WGPX-TV is the Ion Television affiliate licensed

City of license

A city of license or community of license, in American and Canadian broadcasting, is the community that a radio station or television station is officially licensed to serve by that country's broadcast regulator....

 to Burlington, North Carolina

Burlington, North Carolina

Burlington is a city in Alamance and Guilford counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the principal city of the Burlington, North Carolina Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Alamance County, in which most of the city is located. The population was 49,963 at the 2010...

 and serving the Greensboro

Greensboro, North Carolina

Greensboro is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the third-largest city by population in North Carolina and the largest city in Guilford County and the surrounding Piedmont Triad metropolitan region. According to the 2010 U.S...

/Winston-Salem

Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Winston-Salem is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina, with a 2010 population of 229,617. Winston-Salem is the county seat and largest city of Forsyth County and the fourth-largest city in the state. Winston-Salem is the second largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region and is home to...

/High Point

High Point, North Carolina

High Point is a city located in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina. As of 2010 the city had a total population of 104,371, according to the US Census Bureau. High Point is currently the eighth-largest municipality in North Carolina....

 television market. It is owned by ION Media Networks

ION Media Networks

ION Media Networks is an American television broadcasting company that owns and operates over 60 television stations in most major American markets. It is now a privately owned company.-History:...

 and broadcasts on UHF

Ultra high frequency

Ultra-High Frequency designates the ITU Radio frequency range of electromagnetic waves between 300 MHz and 3 GHz , also known as the decimetre band or decimetre wave as the wavelengths range from one to ten decimetres...

 digital channel 14. Through the use of PSIP

Program and System Information Protocol

The Program and System Information Protocol is the protocol used in the ATSC digital television system for carrying metadata about each channel in the broadcast MPEG transport stream of a TV station and for publishing information about television programs so that viewers can select what to watch...

, digital television receivers display WGPX's virtual channel

Virtual channel

In telecommunications, a logical channel number , also known as virtual channel, is a channel designation which differs from that of the actual radio channel on which the signal travels....

 as 16.

History

The station signed on as WRDG in 1984 with a religious format. It became WAAP in 1990, continuing to air religious shows as well as adding home shopping programming from Shop at Home. The station added cartoons in the early mornings and afternoons in the fall of 1992, and some low budget barter entertainment shows in the evenings in the winter of that year. For a brief time in 1991/1992, WAAP ran a local newscast, "News Source 16". WXII-TV weatherman Austin Caviness was one of the personalities. By 1993, WAAP had become a general entertainment station running mostly barter shows and professional wrestling

Professional wrestling

Professional wrestling is a mode of spectacle, combining athletics and theatrical performance.Roland Barthes, "The World of Wrestling", Mythologies, 1957 It takes the form of events, held by touring companies, which mimic a title match combat sport...

 from the United States Wrestling Association

United States Wrestling Association

The United States Wrestling Association or USWA was a professional wrestling promotion based in Memphis, Tennessee. It was founded by former CWA owner Jerry Jarrett.-Foundation:...

, Smoky Mountain Wrestling

Smoky Mountain Wrestling

Smoky Mountain Wrestling was a professional wrestling promotion that held events in the Appalachian area of the United States from October 1991 to December 1995, when it was run by Jim Cornette...

, and the World Wrestling Federation

World Wrestling Entertainment

World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. is an American publicly traded, privately controlled entertainment company dealing primarily in professional wrestling, with major revenue sources also coming from film, music, product licensing, and direct product sales...

.

The station originally desired to affiliate with UPN

UPN

United Paramount Network was a television network that was broadcast in over 200 markets in the United States from 1995 to 2006. UPN was originally owned by Viacom/Paramount and Chris-Craft Industries, the former of which, through the Paramount Television Group, produced most of the network's...

 and WB when those networks launched in 1995, but both networks affiliated with other stations instead (WB with WTWB-TV; UPN with WXLV-TV

WXLV-TV

WXLV-TV is the ABC-affiliated television station for the Piedmont Triad area of North Carolina that is licensed to Winston-Salem. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 29 from a transmitter in Randleman along I-73/U.S. 220...

/WUPN-TV). By the fall of that year, WAAP did manage to pick up a few syndicated

Television syndication

In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...

 cartoons from WXLV and WUPN.

Paxson bought the station in July 1996, and by the end of the year, WAAP was running infomercial

Infomercial

Infomercials are direct response television commercials which generally include a phone number or website. There are long-form infomercials, which are typically between 15 and 30 minutes in length, and short-form infomercials, which are typically 30 seconds to 120 seconds in length. Infomercials...

s and religious shows from morning to evening and Worship music overnight. The station changed its call letters to WGPX in January 1998, and became an affiliate of Pax TV that August.
In July 2005, Pax TV became i, and on January 29, 2007, the network was again renamed, this time to ION Television.
Along with its name change to Ion, WGPX began broadcasting three other networks on its new Digital TV channels, including Qubo

Qubo

Qubo is a multi-platform children's television specialty channel endeavor operated as a joint venture between ION Media Networks, NBCUniversal, Nelvana, Scholastic Corporation, and Classic Media...

 Children's Network (16.2), ION Life

ION Life

ION Life is a digital television network carried by ION Television affiliates, airing lifestyle programming during the day, and movies in the evening. It was launched February 19, 2007...

 Health Network (16.3), and Worship Network (16.4). (The Worship Network was removed from all Ion-owned stations, including WGPX, on February 1, 2010.)

The station broadcast for many years from a transmitter located in the Cane Creek Mountains

Cane Creek Mountains

Cane Creek Mountains is a small mountain range that lies south of Burlington, North Carolina. The range covers an area including Alamance County, Guilford County, Randolph County, and Chatham County in North Carolina.-Formation:...

 near Snow Camp, but has since moved their transmitter to southern Rockingham County.

Out-of-market DirecTV coverage

In Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

, WGPX is available on DirecTV

DirecTV

DirecTV is an American direct broadcast satellite service provider and broadcaster based in El Segundo, California. Its satellite service, launched on June 17, 1994, transmits digital satellite television and audio to households in the United States, Latin America, and the Anglophone Caribbean. ...

 in Grayson County

Grayson County, Virginia

As of the census of 2000, there were 17,917 people, 7,259 households, and 5,088 families residing in the county. The population density was 40 people per square mile . There were 9,123 housing units at an average density of 21 per square mile...

, which is part of the Roanoke

Roanoke, Virginia

Roanoke is an independent city in the Mid-Atlantic U.S. state of Virginia and is the tenth-largest city in the Commonwealth. It is located in the Roanoke Valley of the Roanoke Region of Virginia. The population within the city limits was 97,032 as of 2010...

 DMA

Media market

A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area , Television Market Area , or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same television and radio station offerings, and may also include other types of media including newspapers and Internet content...

.