WFPX-TV

WFPX-TV
Archer Lodge/Raleigh/
Durham, North Carolina
United States
City Archer Lodge, North Carolina
Branding Ion Life
Channels Digital: 15 (UHF)
(shared with WRPX-TV; to move to 32 (UHF)[1])
Virtual: 62 (PSIP)
Subchannels 62.1 Ion Life
Affiliations Ion Life (O&O; 2018–present)
Owner Ion Media Networks
(Ion Media License Company, LLC)
First air date March 1985 (1985-03)[2]
(in Fayetteville, North Carolina; license moved to Archer Lodge in 2018[3])
Call letters' meaning Fayetteville's PaX
Sister station(s) WRPX-TV
Former callsigns WFCT (1985–1993)
WFAY (1993–1998)
Former channel number(s) Analog:
62 (UHF, 1985–2009)
Former affiliations Independent (1985–1994)
Fox (1994–1998)
Ion Television (as satellite of WRPX-TV, 1998–2018)
Transmitter power 180 kW
205 kW (CP)
Height 354 m (1,161 ft)
378 m (1,240 ft) (CP)
Class DT
Facility ID 21245
Transmitter coordinates 36°6′11.5″N 78°11′27.6″W / 36.103194°N 78.191000°W / 36.103194; -78.191000
Licensing authority FCC
Public license information: Profile
CDBS
Website www.ionlife.com

WFPX-TV, virtual channel 62 (UHF digital channel 15), is an Ion Life owned-and-operated television station licensed to Archer Lodge, North Carolina, United States and serving the Triangle region (Raleigh–Durham–Chapel Hill–Fayetteville). The station is owned by Ion Media Networks (the former Paxson Communications), as part of a duopoly with Rocky Mount-licensed Ion Television owned-and-operated station WRPX-TV (channel 47). The two stations share a sales office on Gresham Lake Road in Raleigh and transmitting facilities near Louisburg, North Carolina.

Originally licensed to Fayetteville, it previously served as a relay of WRPX for the southern part of the market, including Fayetteville and Southern Pines; WRPX served the northern part, including Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill.

History

Channel 62 signed on in 1985 as WFCT, an independent station owned by Fayetteville/Cumberland Telecasters. Attorneys Robinson and Katherine Everett of Durham, founders of WRDU-TV (now MyNetworkTV affiliate WRDC) in Durham, along with WJKA (now Fox affiliate WSFX-TV) in Wilmington and WGGT (now MyNetworkTV affiliate WMYV) in Greensboro, were two of the principals in this company.

The station changed call letters to WFAY in 1993 and became a Fox affiliate in 1994; the affiliation came as part of a deal that also saw the Everetts switch their CBS affiliates, WJKA and KECY-TV in El Centro, California/Yuma, Arizona to Fox.[4] Even though WFAY was located in the same market as WLFL (a Fox affiliate at the time), it mainly focused on communities located south of Fayetteville that did not get a good signal from WLFL. Some of its non-network programming was also simulcast to the Raleigh-Durham area on WRAY-TV for a couple of years in the mid-1990s until it was acquired by the Shop at Home network.

WFAY later became WFPX and dropped Fox after being bought out by Paxson in 1998. Later that year, newly minted Fox station WFXB out of the Florence–Myrtle Beach market expanded its signal to cover areas formerly served by WFAY. It is worthy of note that WFPX's signal was not seen at all in the northern portion of the Raleigh–Durham–Fayetteville market, but covered northern portions of the Florence–Myrtle Beach market, which did not have its own Ion affiliate until 2015, when WBTW added Ion on a digital subchannel following a deal made with Media General.

On April 4, 2017, WFPX was identified by the FCC as receiving $62.4 million for the spectrum reallocation auction.[5] WFPX later entered into a channel-sharing arrangement with WRPX and changed its city of license to Archer Lodge, North Carolina.[3] After the channel share went into effect, WRPX-DT3, carrying Ion Life, took WFPX's 62.1 virtual channel, assuring that network market-wide must-carry over pay-TV systems.

Digital television

Digital channels

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Network
62.1480i4:3IONLifeIon Life

[6]

Analog-to-digital conversion

WFPX-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 62, at noon 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 continued to broadcasts on its pre-transition UHF channel 36.[7] Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 62, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.

Out-of-market coverage

In recent years, WFPX has been carried on cable in multiple areas within the Wilmington media market.

References

  1. ↑ Modification of a Licensed Facility for DTV Application
  2. ↑ The Broadcasting and Cable Yearbook says March 14, while the Television and Cable Factbook says March 4.
  3. 1 2 WFPX Community of License Change Exhibit
  4. ↑ Flint, Joe (April 14, 1994). "CBS loses trio of affils to Fox". Variety. Retrieved January 16, 2013.
  5. ↑ "FCC Broadcast Television Spectrum Incentive Auction" (PDF). Federal Communications Commission. April 13, 2017. p. 1. Retrieved April 13, 2017.
  6. ↑ RabbitEars TV Query for WFPX
  7. ↑ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-03-24.


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