WUVP-TV
Encyclopedia
WUVP-DT, virtual channel
65, is the Univisión
owned and operated station licensed
to Vineland, New Jersey
. WUVP-DT offers a Spanish programming format featuring news
, talk shows, dramas, movies and other first-rate Spanish programming.
Company, which was later sold to Tribune). Renaissance had hoped to operate the station as an ABC
network affiliate; however, ABC decided not to add the station to its lineup, and when WRBV took to the air it was running syndicated shows by day, a half-hour local newscast at 7 p.m., and Wometco Home Theater
subscription television evenings and late nights. The station's signal, broadcast from a tower 25 miles southeast of Philadelphia, put it at a disadvantage. The signal covered the city of Philadelphia, but only a few of the densely populated and affluent suburbs west of the city, leaving it with a smaller potential audience than its competitors. WSJT also ran into difficulty obtaining carriage by the cable television stations within its large coverage area. In defiance of FCC regulations of the time, NYT Cable, Sammons, Tri-County and other large systems refused to add the station to their offerings. Thus, the station ran into financial difficulties within months, unable to get a network affiliation, unable to garner audience, and unable to sell advertising to support its purchased programming and its extensive evening newscast.
In December 1981, Renaissance filed for bankruptcy protection, forcing the bankruptcy trustee Richard Milstead to lay off the entire newsroom staff and all but a skeleton crew of managers and technicians, as well as cancel the non-subscription broadcast schedule. The station continued to broadcast in bankruptcy for more than three years, running at an operating profit under an aggressive, young staff led by veteran station manager Carmen Colucci. The former schedule of syndicated shows was replaced by Financial News Network
, public domain movies, and new syndicated series in 1982, when WWSG
dropped FNN to run subscription television 24/7. When FNN went cable only in 1984, WRBV began carrying a music video
channel called Odyssey during all but prime access hours. By 1985, Odyssey was broadcast during prime time as well, after Wometco Home Theater abruptly ceased operations. Management of the station under Milstead persuaded TV Guide
and the Philadelphia Inquirer to begin carrying the stations listings. Then, assisted by Washington attorneys, the station won an order by the FCC to the region's cable television systems to begin carrying WRBV. Both actions were critical to making the station attractive to potential investors.
In June 1985 Press Broadcasting Company, a division of the Asbury Park Press
, purchased the station for a mere $3.3 million and changed the call letters to WSJT, for South Jersey Television. Press Broadcasting executives planned to program the station with relatively recent reruns of syndicated programming, but found that the rights to virtually all current product were held by existing Philadelphia market stations, even though they were not then being broadcast. The Philadelphia stations declined to give up the rights, perhaps for competitive reasons. Consequently, Press Broadcasting adopted a strategy of televising old black-and-white series from the 1950s and 1960s, along with B-movies. In a notable success, previous to the sale to Press Broadcasting, the station obtained the rights to the basketball games of the newly-formed Big East Conference
, as well as LSU Tigers football
. When Villanova
's men's basketball team reached top 10 rankings in winter 1985 and the Big East conference tournament came around, WSJT was the only station in the Philadelphia region with rights to carry the games, and thousands of area residents learned about the station for the first time.
Some of WSJT's shows included Ozzie & Harriet, The Danny Thomas Show
, My Little Margie
, Our Miss Brooks
, December Bride
, The Donna Reed Show
, The Patty Duke Show
, Petticoat Junction
, Bachelor Father, Love That Bob, Gunsmoke
, Naked City
, Ironside
, The Ann Sothern Show
, and other vintage series not wanted by other Philadelphia-area stations. The station also resumed broadcasting news in the form of five-minute newsbreaks at the top of primetime hours, anchored by Brian Eckert, producer of the station's first news program in 1981. Unfortunately, ratings were dismal. In less than a year, the owners of the Asbury Park Press told Press Broadasting's management that the station would have to significantly improve ratings "or else."
In 1986, Silver King Broadcasting, the Home Shopping Network
's television station group, bought WSJT from Press Broadcasting for an astonishing $27 million. In announcing the sale to the station staff, Press Broadcasting executives said they expected to buy WKBS (UHF channel 48), a Philadelphia-centered station. All of the now former WSJT staff would be rehired when that happened. It never did.
Under new call letters, WSJT -- now WHSP, for Home Shopping Philadelphia, began running HSN programming on the station full time starting on December 31 of that year. The station remained a Home Shopping Network station for the next 16 years. Silver King was acquired by USA Broadcasting
in the late 1990s. There were plans to eventually convert WHSP to a general entertainment
format with many 1960s and 70s sitcoms, drama shows, and cartoons sometime in 2002, as USA-owned stations in Miami, Florida, Atlanta, Georgia, Boston
, and Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas
had already converted to such formats. However, USA Broadcasting put their stations up for sale in the late part of 2000.
Disney almost bought the stations, but Univision
wound up outbidding them for the broadcast group. Therefore, WHSP was sold in a group deal to Univisión in 2001; on January 14, 2002, it picked up the Univision affiliation and became WUVP.
WUVP replaced the repeater
of New York City's Univisión station, WXTV
, which aired on WXTV-LP channel 28. Following the switch, that station became the affiliate of Univisión's new Telefutura
network, as WFPA-CA
.
in Puerto Rico
.
Virtual channel
In telecommunications, a logical channel number , also known as virtual channel, is a channel designation which differs from that of the actual radio channel on which the signal travels....
65, is the Univisión
Univision
Univision is a Spanish-language television network in the United States. It has the largest audience of Spanish language television viewers according to Nielsen ratings. Randy Falco, COO, has been in charge of the company since the departure of Univision Communications president and CEO Joe Uva...
owned and operated station licensed
City of license
A city of license or community of license, in American and Canadian broadcasting, is the community that a radio station or television station is officially licensed to serve by that country's broadcast regulator....
to Vineland, New Jersey
Vineland, New Jersey
Vineland is a city in Cumberland County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 60,724...
. WUVP-DT offers a Spanish programming format featuring news
News
News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...
, talk shows, dramas, movies and other first-rate Spanish programming.
History
The station signed on June 22, 1981 as WRBV. The station was owned by a local group called Renaissance Broadcasting of Vineland (not to be confused with the Renaissance BroadcastingRenaissance Broadcasting
Renaissance Broadcasting, founded in 1982 by Michael Finkelstien, was a company that owned several UHF television stations, it was sold to Tribune Broadcasting in 1997...
Company, which was later sold to Tribune). Renaissance had hoped to operate the station as an ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
network affiliate; however, ABC decided not to add the station to its lineup, and when WRBV took to the air it was running syndicated shows by day, a half-hour local newscast at 7 p.m., and Wometco Home Theater
Wometco Home Theater
The Wometco Home Theater was an early pay television service in the New York City area, owned by Miami-based Wometco Enterprises, which owned several major network affiliates in medium markets and their flagship WTVJ in Miami...
subscription television evenings and late nights. The station's signal, broadcast from a tower 25 miles southeast of Philadelphia, put it at a disadvantage. The signal covered the city of Philadelphia, but only a few of the densely populated and affluent suburbs west of the city, leaving it with a smaller potential audience than its competitors. WSJT also ran into difficulty obtaining carriage by the cable television stations within its large coverage area. In defiance of FCC regulations of the time, NYT Cable, Sammons, Tri-County and other large systems refused to add the station to their offerings. Thus, the station ran into financial difficulties within months, unable to get a network affiliation, unable to garner audience, and unable to sell advertising to support its purchased programming and its extensive evening newscast.
In December 1981, Renaissance filed for bankruptcy protection, forcing the bankruptcy trustee Richard Milstead to lay off the entire newsroom staff and all but a skeleton crew of managers and technicians, as well as cancel the non-subscription broadcast schedule. The station continued to broadcast in bankruptcy for more than three years, running at an operating profit under an aggressive, young staff led by veteran station manager Carmen Colucci. The former schedule of syndicated shows was replaced by Financial News Network
Financial News Network
The Financial News Network was a television network that operated throughout the United States during the 1980s.-Founding:Financial News Network was founded in 1981 by two men: Rodney Buchser, who had been general manager of KWHY, Channel 22 in Los Angeles and Glenn Taylor. The concept originated...
, public domain movies, and new syndicated series in 1982, when WWSG
WPSG
WPSG, channel 57, is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. WPSG is owned by the CBS Corporation and is the east coast flagship station for the CW Television Network, which is owned jointly by CBS and Time Warner...
dropped FNN to run subscription television 24/7. When FNN went cable only in 1984, WRBV began carrying a music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
channel called Odyssey during all but prime access hours. By 1985, Odyssey was broadcast during prime time as well, after Wometco Home Theater abruptly ceased operations. Management of the station under Milstead persuaded TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
and the Philadelphia Inquirer to begin carrying the stations listings. Then, assisted by Washington attorneys, the station won an order by the FCC to the region's cable television systems to begin carrying WRBV. Both actions were critical to making the station attractive to potential investors.
In June 1985 Press Broadcasting Company, a division of the Asbury Park Press
Asbury Park Press
The Asbury Park Press is a daily newspaper in Monmouth and Ocean counties of New Jersey and has the third largest circulation in the state...
, purchased the station for a mere $3.3 million and changed the call letters to WSJT, for South Jersey Television. Press Broadcasting executives planned to program the station with relatively recent reruns of syndicated programming, but found that the rights to virtually all current product were held by existing Philadelphia market stations, even though they were not then being broadcast. The Philadelphia stations declined to give up the rights, perhaps for competitive reasons. Consequently, Press Broadcasting adopted a strategy of televising old black-and-white series from the 1950s and 1960s, along with B-movies. In a notable success, previous to the sale to Press Broadcasting, the station obtained the rights to the basketball games of the newly-formed Big East Conference
Big East Conference
The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletics conference consisting of sixteen universities in the eastern half of the United States. The conference's 17 members participate in 24 NCAA sports...
, as well as LSU Tigers football
LSU Tigers football
The LSU Tigers football team, also known as the Fighting Tigers or Bayou Bengals, represents Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States in NCAA Division I FBS college football. Current head coach Les Miles has led the team since 2005. Since 1999 when Nick Saban took over as...
. When Villanova
Villanova
Villanova may refer to:In botany:*Villanova, a genus of plants in the family Phyllanthaceae, an invalid name replaced by Flueggea, or bushweed*Villanova , a genus of plants in the family Asteraceae.In education:*St...
's men's basketball team reached top 10 rankings in winter 1985 and the Big East conference tournament came around, WSJT was the only station in the Philadelphia region with rights to carry the games, and thousands of area residents learned about the station for the first time.
Some of WSJT's shows included Ozzie & Harriet, The Danny Thomas Show
The Danny Thomas Show
The Danny Thomas Show is an American sitcom which ran from 1953-1957 on ABC and from 1957-1964 on CBS...
, My Little Margie
My Little Margie
My Little Margie is an American situation comedy that alternated between CBS and NBC from 1952 to 1955. The series was created by Frank Fox and produced in Los Angeles, California at Hal Roach Studios by Hal Roach, Jr. and Roland D...
, Our Miss Brooks
Our Miss Brooks
Our Miss Brooks is an American situation comedy starring Eve Arden as a sardonic high school English teacher. It began as a radio show broadcast on CBS from 1948 to 1957. When the show was adapted to television , it became one of the medium's earliest hits...
, December Bride
December Bride
December Bride is an American sitcom that aired on the CBS television network from 1954 to 1959, adapted from the original CBS radio network series that aired from June 1952 through September 1953.-Overview:...
, The Donna Reed Show
The Donna Reed Show
The Donna Reed Show is an American sitcom starring Donna Reed as the upper middle class housewife Donna Stone. Carl Betz appears as her pediatrician husband Alex, and Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen as their teenage children Mary and Jeff. The show originally aired on ABC at 10 pm from September...
, The Patty Duke Show
The Patty Duke Show
The Patty Duke Show is an American sitcom which ran on ABC from September 18, 1963, until May 4, 1966, with reruns airing through August 31, 1966. The show was created as a vehicle for rising star Patty Duke...
, Petticoat Junction
Petticoat Junction
Petticoat Junction is an American situation comedy produced by Filmways which originally aired on CBS from 1963 to 1970. The series is one of three interrelated shows about rural characters created by Paul Henning; the others are The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres.The setting for the series...
, Bachelor Father, Love That Bob, Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
, Naked City
Naked City (TV series)
Naked City is a police drama series which aired from 1958 to 1963 on the ABC television network. It was inspired by the 1948 motion picture of the same name, and mimics its dramatic "semi-documentary" format....
, Ironside
Ironside
-Entertainment and literature:*Ironside , an American television series starring Raymond Burr*Ironside: A Modern Faery's Tale, an urban fantasy novel by Holly Black-People:...
, The Ann Sothern Show
The Ann Sothern Show
The Ann Sothern Show is an American sitcom starring Ann Sothern that aired on CBS for 93 episodes. The series began on October 6, 1958, and ended on September 25, 1961. The Ann Sothern Show was Sothern's second sitcom for CBS...
, and other vintage series not wanted by other Philadelphia-area stations. The station also resumed broadcasting news in the form of five-minute newsbreaks at the top of primetime hours, anchored by Brian Eckert, producer of the station's first news program in 1981. Unfortunately, ratings were dismal. In less than a year, the owners of the Asbury Park Press told Press Broadasting's management that the station would have to significantly improve ratings "or else."
In 1986, Silver King Broadcasting, the Home Shopping Network
Home Shopping Network
Home Shopping Network or HSN began in 1977 as a 24-hour/7 day a week home shopping television network televised via cable, satellite, and some terrestrial channels in the Philippines. HSN can also be shopped online at hsn.com...
's television station group, bought WSJT from Press Broadcasting for an astonishing $27 million. In announcing the sale to the station staff, Press Broadcasting executives said they expected to buy WKBS (UHF channel 48), a Philadelphia-centered station. All of the now former WSJT staff would be rehired when that happened. It never did.
Under new call letters, WSJT -- now WHSP, for Home Shopping Philadelphia, began running HSN programming on the station full time starting on December 31 of that year. The station remained a Home Shopping Network station for the next 16 years. Silver King was acquired by USA Broadcasting
USA Broadcasting
USA Broadcasting was an American media company owned by veteran entertainment industry executive Barry Diller. This network was the over-the-air broadcasting arm of USA Network....
in the late 1990s. There were plans to eventually convert WHSP to a general entertainment
General Entertainment
General Entertainment Co., Ltd. is a Japanese film production company and video game developer.-Games developed:*Pen Pen TriIcelon *Godzilla Generations *Alive...
format with many 1960s and 70s sitcoms, drama shows, and cartoons sometime in 2002, as USA-owned stations in Miami, Florida, Atlanta, Georgia, Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, and Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...
had already converted to such formats. However, USA Broadcasting put their stations up for sale in the late part of 2000.
Disney almost bought the stations, but Univision
Univision
Univision is a Spanish-language television network in the United States. It has the largest audience of Spanish language television viewers according to Nielsen ratings. Randy Falco, COO, has been in charge of the company since the departure of Univision Communications president and CEO Joe Uva...
wound up outbidding them for the broadcast group. Therefore, WHSP was sold in a group deal to Univisión in 2001; on January 14, 2002, it picked up the Univision affiliation and became WUVP.
WUVP replaced the repeater
Repeater
A repeater is an electronic device that receives asignal and retransmits it at a higher level and/or higher power, or onto the other side of an obstruction, so that the signal can cover longer distances.-Description:...
of New York City's Univisión station, WXTV
WXTV
WXTV-DT channel 41 is a Univisión owned-and-operated television station, licensed to Paterson, New Jersey and serving the New York metropolitan area. WXTV's studios are located in Teaneck, New Jersey, and its transmitter in on the Empire State Building in Manhattan...
, which aired on WXTV-LP channel 28. Following the switch, that station became the affiliate of Univisión's new Telefutura
TeleFutura
TeleFutura is a U.S. Spanish-language broadcast television network owned by Univision with headquarters in Miami, Florida.-Overview:TeleFutura Is America’s #2 Spanish-Language Network in prime time...
network, as WFPA-CA
WFPA-CA
WFPA-CA is a low power television station that broadcasts TeleFutura programs in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting on channel 28. The station is owned and operated by Univision....
.
News operation
On March 10, 2008, the station began production of a local news program (Noticias 65), which airs Monday – Friday at 6 PM and 11 PM, anchored by Ilia Garcia. On weekends, the station rebroadcasts newscasts from its sister station, WLIIWLII
WLII-DT is a full-power television station licensed to Caguas, Puerto Rico. Transmitting its analog signal on channel 11 and digital signal on channel 56, the station is owned and operated by Univision and is branded as Univision Puerto Rico...
in Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
.