WEDE-CD (channel 34), branded on-air as MCTV, is a low-power, Class A

religious Religion is a range of social- cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural ...

independent television station An independent station is a broadcast station, usually a television station, not affiliated with a larger broadcast network. As such, it only broadcasts syndicated programs it has purchased; brokered programming, for which a third party pays t ...

licensed to

Arlington Heights, Illinois Arlington Heights is a village in Cook County, Illinois, Cook County Illinois, United States. A northwestern Chicago metropolitan area, suburb of Chicago, it lies about northwest of the city's downtown. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 ...

, United States, serving the

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 ...

area. The station is owned by First United, Inc. It can also be viewed on

WJYS WJYS (channel 62) is an independent television station licensed to Hammond, Indiana, United States, serving the Chicago area. Owned by Millennial Telecommunications, Inc., WJYS maintains studio facilities on South Oak Park Avenue in Tinley Park ...

(channel 62)'s tenth

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 ...

History

WEDE-CD's beginnings were as a

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...

station on channel 17 since its inception in 1989. It moved to channel 34 in 1998 and the call letters were changed to W34CK. The station received Class A status with their new call letters as WEDE-CA in 2005. Channel 34 was once an affiliate of FamilyNet while also airing some religious programming and

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 di ...

s. Around 2008, its programming began to be simulcast on WJYS' second digital subchannel. After the full-power digital transition in June 2009, WEDE-CA began to receive increased signal coverage from its transmitter at

Willis Tower The Willis Tower, formerly and still commonly referred to as the Sears Tower, is a 110-storey, story, skyscraper in the Chicago Loop, Loop community area of Chicago in Illinois, United States. Designed by architect Bruce Graham and engineer F ...

since, as a low-power station, it was not obligated at the time to convert to digital. In the summer of 2014, WEDE-CA turned off its analog signal on channel 34 and flash cut to digital as WEDE-CD. It currently reaches about 8 million people in the

Chicago market The Chicago metropolitan area, also referred to as Chicagoland, is the largest metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Illinois, and the Midwest, containing the City of Chicago along with its surrounding suburbs and satellite citie ...

and continues to serve its surrounding areas as MCTV.

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— ...

References

EDE Television channels and stations established in 1999 1999 establishments in Illinois EDE {{Illinois-tv-station-stub