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WDPX-TV

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Coordinates: 42°23′2.7″N 71°29′35.3″W / 42.384083°N 71.493139°W / 42.384083; -71.493139
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This article is about a television station in Boston, Massachusetts. For the station in Springfield, Ohio, that used this call sign in 1998 and 1999, see WBDT.
WDPX-TV
CityWoburn, Massachusetts
Channels
Programming
AffiliationsGrit
Ownership
Owner
WBPX-TV
History
First air date
January 16, 1984; 40 years ago (1984-01-16) (in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts; license moved to Woburn in 2018)
Former call signs
  • W58AO (1984–1985)
  • WCVX (1985–1994)
  • WZBU (1994–1999)
  • WDPX (1999–2009)
Former channel number(s)
  • Analog: 58 (UHF, 1984–2009)
  • Digital: 40 (UHF, 2003–2018), 32 (UHF, 2018–2019)
Call sign meaning
disambiguation of former parent station WBPX
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID6476
ERP150 kW[2]
HAAT334.59 m (1,098 ft)[2]
Transmitter coordinates42°23′2.7″N 71°29′35.3″W / 42.384083°N 71.493139°W / 42.384083; -71.493139[2]
Links
Public license information

WDPX-TV (channel 58) is a television station licensed to Woburn, Massachusetts, United States, broadcasting the digital multicast network Grit to the Boston area. It is owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company alongside Ion Television station WBPX-TV, channel 68 (and its Concord, New Hampshire–licensed full-time satellite WPXG-TV, channel 21). WDPX-TV and WBPX-TV share studios on Soldiers Field Road in Boston's Allston neighborhood; through a channel sharing agreement, the two stations transmit using WBPX-TV's spectrum from a tower on Parmenter Road in Hudson, Massachusetts.

History

[edit]

Channel 58 first signed on January 16, 1984, as 12,000-watt W58AO, a low-power station owned by Cape Cod Broadcasting and originally licensed to Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, with studio facilities in Hyannis.

After temporarily going dark for one week a year-and-a-half later, channel 58 would relaunch on July 19, 1985, as full-power independent station WCVX, transmitting at a powerful 1.2 million watts.[3] Its lineup included a twice-nightly newscast.[4] However, it suffered early on due to lack of cable coverage, as the Supreme Court had struck down the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s must-carry rule on the very day WCVX launched, thus knocking it out of the 60 percent of homes in the Cape Cod region relying on cable television.[3] Despite this early hurdle, however, area cable systems gradually began adding WCVX to their lineups, and by August 1987, it was carried by every provider on Cape Cod.[5]

In spite of achieving the necessary cable carriage, WCVX was still ailing financially, and by late 1987, Cape Cod Broadcasting president Don Moore was forced to turn the station over to Sentry Federal Savings Bank, which chose Dan Carney to take over daily operations the following January. While viewership increased under Carney's tenure, WCVX continued to lose money, and after laying off nearly 85 percent of staffers just two years later, Sentry attempted to find a new owner for the struggling station.[6] At one point, Sentry entered into negotiations with the owners of WNAC-TV, the Fox affiliate in Providence, Rhode Island, about possibly acquiring WCVX as a satellite station, but the deal collapsed after it was decided by the Fox affiliate board that any resulting boost would be minimal at best, especially considering that Cape Cod's aforementioned widespread cable penetration (which had increased to nearly 100 percent by late 1990, when the talks took place) meant that the Boston and Providence stations were already easily viewable there.[4] Unable to find another willing buyer, Sentry decided to shut down WCVX, and the station went dark in the early hours of July 2, 1991, following an airing of the 1955 film Kentucky Rifle.[7]

Three years after its demise, in 1994, Boston University bought the license and relaunched the station as WZBU, a Cape Cod satellite of Boston's WABU, channel 68 (along with WNBU in Concord, New Hampshire).

In May 1999, WZBU was sold along with WABU and WNBU to Devon Paxson, son of Paxson Communications founder Lowell Paxson, for $40 million; the stations would replace WBPX (channel 46) and WPXB (channel 60) as Boston's Pax TV affiliate,[8] with WZBU's call sign being changed to WDPX.[9] The DP Media stations would be acquired by Paxson Communications that December in a deal worth up to $173 million.[10] Pax TV would become i: Independent Television in 2005[11] and Ion Television in 2007.[12]

During the FCC's incentive auction, it was announced that the over-the-air spectrum of WDPX-TV had been sold for $43,467,644; the station indicated that it would enter into a post-auction channel sharing agreement.[13] WDPX-TV now channel-shares with former parent station WBPX-TV; as the WBPX-TV signal does not reach Vineyard Haven, WDPX changed its city of license to Woburn, a northern suburb of Boston.[14] Ion then took advantage of its main-channel carriage across the market to carry Ion Plus on the basic tier of most providers.

On February 27, 2021, Ion Plus shifted to online-only operation. WDPX became a Court TV owned-and-operated station shortly after. On February 25, 2022, WDPX moved its main-channel carriage to Grit.

Subchannels

[edit]
Subchannels of WBPX-TV and WDPX-TV[15]
License Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
WBPX-TV 68.1 720p 16:9 ION Ion Television
68.2 480i Mystery Ion Mystery
68.3 Laff Laff
68.4 Bounce Bounce TV
68.5 IONPlus Ion Plus
68.6 Get TV Get
68.8 HSN2 HSN2
WDPX-TV 58.1 720p Grit Grit

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Facility Technical Data for WDPX-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. ^ a b c "Modification of a Licensed Facility for DTV Application". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission. November 2, 2018. Retrieved February 9, 2019.
  3. ^ a b "So You Want to Own a TV Station".
  4. ^ a b "Big Brother Takes Over TV Station" (PDF).
  5. ^ "Early Files".
  6. ^ "Cape's WCVX-TV may have to close". Archived from the original on July 12, 2018.
  7. ^ "Cape Cod TV station goes down the tubes; After struggling for six years, Ch. 58 is dark". Archived from the original on July 12, 2018.
  8. ^ Rathbun, Elizabeth A. (May 17, 1999). "Pax TV wins battle for Boston". Broadcasting & Cable. p. 37.
  9. ^ Fybush, Scott (August 15, 1999). "North East RadioWatch". Retrieved June 3, 2024.
  10. ^ "Changing Hands". Broadcasting & Cable. December 6, 1999. p. 85.
  11. ^ Eggerton, John; Grossman, Ben (July 2, 2005). "Putting the 'I' in Pax TV". Broadcasting & Cable. Retrieved June 3, 2024.
  12. ^ "i Is Now ION Television". Multichannel News. January 24, 2007. Retrieved June 3, 2024.
  13. ^ "FCC Broadcast Television Spectrum Incentive Auction Auction 1001 Winning Bids" (PDF). Federal Communications Commission. April 4, 2017. Retrieved August 8, 2017.
  14. ^ "Modification of a Licensed Facility for DTV Application". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission. October 10, 2017. Retrieved October 28, 2017.
  15. ^ "RabbitEars TV Query for WBPX". RabbitEars. Archived from the original on July 31, 2018. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
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