WTCN-CA
Encyclopedia
WTCN-CA is the Class A
MyNetworkTV
-affiliated television station
for West Palm Beach, Florida
. It broadcasts a low-powered analog signal on UHF channel 50 from a transmitter south of Port Saint Lucie and I-95
in Martin County
. Owned by the Four Points Media Group
and operated through a local service agreement
(LSA) by the Nexstar Broadcasting Group
, WTCN is sister to CW affiliate WTVX
and Class A Azteca América
affiliate WWHB-CA
. All three share studios in a skyscraper
at the corner of Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard and North Congress Avenue in West Palm Beach.
Syndicated
programming on WTCN includes: King of the Hill
, Law & Order: SVU, Star Trek: The Next Generation
, and Everybody Hates Chris
. It can be seen on Comcast
channel 15 (except in Vero Beach
and northern St. Lucie
County) and this is reflected on its on-air branding, My 15. As of October 2011, the channel is available to DirecTV
subscribers on its former analog channel, 43; the station is currently not available on DISH Network
. As a result of its low-powered status, WTCN does not broadcast a digital signal of its own. However, there is one offered on WTVX's third digital subchannel to serve as that purpose. This broadcasts on UHF channel 34.3 from the same transmitter as WTCN.
and had the call letters W16AR. It was located on UHF channel 16 and was licensed to Stuart
. Retired businessman August Gabriel began the station with $200,000 and three employees. From October 1996 until February 1997, it briefly produced a local morning show known as Good Morning Treasure Coast that was hosted by Tom Teter. Ed Birchfield also briefly hosted a 7 p.m. Treasure Coast News program from February to July 1997.
The station moved to UHF channel 15 in 2001 and again to UHF channel 14 in 2002. It added a translator on UHF channel 53 in order to reach West Palm Beach. At some point, the station received the present calls of WTCN-CA and changed to UHF channel 43. This aired from a transmitter at the western boundary of Johnathan Dickinson State Park in Martin County
southwest of Juniper Island
. The call letters were originally used by two stations in Minneapolis
/St. Paul, Minnesota that are now WCCO-TV
and KARE
.
Bill Brothers, who had been operating WTCN through a local marketing agreement
(LMA) since 1997, purchased the station for an undisclosed price in 2001. In 2005, Viacom
bought WTCN and sister station WWHB-CA from Bill Brothers for $7.7 million. Viacom moved the station's studios to West Palm Beach and improved its signal. At some point during the first six months of that year, it began airing Kids' WB
when the area's primary UPN
and secondary WB affiliate WTVX stopped airing it. WTCN became affiliated with The WB, its first full network affiliation, in Fall 2005. Until that point, WTVX had aired programming from that network after UPN prime time.
On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced that they would end broadcasting and merge. The new combined network would be called The CW. The letters would represent the first initial of its corporate parents, CBS
(the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros.
unit of Time Warner
. WTVX, which is a full-powered station, was announced as becoming an affiliate of the new network. On February 22, News Corporation
announced that it would start up another new broadcast television network called MyNetworkTV. This new network, which would be sister to Fox, would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created to give UPN and WB stations that were not becoming CW affiliates another option besides becoming independent. It was also created to compete against The CW.
At the announcement of creating MyNetworkTV, it was unknown if there would be an affiliate in the Treasure
and Gold
Coasts. However, when the network was launched on September 5, WTCN became an affiliate. Its website was re-located to "wtcn.com" and was formatted with promotions for MyNetworkTV. The "wtcn.com" URL now redirects to its own separate section of the WTVX website. It was one of only two MyNetworkTV affiliates owned by CBS. In 2006, WTCN placed sixth in the Nielsen ratings
in the Palm Beach market
with 0.4% of the audience. On February 7, 2007, CBS agreed to sell seven of its smaller-market stations to Cerberus Capital Management
for $185 million dollars. Cerberus then formed a new holding company for the stations, Four Points Media Group, who took over the operation of the stations through local marketing agreements in late-June 2007. On January 10, 2008, Four Points officially became the owner of the stations.
During CBS ownership, all three stations (WTVX, WTCN, and WWHB) had some internal operations and master control based at WFOR-TV
's studios in Miami which had served as the South Florida flagship of the CBS-owned cluster. On February 25, 2008, the master control for Four Points' entire West Palm Beach cluster were relocated to the hub facility at KUTV in Salt Lake City. After the digital transition date on June 12, 2009, WTCN began airing on WTVX's previous analog channel.
On September 8, 2011, Sinclair Broadcast Group
announced its intent to purchase Four Points from Cerberus Capital Management for $200 million; Sinclair will begin managing the stations, including WTCN-CA, under local marketing agreements following antitrust approval, until the close of the sale, which is expected in early 2012. Sinclair subsequently announced its purchase of the entire broadcasting division of Freedom Communications
, including CBS
affiliate WPEC
. As a result, Sinclair would control three of the six largest English-language network affiliations in West Palm Beach.
Class A television service
The class A television service is a system for regulating some low-power television stations in the United States. Class A stations are denoted by the broadcast callsign suffix "-CA" or "-CD" , although very many analog -CA stations have a digital companion channel that was assigned the -LD...
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV is a television broadcast syndication service in the United States, owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a division of News Corporation...
-affiliated television station
Television station
A television station is a business, organisation or other such as an amateur television operator that transmits content over terrestrial television. A television transmission can be by analog television signals or, more recently, by digital television. Broadcast television systems standards are...
for West Palm Beach, Florida
West Palm Beach, Florida
West Palm Beach, is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and is the most populous city in and county seat of Palm Beach County, the third most populous county in Florida with a 2010 population of 1,320,134. The city is also the oldest incorporated municipality in South Florida...
. It broadcasts a low-powered analog signal on UHF channel 50 from a transmitter south of Port Saint Lucie and I-95
Interstate 95 in Florida
Interstate 95 is the main Interstate Highway on the east coast of the United States; it serves the Atlantic coast of Florida. It begins at a partial interchange with U.S. Highway 1 just south of downtown Miami, and heads north past Daytona Beach and Jacksonville to the Georgia state line at the St...
in Martin County
Martin County, Florida
Martin County is a county in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 126,731. The U.S. Census Bureau 2008 estimate for the county is 138,660. Its county seat is Stuart, Florida.- History :...
. Owned by the Four Points Media Group
Four Points Media Group
Four Points Media Group LLC is a television station holding company founded by the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management in 2007 with its purchase of seven television stations previously owned by CBS Television Stations, a subsidiary of CBS Corporation.Four Points Media Group took over...
and operated through a local service agreement
Local marketing agreement
In U.S. and Canadian broadcasting, a local marketing agreement is an agreement in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another licensee...
(LSA) by the Nexstar Broadcasting Group
Nexstar Broadcasting Group
Nexstar Broadcasting Group, Inc., is an entity of broadcast television stations headquartered in Irving, Texas. The company consists of 50 television stations across the U.S., ranging from market sizes 9 to 201 . 43 of the stations are broadcasting at full power, with the other 4 broadcasting at...
, WTCN is sister to CW affiliate WTVX
WTVX
WTVX is the CW-affiliated television station for West Palm Beach, Florida that is licensed to Fort Pierce. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 34 from a transmitter southwest of Palm City and I-95 in Martin County...
and Class A Azteca América
Azteca América
Azteca América is a broadcast television network marketed toward Spanish-speaking families residing in the United States. As a rapidly-growing Spanish language network, Azteca América now reaches 89% of the Hispanic households in the U.S., operating in sixty-two markets nationwide. Wholly owned by...
affiliate WWHB-CA
WWHB-CA
WWHB-CA is an Azteca América affiliate in West Palm Beach, Florida, but actually licensed to Stuart. Owned by the Four Points Media Group and operated under a local service agreement by the Nexstar Broadcasting Group, WWHB is sister station to CW and RTN affiliate WTVX and MyNetworkTV affiliate...
. All three share studios in a skyscraper
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
at the corner of Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard and North Congress Avenue in West Palm Beach.
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...
programming on WTCN includes: King of the Hill
King of the Hill
King of the Hill is an American animated dramedy series created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, that ran from January 12, 1997, to May 6, 2010, on Fox network. It centers on the Hills, a working-class Methodist family in the fictional small town of Arlen, Texas...
, Law & Order: SVU, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production...
, and Everybody Hates Chris
Everybody Hates Chris
Everybody Hates Chris is an African American television period sitcom inspired by the teenage experiences of comedian Chris Rock , while growing up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York . The show is set from 1982 to 1987; however, Rock himself was a teenager during years...
. It can be seen on Comcast
Comcast
Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...
channel 15 (except in Vero Beach
Vero Beach, Florida
Vero Beach is a city in Indian River County, Florida, USA. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2006 estimates, the city had a population of 16,939. It is the county seat of Indian River County...
and northern St. Lucie
St. Lucie County, Florida
St. Lucie County is a county located in the state of Florida. The county seat is the city of Fort Pierce. In the year 2000, the population was 192,695. As of the year 2010, the United States Census Bureau sets the population at 277,789.- History :...
County) and this is reflected on its on-air branding, My 15. As of October 2011, the channel is available to 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. ...
subscribers on its former analog channel, 43; the station is currently not available on DISH Network
Dish Network
Dish Network Corporation is the second largest pay TV provider in the United States, providing direct broadcast satellite service—including satellite television, audio programming, and interactive television services—to 14.337 million commercial and residential customers in the United States. Dish...
. As a result of its low-powered status, WTCN does not broadcast a digital signal of its own. However, there is one offered on WTVX's third digital subchannel to serve as that purpose. This broadcasts on UHF channel 34.3 from the same transmitter as WTCN.
History
The station began broadcasting on January 11, 1991 as an independentIndependent station
An independent station is in the category of television terminology used to describe a television station broadcasting in the United States or Canada that is not affiliated with any television network....
and had the call letters W16AR. It was located on UHF channel 16 and was licensed to Stuart
Stuart, Florida
Stuart is the only incorporated city of Martin County, Florida, on Florida's Treasure Coast. The population was 14,633 at the 2000 census. As of 2007, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 15,964....
. Retired businessman August Gabriel began the station with $200,000 and three employees. From October 1996 until February 1997, it briefly produced a local morning show known as Good Morning Treasure Coast that was hosted by Tom Teter. Ed Birchfield also briefly hosted a 7 p.m. Treasure Coast News program from February to July 1997.
The station moved to UHF channel 15 in 2001 and again to UHF channel 14 in 2002. It added a translator on UHF channel 53 in order to reach West Palm Beach. At some point, the station received the present calls of WTCN-CA and changed to UHF channel 43. This aired from a transmitter at the western boundary of Johnathan Dickinson State Park in Martin County
Martin County, Florida
Martin County is a county in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 126,731. The U.S. Census Bureau 2008 estimate for the county is 138,660. Its county seat is Stuart, Florida.- History :...
southwest of Juniper Island
Jupiter Island, Florida
Jupiter Island is a town on the barrier island of Jupiter Island in Martin County, Florida, United States. It has no post office and all mail comes from Hobe Sound on the mainland. The population was 620 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Port St. Lucie Metropolitan Statistical Area. In 2004,...
. The call letters were originally used by two stations in Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
/St. Paul, Minnesota that are now WCCO-TV
WCCO-TV
WCCO-TV, is the CBS owned and operated television station that serves the Minneapolis-St. Paul area of Minnesota. Its transmitter is at the Telefarm complex in Shoreview, Minnesota.- History :...
and KARE
KARE
KARE, digital channel 11, is an NBC-affiliated television station licensed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and serving the Minneapolis-St. Paul area of Minnesota and portions of western Wisconsin. It also operates KARE WX NOW, formerly known as NBC Weather Plus on its second digital subchannel...
.
Bill Brothers, who had been operating WTCN through a local marketing agreement
Local marketing agreement
In U.S. and Canadian broadcasting, a local marketing agreement is an agreement in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another licensee...
(LMA) since 1997, purchased the station for an undisclosed price in 2001. In 2005, Viacom
Viacom
Viacom Inc. , short for "Video & Audio Communications", is an American media conglomerate with interests primarily in, but not limited to, cinema and cable television...
bought WTCN and sister station WWHB-CA from Bill Brothers for $7.7 million. Viacom moved the station's studios to West Palm Beach and improved its signal. At some point during the first six months of that year, it began airing Kids' WB
Kids' WB
Kids' WB! was Warner Bros. American childrens programing division brand for The WB Television Network. In September 2006, the block moved to The CW Television Network. The CW is the result of The WB's merger with UPN in 2006...
when the area's primary 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 secondary WB affiliate WTVX stopped airing it. WTCN became affiliated with The WB, its first full network affiliation, in Fall 2005. Until that point, WTVX had aired programming from that network after UPN prime time.
On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced that they would end broadcasting and merge. The new combined network would be called The CW. The letters would represent the first initial of its corporate parents, CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
(the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
unit of Time Warner
Time Warner
Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...
. WTVX, which is a full-powered station, was announced as becoming an affiliate of the new network. On February 22, News Corporation
News Corporation
News Corporation or News Corp. is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the world's second-largest media conglomerate as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster...
announced that it would start up another new broadcast television network called MyNetworkTV. This new network, which would be sister to Fox, would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created to give UPN and WB stations that were not becoming CW affiliates another option besides becoming independent. It was also created to compete against The CW.
At the announcement of creating MyNetworkTV, it was unknown if there would be an affiliate in the Treasure
Treasure Coast
The Treasure Coast is a region in the U.S. state of Florida, generally considered to include Indian River, St. Lucie, and Martin counties. The area stretches from Hobe Sound in the south to north of Sebastian in the north and includes the cities of Stuart, Port St. Lucie, Fort Pierce, and Vero Beach...
and Gold
Gold Coast (Florida)
The Gold Coast is the region of the southeastern coast of the U.S. state of Florida between Tequesta and Florida City. The region consists of the long urban cluster that runs along the eastern shores of Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade County; also called the South Florida metropolitan area...
Coasts. However, when the network was launched on September 5, WTCN became an affiliate. Its website was re-located to "wtcn.com" and was formatted with promotions for MyNetworkTV. The "wtcn.com" URL now redirects to its own separate section of the WTVX website. It was one of only two MyNetworkTV affiliates owned by CBS. In 2006, WTCN placed sixth in the Nielsen ratings
Nielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
in the Palm Beach market
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...
with 0.4% of the audience. On February 7, 2007, CBS agreed to sell seven of its smaller-market stations to Cerberus Capital Management
Cerberus Capital Management
Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. is one of the largest private equity investment firms in the United States. The firm is based in New York City, and run by -year-old financier Steve Feinberg. Former U.S...
for $185 million dollars. Cerberus then formed a new holding company for the stations, Four Points Media Group, who took over the operation of the stations through local marketing agreements in late-June 2007. On January 10, 2008, Four Points officially became the owner of the stations.
During CBS ownership, all three stations (WTVX, WTCN, and WWHB) had some internal operations and master control based at WFOR-TV
WFOR-TV
WFOR-TV, virtual channel 4.1 , is the CBS owned-and-operated station in Miami, Florida. WFOR shares its TV studio facilities with sister station WBFS-TV in Doral, near Miami International Airport, and its transmitter is located in Miramar.WFOR-TV also previously had two translator stations in the...
's studios in Miami which had served as the South Florida flagship of the CBS-owned cluster. On February 25, 2008, the master control for Four Points' entire West Palm Beach cluster were relocated to the hub facility at KUTV in Salt Lake City. After the digital transition date on June 12, 2009, WTCN began airing on WTVX's previous analog channel.
On September 8, 2011, Sinclair Broadcast Group
Sinclair Broadcast Group
The Sinclair Broadcast Group is an American telecommunications company that operates the largest number of local television stations in the United States. Headquartered in Hunt Valley, Maryland, it owns a total of 57 stations across the country in 35 primarily small and medium markets, many of...
announced its intent to purchase Four Points from Cerberus Capital Management for $200 million; Sinclair will begin managing the stations, including WTCN-CA, under local marketing agreements following antitrust approval, until the close of the sale, which is expected in early 2012. Sinclair subsequently announced its purchase of the entire broadcasting division of Freedom Communications
Freedom Communications
Freedom Communications, Inc. is a media conglomerate in the United States. It owns approximately 100 daily and weekly newspapers in the US, with a combined daily circulation of nearly one million subscribers, and also operates over seventy local news websites...
, including CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
affiliate WPEC
WPEC
WPEC is the CBS-affiliated television station for the Gold and Treasure Coasts of South Florida. Licensed to West Palm Beach, it broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 13 from a transmitter in Lake Worth along U.S. 441/SR 7. The station is the flagship of Freedom Communications...
. As a result, Sinclair would control three of the six largest English-language network affiliations in West Palm Beach.