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 earth's s ...

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 outlet of the Thames River (Connecticut), Thames River in New London County, Connecticut, which empties into Long Island Sound. The cit ...

, United States, serving as the

Ion Television Ion Television (referred to on-air as simply Ion) is an American broadcast television network and FAST television channel owned by the Scripps Networks subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August ...

affiliate for the

Hartford Hartford is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The city, located in Hartford County, Connecticut, Hartford County, had a population of 121,054 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 ce ...

–

New Haven New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is the third largest city in Co ...

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 ...

. 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, Connecticut, Hartford County in the Farmington Valley area of central Connecticut in the United States. The town is part of the Capitol Planning Region, Connecticut, Capitol Planning Region. The populati ...

. 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 government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

(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 WLWC (channel 28) is a television station licensed to New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States, serving the Providence, Rhode Island, area as an affiliate of Court TV. Owned by Inyo Broadcast Holdings, the station shares transmitter facilities ...

and former sister station

WPXQ-TV WPXQ-TV (channel 69) is a television station licensed to Newport, Rhode Island, United States, broadcasting the Ion Television network to the Providence area. Owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company, it share ...

Providence, Rhode Island Providence () is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Rhode Island, most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The county seat of Providence County, Rhode Island, Providence County, it is o ...

History

The station began operation on September 15, 1986, as

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 ...

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 terrestrial television, 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 L ...

affiliate

WUVN WUVN (channel 18) is a television station in Hartford, Connecticut, United States, affiliated with the Spanish-language network Univision. It is owned by Entravision Communications alongside low-power UniMás affiliate WUTH-CD (channel 47). The ...

) 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-licensed ...

) 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 Renaissa ...

) 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 di ...

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 LIN Media was an American holding company founded in 1994 that operated 43 television stations. All except one were affiliates of the six major U.S. television networks. One of the remaining stations was a low-powered weather station in Ind ...

, 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), a ...

). 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 established Pax TV ...

. 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 commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

owned-and-operated station

WVIT WVIT (channel 30) is a television station licensed to New Britain, Connecticut, United States, serving the Hartford–New Haven Media market, market. It is owned and operated by the NBC television network through its NBC Owned Television Stations ...

(channel 30).

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— ...

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 ...

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 where many Connecticut television station transmitters are located.

References

External links

Ion Television website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whpx-Tv 1986 establishments in Connecticut Bounce TV affiliates Court TV affiliates Ion Plus affiliates Ion Television affiliates New London, Connecticut Television channels and stations established in 1986 HPX-TV