WPSG

Encyclopedia : W : WP : WPS : WPSG

WPSG, channel 57, is currently the UPN-affiliated television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Like UPN, WPSG is owned by the CBS Corporation, and is also a sister station to KYW-TV (channel 3). The studios are within the KYW facility in downtown Philadelphia, with transmitter located in the Roxborough section of the city.

On January 24, 2006, the UPN and WB networks announced that they would merge. The newly combined network would be called The CW, the letters representing the first initial of its corporate parents CBS and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. The merger will take effect on-the-air in September 2006, and WPSG will be the CW's Philadelphia station.

WPSG will also air CBS programs whenever KYW-TV is unable to do so, such as during a news emergency.

History

1950s: WGLV-TV

The channel 57 frequency was originally assigned to Easton, Pennsylvania. In the 1950's it was home to WGLV-TV, a dual ABC-DuMont affiliate owned by the Easton Express newspaper. Unfortunately, the station struggled to get an audience mainly due to the fact that it was a UHF station at a time when television manufacturers were not required to offer UHF tuners. Its fate was sealed when the Philadelphia stations built tall towers in Philadelphia's Roxborough neighborhood, adding Easton and the rest of the Lehigh Valley to their city-grade coverage [link]. WGLV went dark soon afterward, and somewhere along the line the FCC reassigned channel 57 to Philadelphia. [link].

1981-1985: Prism/FNN

A WWSG ident from a 1981 signoff. In 1984, the station was broadcasting a scrambled signal of the PRISM network at this time.

Channel 57 first signed on the air as a Philadelphia station on August 31, 1981 as WWSG-TV. The station aired Financial News Network programming during the day, and subscription television at night. The station ultimately dropped the FNN feed when it decided to switch to a full-time subscription format eighteen months later, picking up the now-defunct PRISM pay-cable service (a forerunner to Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia) in 1983.

1985-1995: Independent station

A WGBS station ID from 1993.

A distinct feature of WGBS was the very slick look adopted by the station. WGBS boldly branded itself as Philly 57, and also adopted the use of CGI graphics of near network-quality. The station's announcer, Kim Martin (then an announcer at WPEN radio), offered bold, brash, and entertaining voice-overs. The station's slick look and strong programming helped it become a strong runner-up to WTAF-TV (channel 29, now WTXF-TV) within only a year of becoming a full-service independent. Grant had hoped to have his stations -- in addition to channel 57, Grant owned UHF independents in Miami and Chicago at the time -- become regional or national superstations. However, he overpaid for programming. The resulting debt led him to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late 1986. In 1989, Grant's creditors seized his stations after Grant failed to meet the terms of his bankruptcy agreement. Combined Broadcasting, a creditor-controlled holding company, took control of the former Grant stations. Combined put the stations up for sale in 1993, but it would be two years before Combined found a buyer, and only then in a roundabout way.

In early 1994 Viacom's newly-acquired subsidiary Paramount Pictures announced plans to form the United Paramount Network, in tandem with Chris-Craft Industries. In Philadelphia, Viacom owned Fox affiliate WTXF, and initially planned to make that station the market's UPN outlet. Although there was no official word that WTXF was about to change networks, Fox received enough unofficial indications that it made a tentative deal with Combined to buy WGBS and move its programming there.

However, later that year, Westinghouse Broadcasting, owners of NBC-affiliated KYW-TV, cut a deal with CBS to switch channel three and two of Westinghouse's other stations to CBS. New World Communications had recently partnered with Fox, and emerged as a candidate to purchase CBS' longtime owned-and-operated WCAU-TV (channel 10). Fox then canceled its preliminary deal with Combined to buy channel 57 and entered into the WCAU bidding just in case New World's offer fell through. However, Viacom opted to sell WTXF to Fox, opening the door for WCAU to be purchased by NBC. Using the cash received from Fox for channel 29, Viacom then bought WGBS and its Miami sister station, WBFS. As soon as the deal closed, Viacom announced both stations would join UPN. Ironically, of course, Viacom had been the owner of the majority of channel 57's schedule back in 1985, and in fact was one of Grant's former creditors and a part-owner of Combined. Grant had been under particularly strong pressure to repay his debt to Viacom prior to filing bankruptcy.

1995-present: As a UPN station

A CBS 3 Eyewitness News weather update on WPSG in 2006.

WGBS became Philadelphia's UPN station on January 16, 1995, the day the network was launched. After UPN launched, the station's image changed to fit its new status. The name changed to "UPN Philly 57" and finally "UPN57", the graphics got simpler, and Martin was replaced by the more staid Larry Van Nuys. In September 1995, Viacom changed the call letters to WPSG, for "Paramount Stations Group." Also gradually the old sitcoms and cartoons were replaced by first run syndicated talk/reality/court shows. Viacom bought CBS in 2000, and WPSG later moved into KYW's studios on Independence Mall. In the same year Viacom also purchased Chris-Craft's 50-percent share of UPN, making WPSG UPN's largest owned-and-operated station, which it remains to this day.

Today, WPSG, while broadcasting the usual mix of syndicated and UPN network programming, is trying to position itself as more of a "local" station, using the tagline "So Philly, So U!" Weekend movie marathons, usually hosted by local personalities (or KYW/WPSG staff like Sean Murphy), have become normal, and the station recently broadcast the Philadelphia version of "Gimme The Mike!", a competition for aspiring stand-up comedians. In recent years, WPSG has become Philadelphia's leading sports station. Since the late 1990s, it has acquired over-the-air rights to MLB's Philadelphia Phillies and the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers in addition to its long-standing coverage of the Flyers (although the majority of those teams' games are on Comcast SportsNet).

When Viacom and CBS Corporation split in 2005, WPSG became part of the latter company along with the rest of Viacom's broadcasting interests.

While the branding was removed in 1995, the "Philly 57" branding was so effective that many still call the station by that name today. It is probably for this reason that, in a surprising move, WPSG announced that it would be reviving the name in September when it becomes Philadelphia's CW affiliate.

News Operations

"wake upnews" open, 2005.

"CBS 3 Eyewitness Weather" rejoin from a repurposed KYW-TV newscast, 2005. Note the CBS elements in the background.

In September 2002, KYW radio, KYW-TV and WPSG launched a morning news program called KYW NewsRadio This Morning. Originally anchored by KYW radio anchor Beth Trapani, the broadcast was essentially an embellished radio newscast, with simple graphics and video borrowed from KYW-TV. Trapani was succeeded by Ed Abrams, who gave way in turn to Leslie Van Arsdall. The newscast did surprisingly better than expected, but the effort would be short-lived: KYW Newsradio This Morning aired its final broadcast on May 30, 2005.

The following day, a new program called Wake UPNews, whose production is outsourced by KYW/WPSG to Traffic Pulse, premiered in the four-hour time slot previously held by KYW NewsRadio This Morning. This show is fronted by news anchor Karen Adams, meteorologist Christa Quinn, and traffic reporter Sean Murphy. The music was written especially for the station, while the graphics were created by Emmy Award winner Randy Pyburn. The graphics are a variant of KYW-TV's package, with red as the primary color (KYW-TV's primary color is blue). Interestingly, the Pyburn graphics package is quite similar to the one created for WNBC-TV in 2003, which some NBC owned and operated stations are currently standardizing around.

Since the fall of 2004, KYW-TV has broadcast its news on WPSG whenever it had an obligation to show network sports programming. These broadcasts carried KYW-TV's regular CBS 3 branding and graphics, but the channel bug was changed to WPSG's UPN 57.

Trivia

WPSG's future logo.

As WPSG will become an affiliate of The CW, it will be the network's largest O&O, due to its ownership by CBS Corporation-or either parent company for that matter, since co-owner Time Warner owns only one TV station, independent WTBS (aka TBS Superstation). Not only that, but WPSG will also be the new network's largest UHF station (New York's WPIX, Los Angeles' KTLA-TV and Chicago's WGN-TV, all joining the CW, are all VHF stations). In addition, the station will revert to the original "Philly 57" moniker, as seen on the left side illustration.

External links

• [WPSG website]
• [Query the FCC's TV station database for WPSG]

.54 billion USD (2005) | Employees: Unknown at this time. | Stock Symbol: NYSE: [CBS] | Website: [www.cbscorporation.com]

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