WFXZ-CD (channel 24) is a Class A television station in

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, United States. The station is owned by the

WGBH Educational Foundation The WGBH Educational Foundation, doing business as GBH since August 2020, is an American public broadcasting group based in Boston, Massachusetts. Established in 1951, it holds the licenses to all of the PBS member stations in Massachusetts, a ...

. WFXZ-CD's studios are located in Woburn. Under a channel sharing arrangement, WFXZ-CD shares transmitter facilities with co-owned

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member station

WGBH-TV WGBH-TV (channel 2), branded GBH or GBH 2 since 2020, is the primary PBS List of PBS member stations, member television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Affiliated stations and facilities WGBH-TV is the Flagship (broadcasting), ...

(channel 2) on Cabot Street in Needham. Despite WFXZ-CD legally holding a low-power Class A license, it transmits using WGBH-TV's full-power spectrum. This ensures complete reception across the Boston

television market A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings, and may also incl ...

History

The station's

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was originally granted on November 30, 1989, as W29BA, operating on channel 29, which would be licensed to nearby Lawrence. However, by the time finally it signed on the air with a

home shopping Home shopping is the electronic retailing and home shopping channels industry, which includes such billion dollar television-based and e-commerce companies as Shop LC, HSN, Gemporia, TJC, QVC, eBay, ShopHQ, Rakuten.com and Amazon.com, ...

service in early 2000, it had moved to channel 24, was licensed to Boston and adopted the W24CM

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...

. A few months later, channel 24 changed its call letters to WVXN-LP. In 2001, the station was upgraded to Class A status as WVXN-CA and dropped home shopping programming in favor of affiliating with

MTV2 MTV2 (formerly M2) is an American pay television Cable television, channel owned by the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global, through PMN’s MTV Entertainment Group Subdivision. The channel launched initially as an all-music ...

. The station changed its callsign to WFXZ-CA in 2003. In July 2006, the station became the Boston affiliate of the Azteca América network. WFXZ24

WFXZ flash-cut its signal to digital transmission in 2010. Longtime owner Randolph Weigner agreed to sell WFXZ to Prime Time Partners in December 2011. The station became a charter MundoFox affiliate when the network formally launched on August 13, 2012, with Azteca America programming moving to its 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 ...

; it returned to primary status early on December 1, 2016, due to MundoMax ending operations (shortly after

Fox International Channels Fox Networks Group (FNG), formerly known as Fox International Channels (FIC), was the television networks division of News Corporation and later 21st Century Fox that operated from 1993 to 2021. It oversaw the production, broadcasting and distrib ...

dropped out of the joint venture in 2015). During its affiliations with MundoFox/MundoMax and Azteca América, WFXZ-CD was carried on

Xfinity Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, doing business as Xfinity, is an American telecommunications business segment and division of the Comcast Corporation. It is used to market consumer cable television, internet, telephone, and wireless servic ...

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...

channels 721 and 981, and Verizon FiOS channel 20. A third subchannel, , carried Hope Channel. In the FCC's incentive auction, WFXZ-CD sold its spectrum for $63,949,770 and indicated that it would enter into a post-auction channel sharing agreement. On September 8, 2017, the station entered into a channel sharing agreement with

(channel 2); concurrently, Prime Time Partners agreed to donate the WFXZ license to the

. WFXZ shut down its UHF digital channel 24 transmitter on December 3, 2017, and began channel-sharing on WGBH-TV's channel 19 transmitter; WGBH's acquisition of the station was completed on December 21, 2017, at which point the station dropped Azteca América for BizTV. Concurrently, the station's carriage on Xfinity and Verizon FiOS was discontinued.

Subchannels

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wfxz-Cd FXZ Television channels and stations established in 2000 FXZ-CD WGBH Educational Foundation