WZPX-TV
| Grand Rapids/Lansing, Michigan United States | |
|---|---|
| City of license | Battle Creek, Michigan |
| Branding | Ion Television |
| Slogan | Positively Encouraging |
| Channels |
Digital: 44 (UHF) 43 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels |
43.1 Ion Television 43.2 qubo 43.3 ION Life 43.4 ShopTV |
| Affiliations | Ion Television |
| Owner |
Ion Media Networks (Ion Media Battle Creek License, Inc.) |
| First air date | October 11, 1996 |
| Call letters' meaning | PaX |
| Former callsigns |
WJUE (1996–1997) WILV (1997–1998) |
| Former channel number(s) |
Analog: 43 (UHF, 1996–2009) |
| Former affiliations |
Primary: inTV (1996–1998) Pax TV (1998–2005) i (2005–2007) Secondary: UPN (1996–1999) The WB (1999–2006) |
| Transmitter power | 212 kW |
| Height | 305 m |
| Facility ID | 71871 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 42°40′45″N 85°3′57″W / 42.67917°N 85.06583°W |
| Website | www.iontelevision.com |
WZPX-TV, virtual channel 43 (UHF digital channel 44), is an Ion Television owned-and-operated television station serving Grand Rapids and Lansing, Michigan, United States that is licensed to Battle Creek. The station is owned by Ion Media Networks. WZPX maintains offices on Horizon Drive on the southeastern side of Grand Rapids, and its transmitter is located in Vermontville Township in western Eaton County. The station is available on Comcast channel 6 in the Lansing market (CBS affiliate WLNS-TV, which operates over-the-air on virtual channel 6, is carried on channel 9).
History
WZPX first signed on the air on October 11, 1996 as WJUE, carrying infomercials as part of (the forerunner of the current Ion Media Networks) Paxson Communications's inTV service, along with programming from United Paramount Network (UPN) as a secondary affiliation. The station's original licensee was Horizon Broadcasting Corporation, which Paxson Communications acquired before the station's sign-on. When Paxson bought WPXD-TV in Detroit, WZPX was spun off to DP Media because of the Federal Communications Commission's ownership rules in effect at the time that barred ownership of stations with overlapping signal coverage, which the rules constituted as an effective duopoly (ownership of two stations within a single market was also barred at the time).
Within a year, the station changed its call letters to WILV. On August 31, 1998, the station became a charter owned-and-operated station of Pax TV, and changed its call letters to WZPX-TV. One year later on August 31, 1999, UPN programming moved to Grand Rapids-based WXSP-CA (channel 15). On October 6 of that year, WZPX became a secondary affiliate of The WB. UPN would later find an affiliate in Lansing on WHTV (channel 18) on October 16, 2000. During this time, the network's Detroit owned-and-operated station WKBD-TV was carried as an out-of-market signal on local cable providers. In 2000, when the FCC relaxed its ownership rules to allow ownership of stations with overlapping coverage, Paxson repurchased the station.
As UPN, WB and Pax TV all offered prime time programming on weekdays, WZPX had scheduling conflicts during its affiliations with the former two networks. It carried the Pax programs on the same days and times as other stations, and programs from UPN and The WB on a one-day delay, two hours before prime time. For example, UPN and WB primetime programs that aired on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. in other markets aired on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. on WZPX; promotional spots for these programs announced their local time slots. The station carried a brief announcement when switching between programs from the differing networks. The Disney's One Too/UPN Kids blocks ran on weekday mornings, while Kids' WB ran on weekday afternoons; the Kids' WB Saturday block aired at 5 a.m. on Sunday mornings. The Pax programming bumped from the afternoon slot simply moved earlier in the day in place of infomercials that would normally air in that slot at the time. In part, because the station had the added draw of UPN and WB programming, WZPX was at one point one of Pax TV's highest-rated affiliates.
Lansing and Jackson were once within coverage of both WZPX and WPXD-TV. However, local cable providers carry WZPX as the Ion Television station since its signal is transmitted closer from Vermontville Township, within the Lansing television market. WPXD has since moved its transmitter from its previous location near Chelsea to a tower in Southfield, with its signal no longer covering Lansing or Jackson.
Due to the closure of The WB on September 17, 2006 and the station's failure to acquire either The CW or MyNetworkTV, WZPX is now solely an Ion owned-and-operated station. Those two networks each opted for other affiliates when they began broadcasting in September 2006; on April 4, 2006, CBS affiliate WWMT (channel 3) announced that it would carry The CW on digital subchannel 3.2;[1] WXSP-CD affiliated with MyNetworkTV.[2]
Digital television[3]
The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
Digital channels
| Channel | Video | Aspect | PSIP Short Name | Network |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 43.1 | 720p | 16:9 | ION | Ion Television |
| 43.2 | 480i | 4:3 | qubo | qubo |
| 43.3 | IONLife | Ion Life | ||
| 43.4 | Shop | Ion Shop | ||
| 43.5 | QVC | QVC | ||
| 43.6 | HSN | HSN |
Analog-to-digital conversion
The station's digital signal on UHF channel 44 signed on November 1, 2008 (The Worship Network was removed from all Ion-owned stations, including WZPX, on February 1, 2010). WZPX-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 43, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[4] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 44, using PSIP to display WZPX-TV's virtual channel as 43 on digital television receivers.
References
External links
- ION Television website
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WZPX
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WZPX-TV
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