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WMJF-CD (channel 39) is a low-power,
Class A television station The class A television service is a system for regulating some low-power television (LPTV) stations in the United States. Class A stations are denoted by the broadcast callsign suffix "-CA" (analog) or "-CD" (digital), although very many analog - ...
licensed to
Towson, Maryland Towson () is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The population was 59,533 in the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Baltimore County and the second-most populous unincorpo ...
, United States, serving the
Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...
area. The station is owned by HME Equity Fund II,
LLC A limited liability company (LLC) is the United States-specific form of a private limited company. It is a business structure that can combine the pass-through taxation of a partnership or sole proprietorship with the limited liability of a ...
, and has a transmitter on
Maryland Route 45 Maryland Route 45 (MD 45) is a state highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. Known for most of its length as York Road, the state highway runs from U.S. Route 1 in Maryland, U.S. Route 1 (US 1)/U.S. Route 40 Truck (Baltimore, Maryland), US 4 ...
near the
Towson Town Center Towson Town Center is a large indoor shopping mall located in Towson, Maryland. It was the largest indoor shopping mall in Maryland prior to the completion of Arundel Mills in late 2000 in Hanover, Maryland, Hanover and the 2007 expansion of An ...
mall.


History

Towson University Towson University (TU or Towson) is a public university in Towson, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1866 as Maryland's first training school for teachers, Towson University is a part of the University System of Maryland. Since its foundin ...
(then Towson State University) applied for a
construction permit Planning permission or building permit refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. House building permits, for example, are subject to bu ...
on channel 61 in 1988 as a
student television station A student television station is a television station run by university, high or middle school students that primarily airs school/university news and in many cases, student-produced soap operas, entertainment shows, and other programming. At the h ...
. After eight extensions of the permit into 1994, Towson applied to reduce the station's
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 ...
by a factor of ten to just 521 watts. Station W61BT then applied for its license January 30, 1995. W61BT was the Baltimore market's charter affiliate for
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 launched the same month. At the time "Towson State Television" was largely invisible to local viewers, as its coverage radius was about from the university and it did not have
must-carry In cable television, many governments, including the ones of the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, apply a must-carry regulation stating that forces a cable TV provider to carry the public interest programming, like locally licensed te ...
rights on cable as a low-power station. Station management took the chance on joining The WB after no full-power station in the city was willing to join the network, and expressed optimism that the network affiliation for the new station would lead to cable carriage and provide a unique learning opportunity for students. By the fall, when the network was also available from WBDC (channel 50, now CW
owned-and-operated station In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an network af ...
WDCW WDCW (channel 50), branded DCW 50, is a television station in Washington, D.C., serving as the local outlet for The CW. It is owned and operated by network majority owner Nexstar Media Group alongside Hagerstown, Maryland–licensed independent ...
) in
Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
, this had not materialized and ''
Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local, regional, national, and international news. Founded in 1837, the newspaper was owned by Tribune Publish ...
'' sports media critic Milton Kent called on local cable providers to carry that station instead. The station changed its callsign to WMJF-LP in February 1996, reflecting its network's mascot, Michigan J. Frog. The WB signed a deal to move to
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, ...
affiliate
WNUV WNUV (channel 54) is a television station in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of Fox/M ...
(channel 54) in July 1997, effective the following January, and a network spokesman referred to Baltimore as one of the network's "five biggest holes" in coverage. After a brief stint as an
America One America One was an American television network established in 1995 by USFR Media Group through its America One Television subsidiary.
affiliate, WMJF became 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 ...
and also carried
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 ...
in 2004. WMJF was also a
CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...
student bureau, one of only two in the country. WMJF was a 90 percent student run organization, operated under faculty advisers Dr. John MacKerron and Dr. David Reiss, and an executive board of five elected and appointed positions that they deemed necessary to help operate the station. Towson University sold WMJF-LP to
LocusPoint Networks LocusPoint Networks LLC was an owner of television stations in the United States. The company is 99% owned by The Blackstone Group. After selling off most of their in 2017 and 2018 in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) spectrum auction a ...
in December 2012. The deal closed on August 8, 2013. LocusPoint then sold WMJF-CD to HME Equity Fund II on April 8, 2018. Towson University continued to operate the station until 2019. Programming and operations are handled remotely via satellite feed. From 2021 to 2023, WMJF-CD was an affiliate of
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 ...
, which moved to WMAR-DT5. On June 28, 2024, the signal was shut down to upgrade the signal in preparations for the addition of
MeTV Toons MeTV Toons is an American broadcast television network owned and operated by Weigel Broadcasting in partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched on June 25, 2024, as a spin-off of MeTV, the network's programming mainly consists of classic an ...
.


WMJFNow

WMJFNow was launched in August 2006, after a beta run the previous spring. The program is run using
Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
Video. WMJFNow is the creation of webmaster and station president, Christopher Taydus with help from many station members including Josh Eisenberg, Joe Achard and Diego Torres. It was created to help find a new audience for the station. Taydus was quoted as saying, "I have a friend who goes to Northeastern who has been watching our sitcom ''Film School''. We've even had guys from other countries watching." When asked about the numbers that some shows were receiving, Josh Eisenberg said, "In the college television market those are incredible numbers to be receiving. It used to be just a five-mile radius, and now anyone can see it."


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— ...
:


Spectrum reallocation

As a part of the repacking process following the 2016–2017 FCC incentive auction, WMJF-CD relocated to UHF channel 23 in summer 2020, using
virtual channel In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered as digits on a receiver's ...
39.


References


External links


WMJF-CD
on
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wmjf-Lp MeTV Toons affiliates Laff (TV network) affiliates Ion Plus affiliates Heroes & Icons affiliates MJF-CD Television channels and stations established in 1995 1995 establishments in Maryland MJF-CD