WCWW-LD (channel 25) is a

low-power television station Low-power broadcasting is broadcasting by a Radio broadcasting#Station, broadcast station at a low transmitter power output to a smaller service area than "full power" stations within the same region. It is often distinguished from "micropower ...

South Bend, Indiana South Bend is a city in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States, and its county seat. It lies along the St. Joseph River (Lake Michigan), St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. It is the List of cities in ...

, United States, affiliated with

The CW The CW Network, LLC (commonly referred to as The CW or simply CW) is an American commercial broadcast television network which is controlled by Nexstar Media Group through a 75% ownership interest. The network's name is derived from the firs ...

. It is owned by

Weigel Broadcasting Weigel Broadcasting Co. is an American television broadcasting company based in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, alongside its flagship station WCIU-TV (Channel 26), at 26 North Halsted Street in the Greektown, Chicago, Greektown neighborhood. It cur ...

alongside two other low-power stations:

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

affiliate

WBND-LD WBND-LD (channel 57) is a low-power television station in South Bend, Indiana, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by Weigel Broadcasting (as the company's only ABC affiliate), and is sister to CW affiliate WCWW-LD (channel 25) a ...

(channel 57) and

MyNetworkTV MyNetworkTV (stylized as mynetworkTV; unofficially abbreviated MNT or MNTV) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its Fox Television Stations ...

affiliate

WMYS-LD WMYS-LD (channel 69) is a low-power television station in South Bend, Indiana, United States, affiliated with MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Weigel Broadcasting (as the company's only MyNetworkTV affiliate), and is sister to ABC affiliate WBND- ...

(channel 69). The three stations share studios on Generations Drive (near the

Indiana Toll Road The Indiana Toll Road, officially the Indiana East–West Toll Road, is a controlled-access toll road that runs for east–west across northern Indiana from the Illinois state line to the Ohio state line. It has been advertised as the "Main ...

) in northeastern South Bend; WCWW-LD's transmitter is located just off the

St. Joseph Valley Parkway The St. Joseph Valley Parkway is a freeway in the U.S. states of Indiana and Michigan, serving as a bypass route around Elkhart, Mishawaka, and South Bend in Indiana and Niles in Michigan. The freeway runs to the south and west of Elkhart a ...

on the city's south side. Due to its low-power status, its broadcasting radius only covers the immediate South Bend area. Therefore, Weigel relies on paid television subscription carriage for all three of its South Bend television stations to reach the entire

market Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: *Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand *Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market *Marketing, the act of sat ...

. WCWW-LD is the only CW affiliate owned by Weigel, after

flagship A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of navy, naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically ...

WCIU-TV WCIU-TV (channel 26) is an independent television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is the flagship television property of locally based Weigel Broadcasting, which has owned the station since its inception, and is sister to two ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

reverted to being an

independent station An independent station is a broadcast station, usually a television station, not affiliated with a larger broadcast television network, network. As such, it only broadcasts broadcast syndication, syndicated programs it has purchased; brokered pr ...

on September 1, 2024.

History

The station was founded on August 31, 1990, as W25BM, operating as an affiliate of the

Three Angels Broadcasting Network The Three Angels Broadcasting Network (3ABN) is a Christian media television and radio network which broadcasts Seventh-day Adventist religious, music and health-oriented programming, based in West Frankfort, Illinois, United States. Although ...

; it later changed its callsign to WYGN-LP in October 1995. On March 14, 2002, the station was transferred to its current owner,

, who had been previously broadcasting general entertainment programming on what is now WYGN-LD; it also dropped 3ABN which went to WYGN-LD, changed its callsign to WRDY-LP, and began simulcasting

programming from sister station

WBND-LP WBND-LD (channel 57) is a low-power television station in South Bend, Indiana, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by Weigel Broadcasting (as the company's only ABC affiliate), and is sister to CW affiliate WCWW-LD (channel 25) and ...

; that fall, the station dropped the WBND-LP simulcast and affiliated with

The WB The WB Television Network (shortened to The WB, stylized as "THE WB", and nicknamed the "Frog Network" and/or "The Frog" for its former mascot Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network that ran from 1995 to 2006. It launched on ter ...

, which moved to WRDY-LP from the original WMWB-LP (now WMYS-LD), and it adopted the WMWB-LP callsign previously held by channel 69 to reflect its new affiliation with the network. On March 1, 2006, Weigel officials announced that WMWB would affiliate with

, a network formed out of the struggling WB and

UPN The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that operated from 1995 to 2006. It was originally a joint venture between Chris-Craft Industries (later sold to News Corporation)'s subsidiary, United Television, ...

networks in partnership with the two networks' owners

Time Warner Warner Media, LLC ( doing business as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned by AT&T. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City. It was established as Time Warne ...

and

CBS Corporation CBS Corporation was an American multinational media company with interests primarily in commercial broadcasting, publishing and television production. It was split from Viacom on December 31, 2005, alongside an entirely new Viacom; both ...

, when it premiered in September; channel 25 changed its call letters to WCWW-LP upon the network's launch on September 18, 2006. The WCWW calls had belonged to sister station WMYS, which took an affiliation with CW competitor

(which launched two weeks earlier); the two stations both have borne the WRDY and WYGN calls. In early August 2008, Weigel Broadcasting agreed to sell all three of its South Bend stations, including WCWW, to

Schurz Communications Schurz Communications, Inc. is an American broadband media group and cloud services provider based in South Bend, Indiana. It previously owned newspapers and television stations. History The company was founded in 1872 by Alfred B. Miller and ...

, the longtime owner of the local

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

affiliate

WSBT-TV WSBT-TV (channel 22) is a television station in South Bend, Indiana, United States, affiliated with CBS and Fox. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Heroes & Icons affiliate WSJV (channel 28). The two stations share studios on East ...

(channel 22), for undisclosed terms.WSBT Purchases Three Low-Power Stations
''Broadcasting & Cable'', August 4, 2008. However, in the absence of action by the

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

, the deal was called off in August 2009. With Weigel flagship

's assumption of the CW affiliation in Chicago on September 1, 2019, Weigel now owns both of the network's affiliates on the southern shore of

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and depth () after Lake Superior and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the ...

Newscasts

On March 19, 2012, WCWW-LD debuted a nightly half-hour prime time newscast at 10 p.m. that is produced by WBND-LD (entitled ''ABC 57 News at 10 on CW 25''). WBND also produces two hours of morning news on WCWW from 7 to 9 a.m. weekdays.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's 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— ...

: In July 2010, WCWW-LD launched a second

digital subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...

on 25.2 as an affiliate of

This TV This TV (also known as This TV Network and alternately stylized as thisTV) was an American free-to-air television network owned by Allen Media Broadcast Networks, LLC, part of the Allen Media Group division of Entertainment Studios. Originally ...

. In September 2018, WCWW-LD's digital subchannel 25.2 replaced This TV with

Start TV Start TV is an American free-to-air television network owned as a joint venture between Weigel Broadcasting and the CBS News and Stations subsidiary of Paramount Global. Predominantly carried on the digital subchannels of its affiliated tele ...

. This TV moved to a newly launched third subchannel. In February 2019, WCWW-LD added a high-definition simulcast of sister station WBND-LD on digital subchannel 25.4. In September 2021, WCWW-LD replaced a simulcast of WBND-LD on digital subchannel 25.4 with

MeTV MeTV, an acronym for Memorable Entertainment Television, is an American broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. Marketed as "The Definitive Destination for Classic TV", the network airs a variety of classic television progra ...

's expansion network,

MeTV+ MeTV, an acronym for Memorable Entertainment Television, is an American broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. Marketed as "The Definitive Destination for Classic TV", the network airs a variety of classic television program ...

. In March 2022, WCWW-LD launched a fifth digital subchannel on 25.5 as an affiliate of

Story Television Story Television is an American digital broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting that airs programming which is related to history, normally older programs which are licensed from other networks. The formation of the network ...

Analog-to-digital conversion

On September 14, 2007, WCWW and its sister stations began broadcasting low-power digital signals. WCWW-LD broadcasts with an

effective radiated power Effective radiated power (ERP), synonymous with equivalent radiated power, is an IEEE standardized definition of directional radio frequency (RF) power, such as that emitted by a radio transmitter. It is the total power in watts that would ha ...

of 25 kW on channel 25. On December 28, 2010, WCWW-LP turned off its analog signal on channel 25 because of equipment failure. On April 16, 2012, the FCC granted WCWW-LP a construction permit to move its digital frequency from channel 27 to its former analog allotment, UHF channel 25.

References

External links

WCWW-LD "The CW 25 Michiana"
{{Weigel Broadcasting 1990 establishments in Indiana The CW affiliates CWW-LD MeTV Toons affiliates Start TV affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1990 CWW-LD Weigel Broadcasting