WPSJ-CD (channel 8) is a low-power, Class A television station licensed to

Hammonton, New Jersey Hammonton is a Town (New Jersey), town in Atlantic County, New Jersey, Atlantic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, that has been referred to as the "Blueberry Capital of the World". As of the 2020 United States census, the town's populati ...

, United States, serving the

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

area. The station is owned by

Innovate Corp. Innovate Corp. (formerly known as HC2 Holdings, Inc. and Primus Telecommunications Group, Inc.) is an American public financial services company founded in 1994. History Beginning (1994–1997) Primus commenced operations in 1994 intent on b ...

, with a

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...

located at the Roxborough antenna farm in northwest Philadelphia. Founded as W08CC in 1986 by Paul Engle, the station is one of the oldest low-power TV stations in New Jersey. For 25 years, it provided a mix of local interest and syndicated programs. After being sold in 2012, it has primarily carried Spanish-language broadcast networks, including MundoFox/MundoMax and

Azteca América Azteca América (, sometimes shortened to Azteca) was an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network owned by INNOVATE Corp., which acquired the network from the Azteca International Corporation subsidiary of TV Azteca. Headquar ...

History

Engle ownership

WPSJ signed on the air June 14, 1986, as W08CC (sometimes rendered "WOCC-TV"), the first low-power TV station in New Jersey. W08CC was built by Paul Engle, who owned South Jersey Television, Inc., alongside his wife Sandra. Engle won the station by buying out eight competing applicants; the original format included local talk shows and sports programming. The station continued to offer such local programming through the 1990s, even as local cable systems shut it out of their lineups. However, in 1992, it was added to the primary cable system in

Vineland ''Vineland'' is a 1990 novel by Thomas Pynchon, a postmodern fiction set in California, United States in 1984, the year of Ronald Reagan's reelection.Knabb 2002 Through flashbacks by its characters, who have lived during the '60s in their youth ...

; at that time, it debuted a simulcast of the morning show of local radio station WBSS and a show on Vineland issues. At the station's height in 2005, it took in $400,000 in ad revenue and a percentage of sales on the

Shop At Home Network The Shop at Home Network (also called Shop at Home, Shop at Home TV and SATH) was a television network in the United States, owned and operated by the E. W. Scripps Company from 2002 to 2006, then by Jewelry Television. It primarily aired home ...

, which it aired in overnight time slots. Then, in 2006, income dropped to more than half after the FCC moved WPSJ from channel 8 to a weaker channel 24. This move reduced its potential viewership from 3.5 million to just 150,000. Engle considered shuttering the station, but he opted to persist. The bet paid off in 2007 when the FCC granted WPSJ the right to use

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 ...

8 and build a digital signal. Engle made an investment of $150,000 to convert to digital transmission, and the station's potential audience grew to almost six million viewers.

Sale to Prime Time Partners

On December 19, 2012, Engle Broadcasting of Cedar Brook, New Jersey, sold WPSJ-CD to WPSJ-CD Station, LLC, a subsidiary of

Doral, Florida Doral is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. One of 34 municipalities in the county, it is located west of Miami International Airport and west of Greater Downtown Miami, Downtown Miami. Doral occupies bordered on the west ...

–based Prime Time Partners. Earlier that year, an asset purchase agreement had been signed, as had a time brokerage agreement effective August 1. Two weeks later, the station changed programming to the new

MundoFox MundoMax (; originally known as MundoFox from August 13, 2012, to July 28, 2015) was an American Spanish-language terrestrial television network that was owned by RCN Televisión. The network broadcast programs aimed at Hispanic and Latino Americ ...

Spanish-language network; Prime Time also owned stations in Boston and Tampa that converted to the service. Meanwhile, in June 2013, WPSJ relocated from channel 51 to channel 38 as part of a 2012 settlement with WPHA-CD, which moved from channel 38 to 24. MundoFox, which had changed its name to MundoMax after Fox withdrew from the venture, closed on December 1, 2016. By then, WPSJ-CD was airing a series of other national

digital multicast television network A digital multicast television network, also known as a diginet or multichannel, is a type of national television service designed to be broadcast terrestrially as a supplementary service to other stations on their digital subchannels. Made possib ...

s on its subchannels.

HC2 ownership

Former logo of WPSJ-CD, thumb Prime Time Partners sold WPSJ-CD for $1.7 million to HC2 Holdings in 2018. The station was an affiliate of HC2-owned

until that service closed on December 31, 2022.

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

{{HC2 Holdings 1986 establishments in New Jersey Innovate Corp. Defy (TV network) affiliates PSJ PSJ-CD Television channels and stations established in 1986 PSJ-CD