WCGV-TV

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Coordinates: 43°5′46.2″N 87°54′15″W / 43.096167°N 87.90417°W / 43.096167; -87.90417
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WVTV-DT2
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"WCGV" redirects here. For the radio station in Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania, see Family Life Network.
For information about "My 24" after 2018, see WVTV.

WCGV-TV
FCC
Facility ID71278
ERP1,000 kW
HAAT340.3 m (1,116 ft)
Transmitter coordinates43°5′46.2″N 87°54′15″W / 43.096167°N 87.90417°W / 43.096167; -87.90417
Links
Public license information

WCGV-TV (channel 24) was a

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, which operated from 1980 to 2018. In its latter years, it was owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group as an affiliate of MyNetworkTV; it had common ownership with CW affiliate WVTV (channel 18). WCGV-TV's operations were last housed at WVTV's studio facilities on Milwaukee's northwest side; the station's transmitter was located on the Milwaukee PBS
tower on North Humboldt Boulevard in Milwaukee's Estabrook Park neighborhood.

Established in 1980 as an independent station with part-time

subscription television operation, WCGV-TV served as the first Fox affiliate for Milwaukee from 1987 to 1994. It then affiliated with UPN
after it lost the Fox affiliation in a national realignment. After UPN was merged into The CW in 2006, it was aligned with MyNetworkTV.

On January 8, 2018, WCGV-TV's

incentive auction
. At that time, the station's programming continued as subchannels of WVTV, continuing to use virtual channel 24. What was WCGV-TV's primary subchannel continues under the WVTV license as "My 24".

History

WCGV's first studio facility from 1980 until 1994, which formerly hosted WITI until 1979. It remains an active production facility for an event and production company and the station's 1987–1994 logo sign on its north side has never been removed or painted over, outlasting WCGV-TV itself.

Establishment

WCGV-TV first signed on the air on March 24, 1980, under the ownership of B&F Broadcasting from the former North 27th Street facilities of then-

The Playboy Channel
.

WCGV dropped SelecTV in 1984 once

Showtime) to the area. It gradually became a more serious ratings contender against Milwaukee's leading independent, future sister station WVTV (channel 18). The station was branded simply as "TV-24". By then, the station had been acquired by Arlington Broadcasting, which also owned WTTO in Birmingham, WQTV (now WBPX-TV) in Boston and KNXV-TV in Phoenix
; the latter two stations were later sold off.

Fox affiliation

On March 15, 1987, WCGV joined the infant network

Arsenio Hall Show. From September 1993 until December 1994, the station also carried CBS' Late Show with David Letterman on a half-hour delay in lieu of WITI, which refused to carry the show due to better ratings for reruns of M*A*S*H in the timeslot.[2]

By 1988, the station scored a major coup by acquiring the broadcast rights to the

Little Rascals/Our Gang
fame). By the end of the 1980s, WCGV had pulled almost even with WVTV in the ratings.

WCGV and Birmingham's WTTO were purchased by Abry Communications in 1990. The station continued with its general entertainment format, along with Fox programs. WCGV entered into a local marketing agreement with WVTV (then owned by Gaylord Broadcasting) in 1994. Although WCGV was the senior partner, the combined operation was based at WVTV's original studio facility near North 35th Street and Capitol Drive.

UPN affiliation

In early 1994, WITI was named as the market's new Fox affiliate as a result of a deal between the station's owner

NFL.[3][4] For a short time between September and November 1994, the station carried Green Bay Packers
games in the market through the network's NFC package as a lame-duck affiliate, though without any pre-game programming, the only break in network coverage by WITI of the team since the 1977 affiliation switch between WISN and WITI, which took place in the off-season.

WCGV lost the Fox affiliation and briefly became an independent station again on December 4, 1994. Despite the local press considering WCGV to be CBS's best option for a replacement affiliate, the station repeatedly refused the network's advances. Then acting general manager Alan Frank openly castigated the network for what he considered its poor negotiation tactics, such as attempting to buy the station despite Abry's clear disinterest and their willingness to settle for low-rated UHF stations in other markets. The station cited advertising concerns in the decision to refuse CBS; becoming an independent station would allow the network to sell more of its own commercials, as opposed to being forced to give up significant portions of ad time to the network. While industry observers believed that the station's ownership was simply holding out for a better deal, it steadfastly refused to affiliate. CBS ultimately affiliated with WDJT-TV.[5]

Instead, it became a charter affiliate of the United Paramount Network (

Big Three network displaced due to the affiliation switches. Around this time, the station changed its branding to "UPN 24", with a generic logo consisting of the station's call letters and channel number beneath the primary color
UPN "shapes" logo of that time.

In 1995,

Glencairn Ltd. (which was headed by former Sinclair executive Edwin Edwards). The Smith family, owners and founders of Sinclair owned 97% of Glencairn's stock, so Sinclair effectively owned both stations. Glencairn was involved in similar deals, owning eleven stations that were all operated by Sinclair under LMAs. This arrangement prompted Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow/PUSH coalition to bring forward litigation, citing their concerns on racial issues in the face of one entity holding two broadcast licenses in a single market.[6][7] The Federal Communications Commission eventually fined Sinclair $40,000 in 2001 for illegally controlling Glencairn.[8]

On January 5, 1998, WCGV/Sinclair decided to drop the UPN affiliation over ratings and monetary issues, as did several other Sinclair stations in other markets after the company signed a lucrative affiliation deal with The WB (which included WVTV; the station affiliated with The WB on May 19, 1997, prior to WCGV dropping UPN) to shift several stations from UPN.

Advance Entertainment Corporation a year earlier to increase distribution for Animal Planet
.

However, WCGV did see a viewership decline without a network affiliation. It also received complaints from vocal

Paramount Television.[10]
WWOR was dropped from the few area cable systems it was on within days of the re-acquisition of WCGV's UPN affiliation.

Despite the reconciliation, the station continued to omit the mention of UPN from its own branding, and called itself "Channel 24" until the start of the 2001–2002 television season, when it brought back the "UPN 24" branding (one of only a small number of UPN stations to do so, as UPN branding was required by the network). WVTV became wholly owned by Sinclair in 2000, after the FCC overturned regulations that had prohibited television station duopolies.

WITI never held an interest in carrying any of Fox's children's programming after it joined that network due to existing local home showcase programming on Saturday mornings, and wanting to have traditional syndicated programming lead into its weekday local news programming; therefore,

WMLW-CA
(channel 41), where it aired on Sunday mornings until it ended on December 28, 2008.

MyNetworkTV affiliation

On March 2, 2006, Sinclair announced that channel 24 would become the Milwaukee affiliate of

Raleigh–Durham, North Carolina
).

In the interim two weeks between the beginning of MyNetworkTV's and the end of UPN's existence in early to mid-September, WCGV continued to show select UPN programs on Sunday afternoons, airing

Girlfriends, Everybody Hates Chris and All of Us
from 12–5 p.m., all which were renewed by The CW and moved to channel 18. WCGV is one of the few stations in the country to have been affiliated with both News Corporation-owned networks, Fox and MyNetworkTV.

WCGV-TV carried the 2017

Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway from NBC on August 19, 2017, for WTMJ, which was committed to a preseason Green Bay Packers football game.[14]

July 2010 flooding incident and studio move

On July 22, 2010, the Milwaukee area experienced a major

standard definition
and did not display digital on-screen bugs at all due to damage to the station's high definition broadcasting equipment for most of the following month. HD programming was restored on August 20, 2010.

Because the flooding caused irreparable damage to the building, Sinclair immediately began a search for new facilities for WCGV and WVTV, which would allow locally produced and syndicated programs to be broadcast in high definition full-time without the complexities of rewiring an older and flood damaged studio and master control facility. On June 6, 2012, Sinclair received approval from the Milwaukee Common Council's Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee to move to an existing building near the

studio/transmitter link tower, with full Common Council approval coming a week later on June 12. The stations moved to the new building in December 2013, with the new master control coming online in the last week of the month.[15][16][17]

From June 2012 until the end of December 2013, the engineering and master control of WVTV/WCGV transmitted

16:9 syndicated programming in full screen, but in standard definition as a stopgap solution until the move to the new studios. Upon the opening of the new master control, all syndicated programming available in the format now is aired in high definition
.

Spectrum sale and unofficial channel share with WVTV

On April 13, 2017, the results of the FCC's 2016

spectrum auction were announced, with Sinclair successfully selling the UHF spectrum for WCGV for $84.3 million. At first, it was expected that WCGV's channels would be merged onto WVTV's spectrum in a formal channel-sharing agreement, by which Sinclair would continue to retain both licenses on one multiplex. However, at the time, Sinclair was attempting to acquire Tribune Media, owner of WITI. It would not have been able to hold three licenses, but surrendering the WCGV-TV license would have allowed Sinclair to purchase WITI without regulatory scrutiny.[18]

Sinclair,

getTV was dropped from a subchannel of WVTV to make way for the addition of "My 24" (24.1) and Comet (24.2) as WVTV subchannels, and Grit (carried as WCGV's third subchannel) was discontinued.[20] However, the station has retained the existing channel 24 numbering for the "My 24" and Comet subchannels while losing the WCGV call sign for WVTV-DT2.[21] The transition to a subchannel was properly coordinated, and resulted in no major change to its carriage position or channel on the majority of the market's cable systems and streaming providers such as YouTube TV and Hulu
's Live TV service, with only a few small systems consolidating the station onto a lower subchannel tier.

Ultimately, the merger with Tribune (and with it, Sinclair's acquisition of WITI) was called off due to a number of issues on August 8, 2018, leaving WVTV as Sinclair's only Milwaukee over-the-air asset.[22] In another deal, Sinclair would acquire a majority stake in the Fox Sports Networks in the fall of 2019, and with it, Fox Sports Wisconsin (now Bally Sports Wisconsin).

Though the wind-down of WCGV did not allow the acquisition of WITI, the smooth transition of the station's main schedule to a WVTV subchannel resulted in Sinclair repeating the technique in a number of their markets to consolidate affiliations onto stations directly owned by Sinclair rather than its sidecar companies, especially with its Fox affiliates in major markets.

Programming

In 2014, the station began to air the national morning show The Daily Buzz on a two-hour delay from its national broadcast, which had previously been carried sporadically by WMLW-TV; notably until the show was sold off in 2013 by former owner and competing station group ACME Communications during its wind-down of operations, most Sinclair stations had never carried it. The sudden mid-April 2015 cancellation of The Daily Buzz forced channel 24 to quickly purchase barter lifestyle programming to fill the two hours vacated by the program.

The station had aired Milwaukee Bucks games, sharing rights with Fox Sports Wisconsin until the end of the 2006–07 season, when the team's games became cable-exclusive.[23]

Channel 24 was the last true Milwaukee commercial station (religious station WVCY-TV, although technically a commercial licensee, does not solicit advertising) to sign off the air during the overnight hours, doing so for 4+1⁄2 hours on early Monday mornings until March 10, 2008, when the station adopted a full 168-hour weekly schedule (although the early Monday morning schedule consists entirely of paid programming due to the lack of a Shepherd's Chapel program to air on Mondays); WVCY switched to a 24-hour programming schedule itself in January 2010.

Sports programming

In late August 2010, the station began to air a live

Grand Chute–based Class A affiliate for the Brewers. The games are produced by sister station WLUK-TV in Green Bay and air on WCWF in that market. The fall of 2018 saw a further expansion of local sports coverage when the station began to carry weekend home games involving the American Hockey League's Milwaukee Admirals, the first time the team's games were broadcast on television (not counting Bradley Center
-provided highlights to newscasts) since the early 90s.

Technical information

Subchannels

As mentioned above, the station shares WVTV's bandwidth and is officially recognized as a WVTV subchannel (including within

multiplexed
channel map as channel 24:

Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
24.1 720p
16:9
 My 24 MyNetworkTV
24.2 480i COMET Comet
24.3 Charge Charge!

On March 23, 2006, Sinclair announced that it signed an affiliation deal with music video network The Tube to carry it on the digital subchannels of many of the group's stations. The channel launched on WCGV's 24.2 subchannel on June 15, 2006.[24] On December 31, The Tube was dropped by WCGV due to new E/I regulations put into effect by the FCC and The Tube not immediately inserting E/I programming within its schedule, effectively putting the burden on local stations to carry such programs; the network ceased operations on October 1, 2007, due to several factors likely including the discontinuance of the Sinclair carriage deal. None of the market's cable television providers ever carried 24.2 during its affiliation with The Tube.

On June 28, 2007, Time Warner Cable began carrying WCGV's digital signal locally on digital channel 524 (which has since moved to channel 1024), along with WVTV on digital channel 518 (which has since moved to channel 1018), after Sinclair and Time Warner came to a compensation agreement for the stations.[25] Charter Communications, the market's other major cable provider, came to a compensation agreement in April 2007, but the HD signal was not added until June 9, 2009, when the HD signal began to air over digital channel 614 on Charter's southeastern Wisconsin systems.

In August 2010, Sinclair signed a groupwide affiliation deal with The Country Network (which rebranded as ZUUS Country in July 2013), a digital subchannel network featuring

WTSJ-LP
(channel 38) in late 2016.

On January 1, 2015, WCGV launched Grit on their third subchannel, which was added to Charter systems on channel 178 on March 10, 2015. It was discontinued on January 8, 2018, upon the channel sharing with WVTV taking effect; WTMJ-TV took it for their fourth subchannel nearly immediately as described above.

Analog-to-digital conversion as WCGV-TV

On

UHF channel 24, on that date. The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 25,[28][29] using virtual channel
24.

As part of the

SAFER Act,[30] WCGV kept its analog signal on the air until March 4 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters
.

References

  1. ^ "Facility Technical Data for WCGV-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. ^ Dudek, Duane (December 3, 1993). "WITI snatches close 10 p.m. news ratings race from WISN". Milwaukee Sentinel. p. B6. Retrieved May 31, 2015.
  3. ^ "Fox Gains 12 Stations in New World Deal". Chicago Sun-Times. May 23, 1994. Archived from the original on October 11, 2013. Retrieved June 1, 2013.
  4. ^ "NBC Gets Final N.F.L. Contract While CBS Gets Its Sundays Off". The New York Times. December 21, 1993. Retrieved June 22, 2012.
  5. Gale A16335176
    .
  6. ^ PUSH pushing FCC over Sinclair/Glencairn, Broadcasting & Cable, July 13, 1998.
  7. ^ Glencairn's dicey LMAs, Broadcasting & Cable, March 29, 1999.
  8. ^ FCC fines Sinclair for Glencairn control, Broadcasting & Cable, December 10, 2001.
  9. ^ WB woos and wins Sinclair, Broadcasting & Cable, July 21, 1997.
  10. ^ "'Voyager' marathon on Sunday (November 8)". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. November 6, 1998. p. 7B. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  11. ^ News Corp. Unveils MyNetworkTV, Broadcasting & Cable, February 22, 2006.
  12. CNNMoney.com
    , January 24, 2006.
  13. ^ UPN and WB to Combine, Forming New TV Network, The New York Times, January 24, 2006.
  14. ^ "Nascar to air on WCGV-TV, channel 24, in Milwaukee Saturday". WTMJ-TV. August 19, 2017. Retrieved August 20, 2017.
  15. ^ Dudek, Duane (March 22, 2013). "New boss at WVTV, WCGV speaks language of experience". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Retrieved March 22, 2013.
  16. ^ Daykin, Tom (June 6, 2012). "Plans for TV stations to relocate win approval". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Retrieved June 12, 2012.
  17. ^ Various. "City of Milwaukee - File #: 111482". Substitute ordinance relating to the Second Amendment to a Detailed Planned Development known as Park Place, Stage 14, for installation of a transmission structure and satellite dishes, on land located on the north side of West Calumet Road, east of West Park Place, in the 5th Aldermanic District. City of Milwaukee, Legistar Database. Retrieved June 12, 2012.
  18. ^ Foran, Chris (April 14, 2017). "4 Milwaukee TV stations to get millions in spectrum auction". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. USA Today Network. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
  19. ^ "Channel Rescan Needed January 8th for Antenna Users". Retrieved December 9, 2017.
  20. ^ Foran, Chris (January 2, 2018). "Get TV and Grit channels to drop from local TV lineup". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  21. ^ Foran, Chris (January 10, 2018). "Some Milwaukee TV stations relocate, others disappear in latest frequency shuffle". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Retrieved September 17, 2019.
  22. ^ Charles Riley (August 9, 2018). "Tribune calls off $3.9 billion Sinclair media deal". CNNMoney. Turner Broadcasting System/WarnerMedia. Archived from the original on August 9, 2018. Retrieved August 9, 2018.
  23. ^ "JS Online: Exclusive cable hookup for Bucks, FSN". Archived from the original on September 29, 2007.
  24. ^ "JS Online:Chicks OK with no country airplay". Archived from the original on July 2, 2006.
  25. ^ "JS Online: It's 'like birthin' a baby,' but Fox News hosts say morning show's gelling". Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved July 3, 2007.
  26. ^ Sinclair Broadcast Group to Air The Country Network, PRNewswire, August 24, 2010.
  27. ^ Hearn, Ted (February 2, 2009). "Sinclair Sticks To Feb. 17 Analog Cutoff". Digital Video Report. Retrieved February 24, 2009.
  28. ^ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and Second Rounds" (PDF). Retrieved March 24, 2012.
  29. ^ CDBS Print
  30. ^ "UPDATED List of Participants in the Analog Nightlight Program" (PDF). Federal Communications Commission. June 12, 2009. Retrieved June 4, 2012.

External links

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