WNTU-LP

WNTU-LP/LD

WNTU-LP was built and signed on by the Evansville, Indiana-based company South Central Communications. The station signed on briefly under the call sign W68CG & broadcast briefly on Channel 68 before changing its call sign to W26BW in 1999 & moving to Channel 26 to get better coverage at a better frequency. The station signed on as an affiliate of The Box TV Network, showing Music Videos 24 hours a day. The Station would change its call sign again a year later on April 16, 1999 to WGAP-LP. A month later in May 1999, The Box was acquired by MTV Networks. (A division of Viacom) The Box ceased operations just over 2½ years later on January 1, 2001 & was replaced by MTV2, which featured a mix of set rotation and viewer request music video blocks at the time on its affiliates including WGAP-LP.^[1][2]

On June 11, 2006, South Central Communications announced that they would sell WGAP to Little Rock, Arkansas-based Equity Broadcasting. Equity also announced that when they purchased the station, they would make it a Univision affiliate. It would also be the third Spanish language station in Nashville (behind then Telemundo Affiliate, which was seen at the time on WSMV-TV's second digital sub-channel of 4.2 and WLLC-LP, Channel 42 (which was first Telefutura, as that Network rebranded to UniMás, WLLC would regain the Univision affiliation on its main channel and move the UniMás affiliation to its second sub-channel.)) ^[3][4][5] The sale was finalized on November 13, 2006, as the station changed to the New Univision affiliation the next day. A year later, The callsign was also changed to the current calls of WNTU-LP on March 20, 2007.

Due to the 2008 bankruptcy of Equity Broadcasting, WNTU was sold at auction to the Daystar Television Network on April 16, 2009, and the sale closed on July 30, 2009. Immediately after on July 31, the station switched to carrying all Daystar Programming 24 hours a day. This left Nashville without a Univision Affiliate (Univision was still seen on cable and satellite providers in the Nashville area) and with two Spanish-language outlets (Telemundo affiliate on WSMV-TV's second digital sub-channel of 4.2 and Telefutura (Now UniMás) affiliate WLLC-LP. However, WSMV-TV discontinued the Telemundo affiliation on December 31, 2010, as that would leave only WLLC-LP as the only Spanish language outlet in Nashville.) Univision made its return to the Nashville Airwaves, as WLLC-LP retained the Univision affiliation on its main sub-channel of 42.1 and moved UniMás to 42.2 and Bounce TV to 42.3.

WNTU’s digital signal began broadcasting on digital UHF channel 47 in 2011. The station’s digital counterpart (WNTU-LD) is operated on a construction permit in preparation of the digital television transition for low-powered television stations that have not shut down their analog signals. Low-power stations who still broadcast in analog, including WNTU-LP, were obligated to shut down their analog signal and replace it with a digital signal by September 1, 2015. However, the cutoff date for standard LPTVs and translators still broadcasting in analog had been suspended until further notice, therefore, WNTU still also continues to broadcast in analog until the full conversion to digital operations for WNTU is completed. As a result of the FCC Spectrum Auction, WNTU-LP has applied for a Construction Permit to relocate Digital Operations from Channel 47 to Channel 26 by Flash Cut.^[6]

WNPX-LP

WNPX-LP was built and signed on in 1989 by Family Broadcasting Company as a religious independent station, under the callsign W10BI. A few months later, the station was purchased by TV 10, Inc., and slowly converted to a general independent station.^[7] In 1992, the station was sold to James W. Owens,^[8] who would then sell the station to Tiger Eye Broadcasting in 1997.^[9] The station changed its callsign to WVIE-LP in 1999. In 2000, Paxson Communications purchased WVIE from Tiger Eye Broadcasting, and the station began broadcasting programming from Pax TV (now Ion Television) and became a sister station to the full-powered WNPX-TV.^[10] The callsign was changed to the current WNPX-LP in 2003. On December 15, 2014, Ion reached a deal to donate WNPX-LP to Word of God Fellowship, parent company of the Daystar network (which are also the owners of WNTU-LP).^[11] Shortly after the sale, WNPX-LP was taken silent and went off the air while converting to digital operations. The sale of the station was finalized by the FCC on March 26, 2015, and made WNPX-LP a sister station to WNTU-LP,^[12] but the conversion to digital is yet to be finalized, and when that is done, WNPX-LP will become a Daystar affiliate.

Other broadcasting information

Daystar's programming is also being shown on neighboring low-powered station WRTN-LD, which serves the Alexandria and Lebanon, Tennessee areas, and also serves the Nashville area. It is unknown if Daystar's programming will continue to be seen on WRTN's main channel when WNTU-LP & WNPX-LP upgrades to digital.

Digital channels

WNTU-LP had a construction permit to upgrade to digital on Channel 17, however, that application was dismissed.^[13] The station had another construction permit application to upgrade to digital on Channel 47, however as a result of the FCC Spectrum Auction, all Television Stations including Low Powered Stations must relocate there Channel Frequencies to broadcasting below Channel 37 by July 13, 2020, or Shut down & cease operations of those Stations.^[14] Therefore, WNTU-LP applied for another Construction Permit to Flash Cut its digital operations to Channel 26 on March 24, 2018.^[15] WNPX-LP also had a construction permit to flash cut to digital on channel 20, but as a result of the FCC Spectrum Auction & Repacking, and because WZTV (Which currently broadcast there Digital Signal on Channel 15) applied to move there digital signal to Channel 20, WNPX-LP will have to relocate to another Channel & has decided to relocate its Digital operations to Channel 24, as part of the FCC Spectrum Auction & Repacking.^[16] Both stations had to upgrade to digital operations by September 1, 2015,^[17] However, as a result of the FCC Spectrum Auction, The Deadline has now been pushed up to July 13, 2021.^[18]