WMBC-TV

Last updated

WMBC-TV
City Newton, New Jersey
Channels
BrandingWMBC TV 63
Programming
Affiliations
Ownership
OwnerMountain Broadcasting Corporation
History
FoundedAugust 1987
First air date
April 26, 1993(31 years ago) (1993-04-26)
Former channel number(s)
  • Analog: 63 (UHF, 1993–2009)
Call sign meaning
Mountain Broadcasting Corporation
Technical information [1]
Licensing authority
 FCC
Facility ID 43952
ERP 250 kW
HAAT 520 m (1,706 ft)
Transmitter coordinates 40°42′46.8″N74°0′47.3″W / 40.713000°N 74.013139°W / 40.713000; -74.013139
Links
Public license information
Website wmbctv.com

WMBC-TV (channel 63) is a television station licensed to Newton, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York metropolitan area as an affiliate of Merit Street Media. The station is owned by the Mountain Broadcasting Corporation, and maintains studios on Clinton Road in West Caldwell, New Jersey; it transmits from atop One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan.

Contents

History

Mountain Broadcasting was founded in 1985 by a group of Korean Americans, led by the Reverend Sun Young Joo of Wayne, New Jersey. The group secured a construction permit from the FCC to build channel 63 in 1987, [2] and the station began operations on April 26, 1993, with a Christian religious format, running mostly programs from FamilyNet. Later in 1993, the station also began running public domain movies and film shorts from Main Street TV, along with FamilyNet programs.

In 1996, when New York City-owned WNYC-TV (channel 31, now Ion Television owned-and-operated station WPXN-TV) dropped its ethnic, foreign-language television programming following its sale to private interests, many of these programs were picked up by WMBC-TV. WMBC also dropped FamilyNet and Main Street TV programming and began to air more infomercials and religious shows directly from ministries. By 1997, it ran a blend of religion and infomercials during the day and ethnic shows at night and on Saturdays. It was also running several hours a week of educational kids' shows, and began producing a local newscast.

In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the station temporarily broadcast NBC's flagship station WNBC (channel 4). [3]

WMBC had an extremely weak over-the-air signal in New York City, but with a new antenna atop One World Trade Center, it can be seen more clearly. The station is also carried on most of the cable providers in that market, including Charter Spectrum and Optimum. Its signal was dropped from DirecTV's New York City local stations package on December 31, 2005; however, DirecTV resumed carriage of WMBC in early 2009.

Programming

Prior to the switch to Merit Street Media, WMBC-TV's lineup consisted of brokered ethnic and religious programs, a half-hour weekday newscast, infomercials and children's programs to satisfy the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s "educational/informational" requirements. [4]

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of WMBC-TV [5]
Channel Res. Aspect Short nameProgramming
63.1 720p 16:9 MeritSt Merit Street Media
63.2MYSTERY Ion Mystery
63.4 480i Blank[Blank]
63.54:3NTDTV NTD Television (in Chinese)
63.616:9ShopHQ ShopHQ
63.74:3ALIENTOAliento Vision (in Spanish)
63.8Audio onlyWDNJ WDNJ 88.1 FM (Spanish Christian)
63.9KCBNKorean Christian Broadcasting Network

Analog-to-digital conversion

WMBC-TV ended regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 63, on February 17, 2009, to conclude the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. [6] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 18, using virtual channel 63. [7]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "Facility Technical Data for WMBC-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. ↑ "Koreans Win TV Franchise". The New York Times . Section 1. Associated Press. August 22, 1987. p. 50.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  3. ↑ Dempsey, John (September 20, 2001). "TV beams back into N.Y." Retrieved January 19, 2017.
  4. ↑ "WMBC-TV 63.1 September 2023 Program Schedule" (PDF). wmbctv.com. Mountain Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  5. ↑ "RabbitEars TV Query for WMBC". RabbitEars.info . Retrieved December 21, 2019.
  6. ↑ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and Second Rounds" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013.
  7. ↑ "CDBS Print". Fjallfoss.fcc.gov. Retrieved December 10, 2011.
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