WUXP-TV

WUXP-TV, virtual channel 30 (UHF digital channel 21), is a MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station licensed to Nashville, Tennessee, United States. The station is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, as part of a duopoly with Fox affiliate WZTV (channel 17); Sinclair also operates CW affiliate WNAB (channel 58) under an outsourcing agreement with owner Tennessee Broadcasting. The three stations share studios on Mainstream Drive along the Cumberland River and transmitter facilities along I-24 in Whites Creek.

For the radio station that currently uses WUXP's former callsign, see WXMT.
WUXP-TV
Nashville, Tennessee
United States
BrandingMyTV30 (general)
Fox 17 News at 4:00 PM on MyTV30 (newscasts)
ChannelsDigital: 21 (UHF)
Virtual: 30 (PSIP)
Affiliations30.1: MyNetworkTV (2006-present)
30.2: GetTV
30.3: Comet (O&O)
OwnerSinclair Broadcast Group
LicenseeWUXP Licensee, LLC
First air dateFebruary 18, 1984 (1984-02-18) (36 years ago) as WCAY-TV
Call sign meaningexploits the U and P from UPN (former affiliation), X from former WXMT calls
Sister station(s)broadcast: WNAB, WZTV
cable: Fox Sports Tennessee, Fox Sports Southeast[1]
Former call signsWCAY-TV (1984–1989)
WXMT (1989–1996)
Former channel number(s)Analog:
30 (UHF, 1984–2009)
Former affiliationsAnalog/DT1:
Independent (1984–1987, 1990–1995)
Fox (1987–1990)
UPN (1995–2006)
DT2:
The Tube (2006–2007)
TheCoolTV (2010–2012)
Transmitter power1000 kW
Height413 m (1,355 ft)
Facility ID9971
Transmitter coordinates36°15′49.8″N 86°47′38.9″W
Licensing authorityFCC
Public license informationProfile
CDBS
Websitemytv30web.com

History

The station first signed on the air on February 18, 1984 as independent station WCAY-TV. WCAY-TV was owned by the TVX Broadcast Group, which had signed on a few stations in other markets. The station maintained a general entertainment format featuring cartoons, sitcoms, movies and drama series, operating from studios located on Peabody Street in downtown Nashville. Along with the other TVX stations, WCAY became a Fox affiliate on April 5, 1987 as part of a groupwide affiliation deal. Fox affiliated with all of TVX's stations as a condition of affiliating with WNOL-TV in New Orleans.

In 1987, TVX acquired Taft Broadcasting's Fox affiliates and independent stations. The deal left TVX heavily leveraged. After the 1987 stock market "bump", investors started pulling their funding, forcing TVX to sell some of its underperforming medium-market stations. WCAY and sister station WMKW in Memphis (now WLMT were sold to MT Communications. WCAY then changed its call letters to WXMT on September 26, 1989.

In 1990, WZTV's owner, Act III Broadcasting, who were known for buying its competitors' stronger programming assets, offered to buy WXMT's entire syndicated programming inventory and move most of the shows over to WZTV, alongside programs that were already broadcast on that station. Fox also planned to exercise its option to moving its Nashville area affiliation to WZTV. Originally, WXMT was to switch to a hybrid format of home shopping for 18 hours a day and religious programs for six hours a day, but MT Communications still wanted some programming and entertainment shows on the schedule. The deal was called off early in February. When Fox moved over to WZTV later that month, negotiations resumed and immediately it was decided that WZTV would get only cash programming (including sitcoms, movies, and some of the cartoons), while WXMT would keep barter cartoons, a few barter sitcoms, and some religious shows.

The deal took effect later in February 1990. By this time, WXMT's schedule now featured cartoons from 7 to 9 a.m., religious programming from 9 a.m. to noon, Home Shopping Network programming from noon to 4 p.m. and after 9 p.m., and low-rated barter syndicated shows from 4 to 9 p.m. Gradually, more first run talk shows, sitcoms and cartoons were added to WXMT's schedule. By 1994, WXMT was once again running general entertainment programming full-time.

On January 16, 1995, the station became an affiliate of the United Paramount Network (UPN), and began branding itself as "UPN 30". By then, WZTV was owned by Abry Communications; later that year, WZTV entered into a local marketing agreement with WXMT. MT Communications sold the station to a local owner, but WZTV would handle programming responsibilities for the station. The station's call letters were changed to the current WUXP on August 23, 1996 with its on-air branding changing to "UXP30" and later "UPN Nashville" before reverting to "UPN 30" in 2002.

Before it entered into the LMA with WZTV, WXMT had planned to build a state-of-the-art studio facility along the "south loop" of I-40 in Nashville. For many years, even after the plans had been abandoned, a retaining wall on the site featured a mural reading "Future Home of WXMT-30". The LMA continued after Sinclair acquired Abry. As time went on, cartoons and anime (such as The Wacky World of Tex Avery, Pokémon and RoboCop: Alpha Commando) disappeared from the schedule gradually and more first-run reality and talk shows were added. In 2000, Sinclair Broadcast Group bought WUXP outright.

On February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced the formation of MyNetworkTV, a sister network to Fox that would affiliate with WB and UPN stations that were not named as affiliates of fellow upstart network The CW.[2][3] In February 2006, WUXP, along with most of Sinclair's WB and UPN affiliates, was announced as a charter affiliate of MyNetworkTV. On September 5 of that year, WUXP changed its on-air branding to "My TV 30" and carried the last three weeks of UPN programming outside of prime time during the late night hours. WUXP may carry CW or Fox programming should WNAB or WZTV preempt in the event of a local special or an emergency such as a breaking news story.

On September 15, 2014, WUXP went off the air due to technical problems with its transmission tower. No public relations statement or updates had been provided on its website or Facebook page. On September 18, the signal was restored only to remain broken up and intermittent that day. The signal was completely restored on September 20, 2014.

Subchannels

WUXP-DT2

As a part of an affiliation agreement involving several Sinclair-owned stations, WUXP began carrying The Tube Music Network on March 23, 2006, However that relationship stopped temporarily (and eventually permanently) on January 1, 2007, in a dispute involving FCC requirements for digital subchannels, which resulted in Sinclair Broadcasting pulling The Tube from all of its Stations. (Including WUXP) Three years later, TheCoolTV was added on digital subchannel 30.2 on September 18, 2010. However, it was dropped on August 31, 2012, as part of a groupwide removal of the network on all of Sinclair Broadcasting Stations.

The station launched getTV, a movie-oriented network owned by Sony Pictures Television on their second digital subchannel on June 28, 2014 as part of a deal with Sinclair that would add 33 markets to the GetTV affiliate roster.[4][5]

WUXP-DT3

WUXP-DT3 launched on October 27, 2015 with a testing stream of WUXP-DT2. At 4:00 a.m. CT on the morning of October 31, 2015, it launched as a charter affiliate of Comet.[6]

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming[7]
30.1720p16:9MyTV30Main WUXP-TV programming / MyNetworkTV
30.2480i4:3Get TVGetTV
30.316:9CometComet

Analog-to-digital conversion

WUXP-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 30, on February 17, 2009, which was intended to be the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The deadline was moved to June 12, 2009, but WUXP decided to convert on the original deadline.[8] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 21.[9][10] Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 30.

General programming

WUXP clears the entire MyNetworkTV schedule, but since January 2019, the station has aired MyNetworkTV programming from 8 to 10 p.m., one hour later than most other affiliates in the Central Time Zone. Sometimes, the service's programming is delayed even further whenever the stations airs prime-time sports programming such as local high school games.

As of January 2018, WUXP's syndicated programming on weekdays include Family Feud, Maury, The Steve Wilkos Show, Dateline, The Andy Griffith Show, and The Simpsons. On weekends, the station's programming lineup includes The Texas Music Scene, Cheaters, and Funny You Should Ask. The station airs at least one movie each weekend in syndication. It also airs a few infomercials during the overnight hours.

Because WZTV fills the programming schedules for both WUXP and WNAB, during severe weather, WZTV provides its on-screen severe weather ticker bug and crawl for the main channels of all three stations.

Sports programming

Local sports programming

On Friday nights, mainly during high school football season (late August–November), WUXP broadcasts their own coverage of high school football games around middle Tennessee, under the banner Friday Night Rivals beginning the 2014 season.[11][12] Since September 2014, Friday Night Rivals is also live streamed online.[13] They were previously broadcast on Thursday nights under the name Thursday Night Lights until the end of the 2013 season.[14] Halftime reports includes recaps of the first half, as well as a weather segment from WZTV's weather team. Since 2013, the station also broadcasts TSSAA football title games as part of a 3-year agreement with Mann Communications and PlayOn! Sports.[15] In addition, also during football season, WUXP and WZTV both air Titans All Access,[16] a 30-minute game preview show hosted by Titans Radio personality Mike Keith.

In January 2015, high school basketball games began broadcasting on WUXP under the title, Friday Night Hoops.

In December 2017, WUXP gained rights to air select Belmont Bruins men's basketball games. In February 2018, WUXP-TV was named the local broadcaster of many soccer matches of the United Soccer League's Nashville SC for at least the 2018 season, including all home games and select road games. In May 2020, Nashville SC announced that WUXP and sister stations WZTV and WNAB will air locally-televised games once the season resumes from the COVID-19 pandemic.[17] Both Belmont Basketball and Nashville SC broadcasts on WUXP are produced in-house.

Other sports programming

WUXP has been the long-time home to Southeastern Conference (SEC) college football games and men's college basketball games (including those involving Vanderbilt Commodores or the University of Tennessee Volunteers) from Jefferson-Pilot/Lincoln Financial Sports/Raycom Sports (previously broadcast by WSMV-TV in the 1980s and 1990s) from 2002 until 2009,[18][19][20] and ESPN Plus-oriented SEC TV from 2009 to 2014. This ended in 2014 because of the inception of the SEC Network.[21]

In 2014, WUXP began broadcasting Raycom Sports' Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) syndication package (branded as ACC Network) after acquiring local rights from ABC affiliate WKRN-TV's second digital subchannel. This includes football and men's basketball games syndicated through the service, especially those involving the Louisville Cardinals, the closest ACC member institution to the area, which became a member in 2014. This ended after the 2018–19 college basketball season with the launch of ESPN's pay TV-only ACC Network in August 2019.

On August 30, 2014, Sinclair Broadcast Group launched the American Sports Network, which has rights to Conference USA football and men's basketball.[22] [23] WUXP began carrying that syndication package from ASN, including the Conference USA Showcase, and sporting events involving the sports programs of the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders, beginning with the 2014 football and 2014–15 basketball season. In addition, the station also aired any Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) men's basketball games offered through ASN, since four of the OVC's member institutions are within WUXP's coverage area. Since the OVC's league office is based in the south Nashville suburb of Brentwood, WUXP was the unofficial flagship station of ASN's OVC programming package. OVC Football was added to ASN's portfolio on September 26, 2015, so WUXP broadcast those games also in that season.[24] During the summer months, WUXP also airs certain installments of ASN's Minor League Baseball Sunday Showcase.

At some occasions, WZTV would air Raycom's ACC basketball whenever the times conflict with WUXP's broadcasts of TSSAA boys' and girls' high school basketball championship games, which air in late February and early March. WUXP also broadcasts TSSAA high school football championship games that typically take place in November.

On some occasions, WUXP-TV also broadcast some non-conference basketball games involving Belmont University's men's basketball team.[25] Since 2011, both WUXP and WZTV are the Nashville-area homes to Ring of Honor Wrestling, another syndicated program by Sinclair Broadcasting.[26]

Newscasts

In 1991, WXMT debuted the Nashville market's first primetime newscast at 9 p.m. (predating WZTV's 9 p.m. newscast by six years) through a news share agreement with NBC affiliate WSMV-TV (channel 4). The hour-long weeknight newscast, which featured WSMV's anchors and reporting staff, lasted less than two years before it was cancelled and replaced with syndicated programming.

After the cancellation of the WSMV-produced newscast in 1993, WUXP would never again air a newscast outside of a minute-long WZTV-produced weather update from 2000 on. On June 5, 2017, WUXP began rebroadcasting WZTV's 9 p.m. newscasts two hours after it begins, at 11 p.m. on weeknights. On March 5, 2018, WZTV began producing a 4 p.m. newscast for WUXP, which now competes with the 4 p.m. newscasts of the Big Three affiliates (WKRN, WSMV, and WTVF)

Out of market coverage

Bowling Green, Kentucky area

WUXP (as WCAY-TV) was the first station to be the default Fox affiliate for the small Bowling Green, Kentucky media market from April 1987 until WZTV took the Fox affiliation for Nashville in 1990. From 1990 to 1992, and again from March 2001 to September 2006, WZTV had the title as Bowling Green's default Fox affiliate.

From 1995 until 2006, WUXP-TV was the default UPN affiliate for Bowling Green throughout that network's eleven-year run, because UPN programming was never available from a local outlet in that area outside of Fox affiliate WKNT's (now NBC-primary/CBS-subchannel only affiliate WNKY) carriage of the Disney's One Too block. WUXP was also the default MyNetworkTV affiliate for the Bowling Green market since MyNetworkTV launched in September 2006. The station was available on cable television in the Bowling Green area until at least 2010. As of the first quarter of 2014, WUXP has lost the title as Bowling Green's default MyNetworkTV affiliate, when DTV America Corporation signed on WCZU-LD to serve as an Antenna TV affiliate, but provide MyNetworkTV programming in its regular time table on weeknights. WUXP could still be easily picked up in some areas of the Bowling Green media market with an over-the-air antenna. The only Bowling Green-market cable system that WUXP remains available on is WesternCable, the on-campus cable system in classrooms and residence halls at Western Kentucky University.[27]

Other out-of-market availability

Only two other areas outside the Nashville market can receive WUXP over-the-air and/or cable. Portions of southernmost Muhlenberg County, Kentucky (in the Evansville, Indiana market) can pick up the station with an outdoor antenna. In the Huntsville, Alabama market, WUXP can be picked up with an antenna in portions of Lincoln County, Tennessee, including Fayetteville.

References
  1. Miller, Mark K. (August 23, 2019). "Sinclair Closes $10.6B Disney RSN Purchase". TVNewsCheck. NewsCheckMedia. Retrieved August 23, 2019.
  2. "News Corp. to launch new mini-network for UPN stations". USA Today. February 22, 2006. Retrieved January 21, 2013.
  3. News Corp. Unveils MyNetworkTV, Broadcasting & Cable, February 22, 2006.
  4. "GetTV Signs Big Affiliation Deal with Sinclair". TV NewsCheck. Retrieved April 28, 2015.
  5. Press Release (June 23, 2014). “Sony’s GetTV Gets 33 Sinclair stations”. TV Terminology. Retrieved June 12, 2015.
  6. Kevin Downey (June 29, 2015). "MGM, Sinclair To Debut Sci-Fi Diginet". TVNewsCheck. NewsCheck Media. Retrieved October 15, 2015.
  7. RabbitEars TV Query for WUXP
  8. Associated Press (February 17, 2009). TV stations ending analog service on Feb. 17. NBC News. Retrieved March 19, 2015.
  9. "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and Second Rounds" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
  10. CDBS Print
  11. “Wildcats to open 2014 season on TV”. Wilson Post, August 22, 2014. Retrieved June 14, 2015.
  12. Boclair, David (August 17, 2015). "Lineup set for Friday Night Rivals high school football telecasts". Nashville Post. Retrieved August 18, 2015.
  13. Friday Night Rivals games to be live streamed
  14. Cirillo, Chip (August 7, 2014). "WUXP changes to Friday football coverage". The Tennessean. Retrieved June 8, 2015.
  15. Murphy, Michael (December 4, 2013)."TSSAA's Blue Cross Bowl football title games to air statewide on new network." Nooga.com. Retrieved June 8, 2015.
  16. "Titans All Access - WZTV Fox 17". Archived from the original on January 20, 2015. Retrieved January 22, 2015.
  17. https://fox17.com/sports/nashville-sc/nashville-sc-names-fox-17-news-as-official-broadcast-partner-will-re-air-inaugural-game
  18. "WUXP UPN 30/Nashville, TN - Sports". Archived from the Original on December 12, 2002. Retrieved March 24, 2015.
  19. “jpsports.com”. Archived from the original January 14, 2006 via Wayback Machine. Retrieved July 13, 2014. Editor’s note: Click on the Affiliates tab for the list of stations.
  20. http://www.secdigitalnetwork.com/NEWS/tabid/473/Article/123584/jp-sports-game-of-the-week-week-10-broadcast-info.aspx
  21. "SEC Network FAQ > SEC > NEWS".Archived from the original on March 31, 2014 via Wayback Machine. Retrieved July 14, 2014.
  22. Fornelli, Tom (July 17, 2014). "Sinclair Launches American Sports Network". "Broadcasting and Cable". Retrieved July 19, 2014.
  23. Sinclair Broadcasting Group to launch American Sports Network - Baltimore Business Journal
  24. ASN, OVC to air 6 football games starting Sept. 26 (2015)
  25. "Men’s Basketball Partners with WUXP-TV MyTV30 for Coverage of Two Non-Conference Games". Belmont Bruins. November 25, 2013. Retrieved June 12, 2015.
  26. “Full List of Stations Carrying ROH TV”. Wrestling Inc. August 18, 2011. Retrieved June 12, 2014.
  27. Where to Watch US | WKU PBS
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