use a new call sign that does not feature the letters "N" or "Y,"^[34] channel 15 became WEPT-CA on March 8, 2013.^[5] On May 29, 2013, the FCC approved the sale of WNYA to Hubbard,^[36] which was completed July 15;^[37] that September, WEPT-CA dropped its WNYA-DT2 simulcast to join AMGTV,^[2] moved its transmitter to New Baltimore, and changed its city of license to Kinderhook.^[1] Venture then filed on September 25 to construct a digital companion facility on channel 22 broadcasting from Overlook Mountain in Woodstock;^[3] the permit was granted on December 23.^[38]

References

External links

• Query the FCC's TV station database for WEPT
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WEPT-CA