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WWPX-TV, virtual channel 60 (VHF digital channel 12), is an Ion Television owned-and-operated television station licensed to Martinsburg, West Virginia, United States, and serving the northwestern portion of the Washington, D.C. television market. Owned by Ion Media Networks, it is currently a relay of the main Ion station for the Washington area, Manassas, Virginia-licensed WPXW-TV (channel 66). WWPX-TV's transmitter is located on Boyds Gap west of Martinsburg; its parent station maintains studios in Fairfax Station, Virginia.

History

Channel 60 signed on October 1, 1991 as WYVN, a Fox affiliate, with studios located on Discovery Place in Martinsburg. A news department was quickly set up, and offered more news than other stations in the area. However, Flying A Communications, the owner, found itself in financial trouble, due to this local news commitment, and poor ratings from competition with Washington, D.C.-based stations. In addition to this, the station was beset by technical issues; in particular, its signal would go back and forth between black and white and color. A Fox network employee was reportedly sent to Martinsburg to investigate this matter, and was appalled by the sight of the station running The Simpsons episode "Lisa the Beauty Queen" in black and white; management responded by saying "we don't even have an engineer." Flying A Communications filed for bankruptcy in October 1992, and the station suspended newscasts in May 1993.

After a sale to WUSQ-FM owner Benchmark Communications (who would have converted the station to a CBS affiliate under the WUSQ-TV callsign) fell through, WYVN was forced off the air when Flying A went into receivership on September 17, 1993; the presiding bankruptcy judge allowed a sale of the license to Green River Broadcasting, who returned the station to air a week later while it worked out a financing plan. WYVN soldiered on as an independent, and briefly attempted a return of local news from January through February 1994. The station remained unable to emerge from bankruptcy; the studio and equipment were sold to its creditors April 1, 1994, and they locked out the staff and suspended broadcasting.

The station returned again on September 1, 1996, as WSHE-TV, a Paxson Communications station that aired the company's standard infomercial format, with religious programming in some dayparts. The station changed its call letters to WWPX at the beginning of 1998, and became a charter member of Pax TV along with most of Paxson's other stations on August 31 of that year. It has remained with the network, later known as i: Independent Television and now known as Ion Television, ever since.

WWPX was originally a full affiliate of Pax. In 2002, it converted to a satellite of WPXW. The station could no longer afford its own staff of five master-control operators, and becoming a satellite allowed it to carry only the legal minimum of one manager and one engineer.

Digital television

Template:ION DTV

Analog-to-digital conversion

WWPX-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 60, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition VHF channel 12. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 60, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.

References

1. Hughes, Dave. "Washington DC/Baltimore Area TV Stations". dcrtv.com. Archived from the original on May 19, 2006. Retrieved May 21, 2006.
2. https://www.radiodiscussions.com/showthread.php?451691-Worst-TV-stations-ever&p=5362857&viewfull=1#post5362857
3. "W.Va. Judge Approves Sale of TV Station to Kentucky Company". Associated Press. 11 October 1993.
4. ^ "Lights out at Martinsburg, W. Va., TV station". Frederick News-Post. Associated Press. 6 April 1994. p. 15.
5. "WWPX-TV Facility Data". FCCData.
6. "West Virginia Station Suspends News Programming". Associated Press. 16 February 1994.
7. Greene, Julie (1 February 2002). "Financial woes hit area TV stations". Hagerstown Herald-Mail.
8. RabbitEars TV Query for WWPX
9. "DTV Tentative Channel Designation for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-03-24.

External links

• Official website
• Template:TVQ
• Template:BIA

• Ion Television affiliates
• Martinsburg, West Virginia
• Media in Hagerstown metropolitan area
• Television channels and stations established in 1991
• Television stations in West Virginia
• 1991 establishments in West Virginia