WMBC-TV
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| 175px | |
| Newton, New Jersey United States |
|
|---|---|
| Branding | WMBC TV 63 (general) WMBC News (newscasts) |
| Channels | Digital: 18 (UHF) Virtual: 63 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | 63.1 WMBC 63.2 CGNTV 63.3 SinoVision 63.4 SinoVision 63.5 NTDTV 63.6 Azteca America 63.7 Aliento Vision 63.8 WDNJ |
| Affiliations | Independent |
| Owner | Mountain Broadcasting Corporation |
| Founded | August 1987 |
| First air date | April 26, 1993 |
| Call letters' meaning | Mountain Broadcasting Corporation |
| Transmitter power | 1000 kW |
| Height | 250 metres (820 feet) |
| Class | DT (digital television) |
| Facility ID | 43952 |
| Transmitter coordinates | Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. |
| Licensing authority | FCC |
| Public license information: | Profile CDBS |
| Website | wmbctv.com |
WMBC-TV, channel 63, is an independent television station licensed to Newton, New Jersey, USA, serving the New York City metropolitan area. Founded and owned by the Mountain Broadcasting Corporation (whose initials serve as the station's call letters), the station's studios are located in West Caldwell, New Jersey, with its transmitter located in Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey.
The station's lineup consists of brokered ethnic programs, a weekday one-hour newscast (composed mainly of repackaged CNN stories), infomercials and children's programs to satisfy the Federal Communications Commission's "educational/informational" requirements.
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,[1] 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 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.
WMBC had an extremely weak over-the-air signal in New York City but with a new antenna on the Empire State Building it can be seen more clearly. The station is also carried on most of the cable providers in that market, including Time Warner Cable and Cablevision. 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.
Digital television
Digital channels
The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
| Channel | Video | Aspect | PSIP Short Name | Programming[2] |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 63.1 | 480i | 4:3 | WMBC DT | main WMBC-TV programming [3] |
| 63.2 | CGN-TV | CGNTV (Christian Global Network Television) [4] | ||
| 63.3 | Blank | previously carrying Sinovision English | ||
| 63.4 | Blank | previously carrying Sinovision | ||
| 63.5 | NTDTV | New Tang Dynasty Television (previously carried KBS World) [5] | ||
| 63.6 | Azteca | Azteca America [6] | ||
| 63.7 | Aliento | Aliento Vision: Hispanic Family Network [7] | ||
| 63.8 | WDNJ | audio simulcast of WDNJ [8] | ||
| 63.9 | KCBN | audio simulcast of Korean Christian Broadcasting Network |
WMBC-TV also operates a Mobile DTV feed of subchannel 63.1, broadcasting at 0.92 Mbit/s. This is the lowest bitrate of any New York City television station's mobile feed.[9][10]
Analog-to-digital conversion
WMBC-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 63, on February 17, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television (this deadline was moved to June 12, 2009).[11] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 18,[12] using PSIP to display WMBC-TV's virtual channel as 63 on digital television receivers, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.
See also
- List of independent television stations in the U.S.
- List of television stations in New Jersey
- List of United States over-the-air television networks
References
- ↑ "Koreans Win TV Franchise." Associated Press, August 22, 1987.
- ↑ RabbitEars TV Query for WMBC
- ↑ WMBC-DT 63-1 Accessed July 15, 2012
- ↑ WMBC-DT 63-2 Accessed July 15, 2012
- ↑ WMBC-DT 63-5 Accessed July 15, 2012
- ↑ WMBC-DT 63-6 Accessed July 15, 2012
- ↑ WMBC-DT 63-7 Accessed July 15, 2012
- ↑ WDNJ FM Accessed July 15, 2012
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ List of Digital Full-Power Stations
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
External links
- wmbctv.com, station's official website
- Query the FCC's TV station database for WMBC
