WPXJ-TV

WPXJ-TV, virtual channel 51 (UHF digital channel 24), is an Ion Television owned-and-operated station serving Buffalo, New York, United States that is licensed to Batavia. The station is owned by West Palm Beach, Florida-based Ion Media Networks (the former Paxson Communications). WPXJ-TV's offices are located on Exchange Street in Buffalo, and its transmitter is located in Bennington, New York.[1]

WPXJ-TV
Batavia/Buffalo, New York
United States
CityBatavia, New York
ChannelsDigital: 24 (UHF)
Virtual: 51 (PSIP)
BrandingIon Television
SloganPositively Entertaining
Programming
Affiliations
Ownership
OwnerIon Media Networks
(sale to the E. W. Scripps Company pending; to be resold to INYO Broadcast Holdings thereafter)
(Ion Media Buffalo License, Inc.)
History
First air date
June 17, 1999 (1999-06-17)
Former call signs
WAQF (1996–1998)
Former channel number(s)
Analog:
51 (UHF, 1999–2009)
Digital:
53 (UHF, until 2009)
23 (UHF, 2009–2019)
Call sign meaning
PaX J
(disambiguation from other Ion affiliates)
Technical information
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID2325
ERP500 kW[1]
HAAT374.4 m (1,228 ft)[1]
Transmitter coordinates42°46′58″N 78°27′27″W[1]
Links
Public license information
Profile
LMS
Websiteiontelevision.com

Until August 2019, WPXJ-TV's transmitter was based at Pavilion, approximately halfway between the station's two target cities, Buffalo and Rochester; it was the only station in Western New York to serve both markets with the same signal (WNYB still serves both markets, but relies on translators and cable carriage to do so), although what little local programming the station has carried has traditionally favored Buffalo, and Ion now maintains a separate Rochester affiliation on the fourth digital subchannel of WHEC-TV.

History

The station signed on the air on June 17, 1999 as an owned-and-operated station of Ion predecessor Pax TV, and was founded by Paxson Communications. WPXJ-TV was Paxson's second effort at launching a television station in Western New York; the first was Jamestown-based WNYP-TV (channel 26), an affiliate of Canadian television network CTV, which Pax founder Lowell W. "Bud" Paxson majority owned from 1966 to 1969. In February 2006, WPXJ-TV was added to Dish Network's Buffalo channel lineup on channel 51.

Possible sale to Scripps

On September 24, 2020, the Cincinnati-based E. W. Scripps Company announced that it would purchase Ion Media for $2.65 billion, with financing from Berkshire Hathaway. With this purchase, Scripps will divest 23 Ion-owned stations, but no announcement has been made as to which stations that Scripps will divest as part of the move. The proposed divestitures will allow the merged company to fully comply with the FCC local and national ownership regulations. Scripps has agreed to a transaction with an unnamed buyer, who has agreed to maintain Ion affiliations for the stations. If Scripps decides to keep WPXJ-TV, this would make it a sister station to ABC affiliate WKBW-TV (channel 7).[2][3][4]

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming
51.1720p16:9IONMain Ion Television programming
51.2480iquboQubo
51.3IONPlusIon Plus
51.4ShopIon Shop
51.5LAFFLaff
51.64:3HSNHSN

[5]

Analog-to-digital conversion

WPXJ-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 51, 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 moved from its pre-transition UHF channel 53,[6] which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to UHF channel 23 (formerly allocated to the analog signal of CW affiliate WNLO, which continues to use channel 23 as its virtual channel). Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 51.

Newscasts

For a time, WPXJ-TV carried a rebroadcast of newscasts from NBC affiliate WGRZ (channel 2), as well as a live 10:00 p.m. newscast produced by that station (this was part of a nationwide initiative for Pax affiliates to carry news and local content from NBC stations). Channel 2 News First at Ten was the first primetime newscast in the Buffalo market (as previously noted, virtually none of the newscast's content was geared toward Rochester, despite WGRZ having a large sister news bureau in that city). It was never a ratings contender and consistently lost the ratings battle with WNLO (channel 23)'s newscast in the same time slot, which had debuted a few weeks later but had been planned for months.

After Pax ended its local news partnerships with NBC in 2005, WGRZ later established a news share agreement with WNYO-TV (channel 49) to produce a half-hour 10:00 p.m. newscast for that station in April 2006, which effectively replaced WNYO-TV's in-house newscast that was cancelled the month before in relation to the shutdown of owner Sinclair Broadcast Group's News Central division; that newscast was moved to Fox affiliate WUTV (channel 29) on April 8, 2013.[7]

References
  1. "Amendment to a Modification of a DTV Station Construction Permit Application". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission. February 15, 2019. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  2. http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news/2020/09/24/scripps-creates-national-television-networks-business-with-acquisition-of-ion-media-395300/20200924scripps01/
  3. Cimilluca, Dana. "E.W. Scripps Agrees to Buy ION Media for $2.65 billion in Berkshire-Backed Deal". Retrieved September 24, 2020.
  4. E.W. Scripps scales up with $2.65 billion Berkshire-backed deal for ION Media
  5. RabbitEars TV Query for WPXJ
  6. "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and Second Rounds" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
  7. Pergament, Alan (March 27, 2013). Ch. 2's 10 p.m. newscast headed to WUTV. The Buffalo News. Retrieved March 27, 2013.
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