WHPX-TV (channel 26) is a

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the ea ...

licensed to

New London, Connecticut New London is a seaport city and a port of entry on the northeast coast of the United States, located at the mouth of the Thames River in New London County, Connecticut. It was one of the world's three busiest whaling ports for several decade ...

, United States, serving as the

Ion Television Ion Television is an American broadcast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented en ...

affiliate for the

Hartford Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...

–

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 ...

market. The station is owned by Inyo Broadcast Holdings, and maintains offices in New London and a transmitter on Rattlesnake Mountain in

Farmington, Connecticut Farmington is a town in Hartford County in the Farmington Valley area of central Connecticut in the United States. The population was 26,712 at the 2020 census. It sits 10 miles west of Hartford at the hub of major I-84 interchanges, 20 miles ...

. Prior to 2021, WHPX-TV's facilities served as the main studio for

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

(FCC) purposes for

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

WLWC and former sister station WPXQ-TV in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...

History

The station began operation on September 15, 1986, as

independent station An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, marke ...

WTWS, with transmitter in the Oakdale neighborhood of Montville near Lake Konomoc. It was owned by C&S Broadcasting with majority owner Neil Denenberg and ran a low-budget general entertainment format. In 1988, the station took over some programming from WHCT-TV (channel 18, now

Univision Univision () is an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. It is the United States' largest provider of Spanish-language content. The network's programming is aimed at the Latino public and include ...

affiliate

WUVN WUVN (channel 18) is a television station licensed to Hartford, Connecticut, United States, serving the Hartford–New Haven television market as an affiliate of the Spanish-language Univision network. It is owned by Entravision Communications al ...

) as a result of that station's financial problems. In 1990, the station also began to acquire programming that WTXX (channel 20, now

WCCT-TV WCCT-TV (channel 20), branded on-air as CW 20, is a television station licensed to Waterbury, Connecticut, United States, serving the Hartford–New Haven market as an affiliate of The CW. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Hartford-license ...

) chose not to renew. It also offered to pick up WTXX's programming inventory in 1992, but WTXX's owner (

Renaissance Broadcasting Renaissance Broadcasting, founded in 1982 by Michael Finkelstein, was a company that owned several UHF television stations, it was sold to Tribune Broadcasting in 1997. The company was headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut. History Renaissanc ...

) declined. The station had added more

infomercial An infomercial is a form of television commercial that resembles regular TV programming yet is intended to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website. Most often used as a form of dire ...

s to its lineup by 1993. Two years later, it was sold to Paxson Communications, and switched to Paxson's standard schedule of

religious programming Religious broadcasting, sometimes referred to as faith-based broadcasts, is the dissemination of television and/or radio content that intentionally has religious ideas, religious experience, or religious practice as its core focus. In some coun ...

in the morning, infomercials in the afternoon and evenings, and worship programming overnight after affiliating with inTV. The rights to its programming were acquired by LIN Television, which placed those shows on WTVU (channel 59, now

WCTX WCTX (channel 59) is a television station licensed to New Haven, Connecticut, United States, serving the Hartford–New Haven market as an affiliate of MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside ABC affiliate WTNH (channel 8) ...

). Paxson then began programming WHCT in 1997, and sold WTWS to

Roberts Broadcasting Roberts Broadcasting Company is a media company based in St. Louis, Missouri. It is a subsidiary of the parent company, the Roberts Companies, one of the largest African American-owned conglomerates. It is co-owned by brothers Steven and Michael R ...

. Roberts, in turn, sold the station to DP Media the following year. However, DP Media was owned by—and named for—Devon Paxson, son of Paxson Communications founder

Bud Paxson Lowell White "Bud" Paxson (April 17, 1935 – January 9, 2015) was an American media executive. In 1982, Paxson and his business partner, Roy Speer, co-founded the Home Shopping Club (now called the Home Shopping Network). He later established Pax T ...

. Paxson then cut its ties with WHCT and took control of WTWS. The station then affiliated with Pax TV (the predecessor to Ion Television) that year, and changed its call letters to WHPX-TV to reflect its affiliation. Paxson bought DP Media in 2000. From 2001 until 2005, WHPX re-aired newscasts produced by

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

owned-and-operated station

WVIT WVIT (channel 30) is a television station licensed to New Britain, Connecticut, United States, broadcasting NBC programming to the Hartford–New Haven market. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations divisio ...

(channel 30).

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

Analog-to-digital conversion

WHPX-TV shut down its analog signal, over

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

channel 26, on February 17, 2009, to conclude the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.List of Digital Full-Power Stations
/ref> The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 34 to channel 26. In conjunction with the repack of Connecticut television stations on August 2, 2019, WHPX now transmits on channel 28 from Rattlesnake Mountain in

Farmington Farmington may refer to: Places Canada *Farmington, British Columbia * Farmington, Nova Scotia (disambiguation) United States *Farmington, Arkansas *Farmington, California *Farmington, Connecticut *Farmington, Delaware * Farmington, Georgia * ...

where many Connecticut television station transmitters are located.

References

External links

Ion Television website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whpx-Tv Ion Television affiliates Bounce TV affiliates Court TV affiliates Grit (TV network) affiliates Defy TV affiliates TrueReal affiliates Scripps News affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1986 1986 establishments in Connecticut New London, Connecticut HPX-TV