WWHO

Encyclopedia : W : WW : WWH : WWHO

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WWHO "UPN 53" is the Columbus, Ohio television affiliate for both UPN and The WB television network. The station is licensed to Chillicothe, Ohio, though it operates out of a facility in Columbus with its transmitter located just south of Columbus. WWHO is owned and operated by the LIN Television Corporation.

WWHO broadcasts at 5,000,000 watts, the maximum allowed by the Federal Communications Commission covering Columbus and areas south. WWHO-DT (WWHO's digital signal) operates on channel 46.

History

WWHO began operating on September 7, 1987 under owner Wendell Triplet. Originally, the station used the call letters WWAT. At this time WWAT's primary transmitter was based in Chillicothe; a small repeater signal was carried in the Columbus market on channel 17. The call letters WWHO (and the nickname "Who-53") were adopted in 1993, to coincide with the station being added to many cable providers in the Columbus market.

The station operated as an independent station for a number of years until the launch of the The WB television network on January 11, 1995. Then owned by Fant Broadcasting and under a Local marketing agreement with NBC-owned and operated WCMH-TV (which NBC acquired in a merger with the Outlet Company in 1995), WWHO (then "WB 53") remained a WB affiliate until the Paramount Stations Group (a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures, whose parent company is Viacom) agreed to acquire the station in 1997, along with sister station WLWC in Providence and sell Hartford's NBC affiliate WVIT to NBC in return. At that time the station became a secondary UPN affiliate. Not long after, WWHO became a primary UPN affiliate (as "UPN 53" initially, then identifying as "UPN Columbus," without a channel number) and began cutting back on its WB programming. Prior to that, UPN had been secondary on Fox affiliate WTTE. On February 10, 2005, it was announced that the Viacom Television Stations Group (the successor to the Paramount Stations Group as a result of Viacom merging with CBS in 1999) was selling WWHO and WNDY-TV (in the Indianapolis market) to the LIN Television Corporation for $85 million.

WCMH once produced a 10 p.m. newscast for WWHO. On February 10, 2005, LIN Television announced its intention to bring 10 p.m. news back to WWHO. This half-hour newscast, which is produced by WBNS-TV, debuted on September 1, 2005, concurrent with a rebranding of the station as "UPN 53."

When UPN and The WB merge to form The CW Television Network in 2006, WWHO was the obvious choice as the Columbus affiliate for the new network. It already carried WB and UPN programming. More importantly, the only other viable candidate was WSFJ-TV, a religious-oriented station that would have likely preempted much of The CW's racier programming. (The only other station in the market, WGCT-CA, broadcasts at only 83 watts and barely covers Columbus itself.) UPN had previously affiliated with religious station KNLC in St. Louis in 1997, but yanked the affiliation in 1999 due to numerous preemptions. It was not likely that CBS Corporation (which retained UPN after Viacom split itself into two companies in 2005) would want a repeat of this experience in Columbus.

Although LIN had some hesitancy about the CW's business model, the two companies made it official on April 16 2006. [link]

Before WWHO was announced as a CW affiliate, there was a chance that the station might become an affiliate of My Network TV. However, this option ended when LIN TV announced its affiliation deal with My Network TV, and WWHO was not on the list. After that, the local FOX affiliate WTTE, might have picked up My Network TV, as a secondary affiliation. However, this possible secondary affiliation will not happen as WSYX, the area's ABC affiliate, will feature programming from My Network TV on a digital subchannel starting 09/06.

Programming

In addition to UPN and WB network programming, WWHO previously aired the nationally syndicated morning news program "The Daily Buzz". The station dropped the program in mid-summer 2005, following disputes with the program's syndicator.

External links

• [UPN 53]
• [LIN Television Corporation]
• [Query the FCC's TV station database for WWHO]

Broadcast television in the Columbus market  [(Nielsen DMA #32)]
WCMH 4 (NBC) - WSYX 6 (ABC - MNTV on DT2 starting 09/06) - WGCT 8 (IND) - WBNS 10 (CBS) - WDEM-LP 17 (AS) - WCLL-CA 19 (Daystar) - WOUB 20 / WOUC 44 (PBS) - WBKA-CA 22 (A1) - WTTE 28 (Fox) - WCSN-LP 32 (REL) - WOSU 34 (PBS) - WXCB-CA 42 (TBN) - WSFJ 51 (i) - WWHO 53 (UPN/The WB - to be The CW 09/06)

 

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