WOCH-CD (channel 41) was a low-power, Class A television station in

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 ...

, Illinois, United States. The station was owned by NRJ TV, LLC.

History

WOCH started broadcasting on September 27, 1989, as W04CK and later broadcast on several channels. In 2005, it moved to its final channel location on channel 41 to avoid interference with the digital signal of

Milwaukee Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...

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 ...

affiliate

WTMJ-TV WTMJ-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by the E.W. Scripps Company alongside Kenosha-licensed Ion Television station WPXE-TV (channel 55). WTMJ-TV's studios are ...

(channel 4). WOCH upgraded to Class A status on December 29, 2005, thus protecting their channel position from further displacements. During its days on channel 28 (which was its location prior to moving to channel 41), it ran The Box Music Network from midnight to noon with Korean American Broadcasting Company (or KBC) programming from noon to midnight. In 2001, when

Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to: * Viacom (1952–2005), a former American media conglomerate * Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom * Viacom18, a joint venture between Pa ...

took over The Box and switched it to

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 ...

, WOCH began running an MTV2 feed from DirecTV during the midnight to noon timeslot, but gradually phased it out by 2003–2004. On September 15, 2010, KBC-TV started its carriage on Comcast channel 338 in the Chicago television market. This move came after years of effort by KBC to secure carriage on the Comcast system. In addition to programming from

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

, and some locally produced programs, WOCH aired non-Korean ethnic programming on weekends (such as programming from local

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...

network Bostel), in a format similar to that of FBT 26.6. In September 2012, KM Communications filed to sell WOCH to NRJ TV (a company unrelated to European broadcaster NRJ Radio). The sale was completed on July 30, 2013. In April 2014, the station became an affiliate of the classic movie network The Works. On October 31, 2015, the WOCH 41.2 subchannel began airing the

Comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing. This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma surrounding ...

TV network. On April 13, 2017, 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 ...

(FCC) announced that WOCH-CD was a successful bidder in the spectrum auction; NRJ TV would be surrendering the station's license in exchange for $9,219,110. NRJ TV surrendered WOCH-CD's license to the FCC for cancellation on August 14, 2017.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal was

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

As a low-power analog television station, WOCH-CA was not required to broadcast a digital signal as of the 2009

digital television transition The digital television transition, also called the digital switchover (DSO), the analogue switch/sign-off (ASO), the digital migration, or the analogue shutdown, is the process in which older analogue television broadcasting technology is con ...

. The station had reported, however, that viewers installing

coupon-eligible converter box A coupon-eligible converter box (CECB) was a digital television adapter that met eligibility specifications for subsidy "coupons" from the United States government. The subsidy program was enacted to provide terrestrial television viewers with ...

es were, in some cases, unable to tune into low-power analog stations such as WOCH-CA after conversion as many models of the digital converters lack

analog passthrough Analog passthrough is a feature found on some digital-to-analog television converter boxes. Boxes without the analog passthrough feature only allow older, analog-only TVs to view digital TV. Those with analog pass-through allow both digital and a ...

. On April 27, 2010, the

FCC 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 ju ...

granted WOCH-CA a construction permit to

flash cut A flash cut, also called a flash cutover, is an immediate change in a complex system, with no phase-in period. In the United States, some telephone area codes were split or overlaid immediately, rather than being phased in with a permissive di ...

from analog channel 41 to digital channel 49. As of July 2013, WOCH-CD began broadcasting exclusively in digital.

References

{{New World TV Group 1992 establishments in Illinois 2017 disestablishments in Illinois Comet (TV network) affiliates OCH-CD OCH Television channels and stations disestablished in 2017 Television channels and stations established in 1992 OCH