WSAH
Encyclopedia
WSAH is a television station licensed to Bridgeport, Connecticut
in the New York City
television market, operating a digital signal on UHF channel 42. It is owned by Multicultural Television Broadcasting, LLC (a division of Multicultural Broadcasting
). WSAH carries the Retro Television Network
from noon to midnight and infomercials from midnight to noon.
and DuMont
, a month after Connecticut's first UHF station, WKNB-TV
, signed on. The station was named after WICC radio
(600 AM). Considering that UHF was rather new at the time and required an expensive converter, the station was not seen by many. In addition, ABC and DuMont network programming was easily seen in much of WICC's viewing area via WABC-TV
and WABD
from New York City
, respectively.
One attempt at locally-generated programming on the station was Newsvision, created by station owner Ken Cooper, in which a station camera was pointed at a teletype machine, with music being played on the audio channel. The FCC disallowed this because they ruled the video and audio channels must work in sync, rather than be separate sources.
None of WICC's attempts to gain viewers succeeded—one of these included a stunt where Bob Crane
(who later became the star of Hogan's Heroes
) offered $100 to the first caller who calls the station. No one called, leading the station to announce in January 1960 that WICC was the "only station in the U.S. without any viewers." That December, WICC-TV went off the air. Most of the station's programming inventory was destroyed by fire a few months later.
A group of women, under the name of Bridgeways Communications Corporation, received a construction permit for a new channel 43 on November 20, 1980, and on September 28, 1987, the station signed on as WBCT-TV, airing home shopping
programming. Initially, the station planned to become a locally-focused independent station, with WBCT's management concerned that Bridgeport was only being served by New York City stations; a year later, however, the station had changed its plans and planned to implement cultural programming aimed at the Jewish community in the New York City market as a whole. Shortly afterward, the station changed its call letters to WHAI-TV, in reference to the Hebrew word for living
. However, the station was sold in 1994 to ValueVision
, which in turn sold WHAI to Paxson Communications
in 1996. By then, the station had also added infomercial
s to the schedule.
Original plans called for the station to pick up the Pax TV network (as WIPX) when it launched in 1998, but those plans were scrapped (mainly due to duopoly
concerns resulting from Paxson's acquisition of WPXN-TV
, as both stations' signals overlap and are considered part of the New York City DMA
; at that time the FCC did not allow common ownership of such stations) and the call letters were again changed, this time to WBPT. After an attempt to sell the station to Cuchifritos Communications (which planned to make the station the flagship of a Spanish language
home shopping service) fell through, the station was sold in 1999 to the Shop at Home Network
, which installed their programming and the WSAH call letters.
Azteca América
nearly bought the station late in 2000 to serve as their New York City affiliate. The deal quickly collapsed, with Azteca América citing concerns over WSAH's coverage of the market; the network ultimately affiliated with WNYN-LP
. The station continued to run Shop at Home, with a brief interruption in 2006 when the network temporarily closed.
On September 26, 2006, The E. W. Scripps Company (the then-owner of the former Shop at Home owned-and-operated station
s) announced that it was selling WSAH along with four other stations (KCNS
in San Francisco, California
, WMFP
in Boston
, Massachusetts
, WOAC (now WRLM) in Canton, Ohio
and WRAY-TV
in Wilson
-Raleigh, North Carolina
) to Multicultural Television for $170 million. Multicultural assumed control of KCNS, WOAC and WRAY on December 20, 2006 and flipped their format to an all-infomercial format; it did not take control of WSAH and WMFP immediately due the stations' pending license renewal. The licenses were renewed in early April 2007, and on April 24, 2007, Multicultural took control of these stations.
WSAH signed on its digital signal on channel 42 on December 16, 2006.
In May 2007, WSAH changed shopping networks, from Shop at Home to Gems TV
, a shopping network that specialises in jewelry. In addition, infomercials once again became a part of the schedule. The Gems TV affiliation has since been discontinued.
On July 4, 2008, WSAH's analog channel 43 signal was taken off the air, following a lightning strike at the transmitter. Since the cost of repairing the transmitter would be uneconomical, due to the coming analog shutdown, the station's owners sought permission from the FCC to keep the analog transmitter silent. This did not affect WSAH's availability on cable and digital broadcast.
On July 1, 2009, WSAH affiliated with the Retro Television Network
(RTV), becoming one of only a few affiliates to carry RTV on its main channel. Initially, RTV programming was seen from 6 p.m. to midnight, with infomercials continuing during the remainder of the broadcast day.
In September 2009, WSAH cut RTV programming back to end at 11 p.m. on weekdays, and 10 p.m. on weekends. Shortly afterwards, the station announced that it would drop RTV completely at the end of the month. The next month, WSAH added a subchannel, airing Chinese language
programming from sister station KCNS.
On June 6th, 2011, the station resumed airing programming from Retro Television Network, which now runs from 12pm to 12am.
After Multicultural ran into financial problems and defaulted on its loans, WSAH was placed into a trust; the station was then placed for sale. On October 6, 2011, it was announced that WSAH would be auctioned off in bankruptcy court by the end of 2011. In the auction, held on November 15, the station was acquired by NRJ TV, LLC, which had earlier acquired KCNS and WMFP; the deal is subject to bankruptcy court approval, though the auction has been challenged by Arthur Liu, who owned Multicultural and is associated with failed bidder NYVV.
Bridgeport, Connecticut
Bridgeport is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Located in Fairfield County, the city had an estimated population of 144,229 at the 2010 United States Census and is the core of the Greater Bridgeport area...
in the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
television market, operating a digital signal on UHF channel 42. It is owned by Multicultural Television Broadcasting, LLC (a division of Multicultural Broadcasting
Multicultural Broadcasting
Multicultural Broadcasting is a media company based in New York City founded by Chinese-American businessman Arthur Liu. Multicultural caters mostly to the Asian American community and owns television and radio stations in several of the top markets in multiple languages.-History:This company was...
). WSAH carries the Retro Television Network
Retro Television Network
The Retro Television Network is a system of television stations that airs classic television shows as well as more recently produced programs...
from noon to midnight and infomercials from midnight to noon.
History
Channel 43 first appeared in March 1953, when WICC-TV (meaning "Industrial Center of Connecticut", referring to Bridgeport) signed on with programming from ABCAmerican Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
and DuMont
DuMont Television Network
The DuMont Television Network, also known as the DuMont Network, DuMont, Du Mont, or Dumont was one of the world's pioneer commercial television networks, rivalling NBC for the distinction of being first overall. It began operation in the United States in 1946. It was owned by DuMont...
, a month after Connecticut's first UHF station, WKNB-TV
WVIT
WVIT, virtual channel 30, is the NBC owned and operated television station for the state of Connecticut, licensed to New Britain. WVIT has its offices and studios located in West Hartford, and transmitter based in Farmington, Connecticut....
, signed on. The station was named after WICC radio
WICC (AM)
WICC is a news and information radio station in Bridgeport, Connecticut, owned by Cumulus Media. Its signal reaches down into Long Island, New York.-History:...
(600 AM). Considering that UHF was rather new at the time and required an expensive converter, the station was not seen by many. In addition, ABC and DuMont network programming was easily seen in much of WICC's viewing area via WABC-TV
WABC-TV
WABC-TV, channel 7, is the flagship station of the Disney-owned American Broadcasting Company located in New York City. The station's studios and offices are located on the Upper West Side section of Manhattan, adjacent to ABC's corporate headquarters, and its transmitter is atop the Empire State...
and WABD
WNYW
WNYW, virtual channel 5 , is the flagship television station of the News Corporation-owned Fox Broadcasting Company, located in New York City. The station's transmitter is atop the Empire State Building and its studio facilities are located in the Yorkville section of Manhattan...
from New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, respectively.
One attempt at locally-generated programming on the station was Newsvision, created by station owner Ken Cooper, in which a station camera was pointed at a teletype machine, with music being played on the audio channel. The FCC disallowed this because they ruled the video and audio channels must work in sync, rather than be separate sources.
None of WICC's attempts to gain viewers succeeded—one of these included a stunt where Bob Crane
Bob Crane
Robert Edward "Bob" Crane was an American actor and disc jockey, best known for his performance as Colonel Robert E...
(who later became the star of Hogan's Heroes
Hogan's Heroes
Hogan's Heroes is an American television sitcom that ran for 168 episodes from September 17, 1965, to March 28, 1971, on the CBS network. The show was set in a German prisoner of war camp during the Second World War. Bob Crane had the starring role as Colonel Robert E...
) offered $100 to the first caller who calls the station. No one called, leading the station to announce in January 1960 that WICC was the "only station in the U.S. without any viewers." That December, WICC-TV went off the air. Most of the station's programming inventory was destroyed by fire a few months later.
A group of women, under the name of Bridgeways Communications Corporation, received a construction permit for a new channel 43 on November 20, 1980, and on September 28, 1987, the station signed on as WBCT-TV, airing home shopping
Home shopping
Home shopping commonly refers to the electronic retailing/home shopping channels industry, which includes such billion dollar television-based and e-commerce companies as HSN, QVC, eBay, ShopNBC, Buy.com, and Amazon.com, as well as traditional mail order and brick and mortar retailers as Hammacher...
programming. Initially, the station planned to become a locally-focused independent station, with WBCT's management concerned that Bridgeport was only being served by New York City stations; a year later, however, the station had changed its plans and planned to implement cultural programming aimed at the Jewish community in the New York City market as a whole. Shortly afterward, the station changed its call letters to WHAI-TV, in reference to the Hebrew word for living
Chai (symbol)
Chai is a symbol and word that figures prominently in Jewish culture. It consists of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet Chet and Yod .The Hebrew word "living" is related to the term for "life", chaim; ḥayyim....
. However, the station was sold in 1994 to ValueVision
ShopNBC
ShopNBC is an American broadcast and cable home shopping network, owned and operated by ValueVision Media, which is in turn 30% owned by GE Equity and NBC Universal...
, which in turn sold WHAI to Paxson Communications
ION Media Networks
ION Media Networks is an American television broadcasting company that owns and operates over 60 television stations in most major American markets. It is now a privately owned company.-History:...
in 1996. By then, the station had also added infomercial
Infomercial
Infomercials are direct response television commercials which generally include a phone number or website. There are long-form infomercials, which are typically between 15 and 30 minutes in length, and short-form infomercials, which are typically 30 seconds to 120 seconds in length. Infomercials...
s to the schedule.
Original plans called for the station to pick up the Pax TV network (as WIPX) when it launched in 1998, but those plans were scrapped (mainly due to duopoly
Duopoly (broadcasting)
In United States broadcast television and radio, duopoly is a term used to describe a single company which owns two or more stations in the same city or community....
concerns resulting from Paxson's acquisition of WPXN-TV
WPXN-TV
WPXN-TV, which broadcasts on channel 31 in New York City, is the flagship station of the Ion Television network, formerly known as Pax TV and i.-Municipal ownership:...
, as both stations' signals overlap and are considered part of the New York City DMA
DMA
DMA can refer to:* DMA , a defunct dance music magazine* Dallas Museum of Art, an art museum in Texas, USA* Danish Music Awards, an award show held in Denmark since 1989...
; at that time the FCC did not allow common ownership of such stations) and the call letters were again changed, this time to WBPT. After an attempt to sell the station to Cuchifritos Communications (which planned to make the station the flagship of a Spanish language
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
home shopping service) fell through, the station was sold in 1999 to the Shop at Home Network
Shop at Home Network
The Shop at Home Network was a television network in the United States Before its acquisition by Jewelry Television in 2006, The E. W. Scripps Company owned and operated the network from 2002 until 2006, when the network temporarily ceased operations on June 21...
, which installed their programming and the WSAH call letters.
Azteca América
Azteca América
Azteca América is a broadcast television network marketed toward Spanish-speaking families residing in the United States. As a rapidly-growing Spanish language network, Azteca América now reaches 89% of the Hispanic households in the U.S., operating in sixty-two markets nationwide. Wholly owned by...
nearly bought the station late in 2000 to serve as their New York City affiliate. The deal quickly collapsed, with Azteca América citing concerns over WSAH's coverage of the market; the network ultimately affiliated with WNYN-LP
WNYN-LP
-History:The station started out as W51BV channel 51 from Deer Park, NY in July 1991 as an affiliate of The Box Music Network. On November 20, 1995, the station became WNYN-LP. In 2000, they ceased operations on channel 51 without warning, leaving many fans of The Box in the area in the dark...
. The station continued to run Shop at Home, with a brief interruption in 2006 when the network temporarily closed.
On September 26, 2006, The E. W. Scripps Company (the then-owner of the former Shop at Home owned-and-operated station
Owned-and-operated station
In the broadcasting industry , an owned-and-operated station usually refers to a television station or radio station that is owned by the network with which it is associated...
s) announced that it was selling WSAH along with four other stations (KCNS
KCNS
KCNS is a digital television station in San Francisco, California, in the United States, owned by NRJ TV, LLC. It carries programming from the Retro Television Network on its main channel, and programming from Sino TV and Saigon TV on its subchannels. The station operates on 39 digital, covering...
in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, WMFP
WMFP
WMFP is a television station in the Boston market. The station is licensed to Lawrence, Massachusetts, and is owned by NRJ TV, LLC. The station's programming primarily consists of programming from the Retro Television Network...
in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, WOAC (now WRLM) in Canton, Ohio
Canton, Ohio
Canton is the county seat of Stark County in northeastern Ohio, approximately south of Akron and south of Cleveland.The City of Caton is the largest incorporated area within the Canton-Massillon Metropolitan Statistical Area...
and WRAY-TV
WRAY-TV
WRAY-TV is a full-power television station licensed to Wilson, North Carolina and serves the entire Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville, North Carolina metropolitan area...
in Wilson
Wilson, North Carolina
Wilson is a city and the county seat of Wilson County in the Coastal Plain region of the U.S. state of North Carolina. The 18th largest city in the state, Wilson had a population of 49,167 according to the 2010 census.- Geography :...
-Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh, North Carolina
Raleigh is the capital and the second largest city in the state of North Carolina as well as the seat of Wake County. Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's 2010 population was 403,892, over an area of , making Raleigh...
) to Multicultural Television for $170 million. Multicultural assumed control of KCNS, WOAC and WRAY on December 20, 2006 and flipped their format to an all-infomercial format; it did not take control of WSAH and WMFP immediately due the stations' pending license renewal. The licenses were renewed in early April 2007, and on April 24, 2007, Multicultural took control of these stations.
WSAH signed on its digital signal on channel 42 on December 16, 2006.
In May 2007, WSAH changed shopping networks, from Shop at Home to Gems TV
Gems TV
Gems TV was a jewellery manufacturer and reverse auction TV shopping network headquartered in Chanthaburi, Thailand. It began its operations in October 2004 in the UK, and then expanded to Germany, America, Japan and China...
, a shopping network that specialises in jewelry. In addition, infomercials once again became a part of the schedule. The Gems TV affiliation has since been discontinued.
On July 4, 2008, WSAH's analog channel 43 signal was taken off the air, following a lightning strike at the transmitter. Since the cost of repairing the transmitter would be uneconomical, due to the coming analog shutdown, the station's owners sought permission from the FCC to keep the analog transmitter silent. This did not affect WSAH's availability on cable and digital broadcast.
On July 1, 2009, WSAH affiliated with the Retro Television Network
Retro Television Network
The Retro Television Network is a system of television stations that airs classic television shows as well as more recently produced programs...
(RTV), becoming one of only a few affiliates to carry RTV on its main channel. Initially, RTV programming was seen from 6 p.m. to midnight, with infomercials continuing during the remainder of the broadcast day.
In September 2009, WSAH cut RTV programming back to end at 11 p.m. on weekdays, and 10 p.m. on weekends. Shortly afterwards, the station announced that it would drop RTV completely at the end of the month. The next month, WSAH added a subchannel, airing Chinese language
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
programming from sister station KCNS.
On June 6th, 2011, the station resumed airing programming from Retro Television Network, which now runs from 12pm to 12am.
After Multicultural ran into financial problems and defaulted on its loans, WSAH was placed into a trust; the station was then placed for sale. On October 6, 2011, it was announced that WSAH would be auctioned off in bankruptcy court by the end of 2011. In the auction, held on November 15, the station was acquired by NRJ TV, LLC, which had earlier acquired KCNS and WMFP; the deal is subject to bankruptcy court approval, though the auction has been challenged by Arthur Liu, who owned Multicultural and is associated with failed bidder NYVV.