WRDQ

Last updated

WRDQ
Channels
Branding Central Florida's TV 27; Eyewitness News
Programming
Affiliations
Ownership
Owner
WFTV
History
First air date
April 23, 2000;25 years ago (2000-04-23)
Former channel numbers
  • Analog: 27 (UHF, 2000–2009)
  • Digital: 14 (UHF, 2002–2009)
Technical information [1]
Licensing authority
 FCC
Facility ID 55454
ERP 1,000 kW
HAAT 490 m (1,608 ft)
Transmitter coordinates 28°34′7″N81°3′16″W / 28.56861°N 81.05444°W / 28.56861; -81.05444
Links
Public license information
Website www.wftv.com/tv27community

WRDQ (channel 27) is an independent television station in Orlando, Florida, United States. It is owned by Cox Media Group alongside ABC affiliate WFTV (channel 9). The two stations share studios on East South Street in downtown Orlando; WRDQ's transmitter is located near Bithlo, Florida.

Contents

WRDQ began broadcasting on April 23, 2000, and has been associated with WFTV throughout its history. The original permit was held by a company headed by Marsha Reece, a former WFTV anchor and reporter, and her husband. Before it launched, Reece contracted with WFTV for programming, and soon after it launched, Cox was able to buy WRDQ outright and create a duopoly. It airs syndicated programming, morning and nighttime newscasts from WFTV, and overflow programming when necessary. One subchannel is leased to provide a high-power signal for WTMO-CD, Orlando's Telemundo station.

History

In 1984, Allen Sheets petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for the addition of channel 27 at Orlando, Florida. [2] Owing to certain "UHF taboos" concerning interference between any two stations, a station two, three, four or five channels apart from an adjacent station (in this case, WMFE-TV on channel 24) could not place their transmitter within 20 miles (32 km) of the other due to intermodulation (spurious signals); nor could a station eight channels apart (WOFL on channel 35) within 20 miles so as to avoid an intermediate frequency beat signal. Furthermore, the new station had to space its transmitter 55 miles (89 km) away from channel 26 in Daytona Beach to avoid co-channel interference. [3] Although such an arrangement could not happen when the final Television Table of Assignments was first adopted on April 11, 1952, [4] the Bithlo tower farm 12 miles (19 km) east of Orlando, where WMFE-TV and WOFL were transmitting, made this arrangement possible, and on August 31, 1984, the FCC added channel 27 on the condition that the station's transmitter be sited 4.6 miles (7.4 km) south of the city coordinates. [2]

In August 1988, an FCC administrative law judge awarded the construction permit for channel 27 in Orlando to Reece Associates Ltd., controlled by WFTV reporter Marsha Reece and her husband Rudy as well as two out-of-state investors. Reece was one of nine applicants for the channel, which Reece promised to program with a format including shows for the Black community. [5] In 1992, the final appeals by the losing applicants were dismissed, and Reece resigned from her post at WFTV to begin the process of building channel 27. [6] At one point, the Seminole Tribe of Florida considered investing in the permit. [7]

Between the time Reece applied for the permit and the time construction was proposed for the tower, upscale homes were built near the tower site in Clermont, and residents were upset when the tower was proposed. [8] In February 1994, Lake County officials denied zoning for the tower 8–0. [9]

In 1995, Reece signed a time brokerage agreement with WFTV and agreed to co-locate the station—then designated WZWY—at WFTV's offices. [10] However, the project remained stalled over tower siting issues. [11] The station debuted as WRDQ on April 23, 2000, from a new 1,875-foot (572 m) tower in Kissimmee. It offered talk show repeats in prime time, classic TV series, and Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball. [12] Several months before WRDQ signed on, in August 1999, the FCC began allowing duopolies involving commercially licensed television stations, allowing Cox to exercise an option to acquire the station outright on February 1, 2001. Marsha Reece told the Orlando Sentinel that they never thought the FCC would allow duopoly ownership and make the option legal. [13]

On May 24, 2011, Cox decided to use WRDQ to carry coverage of the Casey Anthony trial in full from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with WFTV airing the last hour from 4 to 5 p.m., preempting the station's weekday programming schedule. [14] High interest in the trial eventually led to coverage being increasingly shifted to WFTV (with WRDQ generally only airing "more procedural" and "more dry or technical" portions); [15] on June 8, coverage was moved to WFTV entirely, after ABC granted Cox permission to move ABC daytime programming to WRDQ for the remainder of the trial. [16] It returned to WFTV upon the trial's conclusion. ABC daytime was temporarily moved to WRDQ once more during WFTV's coverage of the George Zimmerman trial in 2013. [17]

Local programming

Newscasts

In January 2002, WRDQ began airing a 10 p.m. newscast from WFTV. [18] It added a weekday morning newscast at 7 a.m. on WRDQ in 2007 [19] and a half-hour 6:30 p.m. newscast on that station in 2010. [20] The latter was discontinued in 2013, though the next year the 10 p.m. news was expanded to an hour to provide stronger competition for Fox station WOFL. [21] [22]

Sports

WRDQ became the television broadcaster of Orlando City SC soccer in 2016, replacing WOFL and WRBW. [23] WRDQ held the rights through 2018, [24] though the team reached a new multi-year deal with WOFL and WRBW in 2019. [25]

Technical information

Subchannels

WRDQ's transmitter is located near Bithlo, Florida. [1] The station's signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of WRDQ [26]
Channel Res. Aspect Short nameProgramming
27.1 720p 16:9 WRDQ Independent
27.2CourtTV Court TV
27.4 480i HSN2 WEST
31.2 WTMO-SD Telemundo (WTMO-CD)
65.2 480i16:9Movies. Movies! (WRBW)
  Simulcast of subchannels of another station
  Broadcast on behalf of another station

In 2013, Cox began leasing a subchannel of WRDQ to rebroadcast Orlando's low-power Telemundo affiliate, WTMO-CD. [27]

Analog-to-digital conversion

WRDQ began airing a digital signal on April 1, 2002. [28] It ceased analog broadcasting on the original digital television transition date of February 17, 2009, [29] and its digital signal moved from its pre-transition UHF channel 14 to channel 27 for post-transition operations. [30]

References

  1. 1 2 "Facility Technical Data for WRDQ". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. 1 2 "TV Broadcast Station in Orlando, FL". Federal Register. September 17, 1984. p. 36382-36383. Retrieved November 22, 2025.
  3. ↑ Davis, Hector. "A Study of UHF Television Receiver Interference Immunities" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on March 25, 2025. Retrieved November 22, 2025.
  4. ↑ "Sixth Report and Order: Final television allocations report of the Federal Communications Commission" (PDF). Broadcasting. April 14, 1952. pp. 20, 136. Retrieved November 22, 2025.
  5. ↑ "Newscaster closer to getting TV station". The Orlando Sentinel. Orlando, Florida. September 9, 1988. pp. A-1, A-10 . Retrieved November 22, 2025– via Newspapers.com.
  6. ↑ Strother, Susan G. (June 1, 1992). "Working toward station ownership: FCC go-ahead propels Marsha Reece". The Orlando Sentinel. Orlando, Florida. p. Central Florida Business 10. Retrieved November 22, 2025– via Newspapers.com.
  7. ↑ Ash, Jim (July 16, 1993). "Seminoles eye Orlando TV station: Native American ownership likely would be unique in U.S." Florida Today. Cocoa, Florida. p. 20C. Retrieved November 22, 2025– via Newspapers.com.
  8. ↑ "Going up? TV tower has neighbors uneasy". The Orlando Sentinel. Orlando, Florida. January 13, 1994. pp. Lake Sentinel 1, 6 . Retrieved November 22, 2025– via Newspapers.com.
  9. ↑ Fallstrom, Jerry (February 24, 1994). "County zoning commission says no to 1,900-foot TV broadcasting tower". The Orlando Sentinel. Orlando, Florida. p. Lake Sentinel 4. Retrieved November 22, 2025– via Newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ Stutzman, Rene (January 20, 1995). "Old TV station will help run new one: WFTV-Channel 9 says that it will 'manage' fledgling WZWY-Channel 27". The Orlando Sentinel. Orlando, Florida. p. B-6. Retrieved November 22, 2025– via Newspapers.com.
  11. ↑ Stutzman, Rene (July 8, 1996). "Job description: Keep WFTV on top". The Orlando Sentinel. p. Central Florida Business 5. Retrieved August 5, 2023– via Newspapers.com.
  12. ↑ Abbott, Jim (April 21, 2000). "New TV station offers reruns and talk shows". The Orlando Sentinel. p. D-3. Archived from the original on August 5, 2023. Retrieved August 5, 2023– via Newspapers.com.
  13. ↑ Boyd, Christopher (February 2, 2001). "Cox buys WRDQ, now has 2 area stations". Orlando Sentinel. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved April 1, 2012.
  14. ↑ "Casey Anthony: WFTV expands trial coverage, drops Oprah Winfrey – the TV Guy – Orlando Sentinel". Archived from the original on May 30, 2011. Retrieved May 28, 2011.
  15. ↑ "Casey Anthony: WFTV keeps viewers guessing with fluid scheduling". Orlando Sentinel . June 1, 2011. Archived from the original on June 3, 2011. Retrieved June 8, 2011.
  16. ↑ "'The View,' ABC soaps to air on WRDQ starting today". Orlando Sentinel. June 8, 2011. Archived from the original on June 13, 2011. Retrieved June 8, 2011.
  17. ↑ Boedeker, Hal (June 21, 2013). "George Zimmerman trial to rearrange daytime lineup". Orlando Sentinel. Archived from the original on June 27, 2013. Retrieved June 26, 2013.
  18. ↑ "Greg Warmoth..." Orlando Sentinel. January 3, 2002. p. A2. Retrieved August 5, 2023– via Newspapers.com.
  19. ↑ Boedeker, Hal (January 15, 2007). "Echols, Warmoth branch out". Orlando Sentinel. p. C5. Archived from the original on August 5, 2023. Retrieved August 5, 2023– via Newspapers.com.
  20. ↑ Boedeker, Hal (June 17, 2010). "WFTV to add 6:30 p.m. newscast on WRDQ". Orlando Sentinel . Archived from the original on October 26, 2012.
  21. ↑ Boedeker, Hal (June 17, 2013). "WFTV drops 6:30 p.m. news on WRDQ". Orlando Sentinel. Archived from the original on October 4, 2013. Retrieved June 5, 2022.
  22. ↑ Boedeker, Hal (September 16, 2014). "WRDQ expands 10 p.m. news to hour". Orlando Sentinel . Archived from the original on October 6, 2014.
  23. ↑ Boedeker, Hal (January 7, 2016). "Orlando City games move to WRDQ". Orlando Sentinel. Orlando, Florida. p. C2. Retrieved November 22, 2025– via Newspapers.com.
  24. ↑ "Orlando City SC Joins YouTube TV". Orlando City SC. May 3, 2018. Retrieved November 22, 2025.
  25. ↑ "Orlando City SC Announces 2019 MLS Broadcast Talent". Orlando City SC. February 22, 2019. Retrieved November 22, 2025.
  26. ↑ "RabbitEars TV Query for WRDQ". RabbitEars . Retrieved May 3, 2023.
  27. ↑ "First Amendment to Multicast Time Brokerage Agreement" (PDF). Public Inspection File. Federal Communications Commission. May 29, 2015.
  28. ↑ "WRDQ-DT". Television & Cable Factbook. Vol. 74. Warren Communications News. 2006. p. A-541.
  29. ↑ "List of TV stations ending analog broadcasts". NBC News. Associated Press. February 17, 2009. Archived from the original on January 6, 2023. Retrieved March 20, 2023.
  30. ↑ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and Second Rounds" (PDF). Federal Communications Commission. May 23, 2006. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved August 29, 2021.
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