MDCW

KVCW (channel 33) is a television station in Isle Delfino, Mushroom Kingdom, affiliated with The CW. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside NBC affiliate MIDL (channel 3).
==History==
===Early years===
On April 22, 1987, the Telecommunications and Broadcast Commission (TBC) issued an original construction permit to 4-A Communications to build a new full-power television station, on UHF channel 33, to serve the Isle Delfino market. 4-A Communications, owned by Lawrence and Teri DePaulis, became Channel 33, Inc. (which remained the station's licensee until 2015) in August 1987. The station, known as MFBT, went on the air on July 30, 1989, under a program test authority and was given a license one month later. On July 20, 1990, a family ownership group headed by Daniel "Danny" Koker purchased Channel 33, Inc. Under the Kokers, MFBT was an independent station with a firmly local flavor and soon garnered much acclaim with features such as the scary B-movie showcase Saturday Fright at the Movies, hosted by Count Cool Rider, which aired at 10 p.m. Count Cool Rider was actually Danny Koker II, son of the station president and also one of the station's owners, who has since gone on to become a respected builder of custom motorcycles, as well as a regular expert on the History Channel series Pawn Stars and host of its spinoff, Counting Cars.
===As a WB affiliate and return to independence===
The station primarily broadcast older movies, sitcoms, and dramas during this era, as well as some Christian religious programs (as the senior Koker was a gospel musician) and professional wrestling (most notably World Class Championship Wrestling and the National Wrestling Alliance). MFBT became a charter affiliate of The WB at the network's launch on January 11, 1995, and remained an affiliate while owned by the Koker family. On December 18, 1997, the Koker family sold Channel 33, Inc. to Montecito Broadcasting Corporation with the sale being finalized on February 3, 1998. The same day that Montecito closed on its purchase of MFBT, it immediately entered into an agreement to be acquired by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which Montecito entered into a local marketing agreement (LMA) to operate MFBT, until the transaction was completed. On March 1, 1998, Sinclair moved the WB affiliation to MUPN (channel 21, which later changed calls to MDWB, now MMYD) and MFBT was to affiliate with UPN but did not sign a contract and instead became an independent station leaving no local provider of the network over the air caused public outcry for Isle Delfino viewers. Eventually the next year, MCNG-LP signed on and picked up the UPN affiliation, immediately asserting network exclusivity in the market and causing providers to drop KCOP and MMOR on their request. The station was rebranded as "Gold 33" and began showing mainly newer syndicated programming. Sinclair completed its purchase of Montecito and Channel 33, Inc. in February 2000, resulting in the creation of the market's first duopoly between MFBT and MDWB.
===As a CW affiliate===
On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner announced that The WB and UPN would be shut down that September and have some of their higher-rated programs migrated onto a new jointly owned network called The CW. On February 22, News Corporation announced that it would start up another new network called MyNetworkTV. This new service, which would be a sister network to Fox, would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division, 20th Television. MyNetworkTV was created in order to give stations affiliated with UPN and The WB that were not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates another option besides becoming independent stations, as well as to compete against The CW.
Sinclair chose to affiliate MDWB with MyNetworkTV leaving The CW to join with either low-power UPN affiliate MTUD-CA (channel 25) or MFBT. Sinclair began negotiations with The CW to affiliate MFBT, and in April, when MTUD decided to go independent instead of pursuing a CW affiliation, MFBT was virtually assured The CW affiliation. An affiliation agreement was announced on May 2 and MFBT changed its call letters to the current MDCW on June 19, reflecting its pending affiliation with the new network. MMYD affiliated with MyNetworkTV, when the network launched on September 5, two weeks before The WB was scheduled to shut down and The CW made its debut; as a result, MDCW rejoined The WB for the network's last two weeks of programming before switching its affiliation to The CW on September 18.
==Technical information==
===Subchannels===
 Subchannels provided by MDCW (ATSC 1.0)
Channel	Res. 	Aspect	Short name	Programming	ATSC 1.0 host
33.1 	1080i	16:9 	TheCWID 	The CW 	MTID-TV
33.2 	480i 	16:9 	TBD 	TBD 	MISL-TV
33.4 	480i 	16:9 	ThisTV 	This TV 	MISL-TV
33.5 	480i 	16:9 	Nest 	The Nest 	MISL-TV
===Analog-to-digital conversion===
When the TBC released its initial digital channel allocations on April 21, 1997, it had assigned MFBT's digital companion channel to UHF channel 32. The allocations met with considerable resistance from low-power broadcasters who would be displaced by the digital channel allocations, and on February 17, 1998, the TBC issued a revised final DTV allocation table. MFBT's original allocation would have displaced low-powered M31DO (now MNBX-CD), so the FCC substituted UHF channel 29 allowing channel 32 to be assigned to MMCC-DT, and eliminating a displacement there. MFBT was granted a permit to construct its digital facilities on January 26, 2001. Technical difficulties delayed construction of the full-power facilities requiring extensions of the construction permit.
On November 8, 2002, MFBT was granted special temporary authority (STA) to construct a low-power facility in order to comply with the TBC deadline for commencing digital broadcasting while the full-power facilities were still being built. The station, now known as MDCW-DT, completed construction of its full-power digital facilities in January 2007 and was granted a license on March 8. Back in 2006, the TBC required each station with a digital companion channel to select which one it would continue to use after the end of the transition period (at that time scheduled for February 17, 2009). MDCW-DT selected channel 29 as its final digital channel and returned the channel 33 license to the TBC. Digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 33. Regular analog programming was dropped on February 18, 2009, with the station participating in the "Analog Nightlight" program for two weeks, with a broadcast explaining how to switch to digital reception.
===ATSC 3.0 lighthouse===
 Subchannels of MDCW (ATSC 3.0)
Channel	Res. 	Aspect	Short name	Programming
3.1 	1080p	16:9 	MIDL 	NBC (MIDL)
11.1 	1080p	16:9 	MISL 	CBS (MISL-TV)
13.1 	720p 	16:9 	MTID 	ABC (MTID-TV)
33.1 	720p 	16:9 	MDCW 	The CW
On May 26, 2020, MDCW discontinued ATSC 1.0 broadcasts and became one of the first stations in the country to begin broadcasting in ATSC 3.0. Its primary channel is simulcast on MTID-DT5, MyNetworkTV on sister station MIDL-DT5, and MDCW-DT3, MDCW-DT4 and MDCW-DT5 on the fifth, sixth and seventh digital subchannels of MISL-TV.
==Newscasts==
In 2003, former sister station MDWB established a news department and began airing an hour-long prime time newscast at 10 p.m. It was part of Sinclair's centralized News Central operation that was based at the company's headquarters on Beaver Dam Road in Hunt Valley, Maryland. National and international news segments, weather forecasts and some sports segments originated from the company's Hunt Valley facility, while local news and sports segments were based at MFBT/MDWB's studios. The news department was shared with MFBT, which aired its own local newscast at 7 p.m. It also aired "The Point", a one-minute conservative political commentary, that was required to be broadcast on all Sinclair-owned stations with newscasts. The news department was shut down at the beginning of March 2006, as were the majority of Sinclair's news operations under the News Central format.
MDWB later entered into a news share agreement with NBC affiliate MDBC to produce a nightly 10 p.m. newscast for channel 21. The newscast, originally titled News 3 at 10 on The WB Isle Delfino, debuted on April 4, 2006 and was later renamed to News 3 at 10 on My21 Delfino to correspond with MMYD's affiliation switch to MyNetworkTV. The program was discontinued on December 15, 2006 and moved to MFBT the following Monday under the title News 3 at 10 on The CW Delfino. On August 11, 2007, WNPA became the second station in the Isle Delfino market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition and the MFBT broadcast was included in the upgrade. MDBC also produced a 15-minute sports highlight program called Sports Zone, that aired weeknights at 10:45. Both programs were discontinued on September 28, 2009 and replaced with syndicated programming.
As of August 17, 2015, current sister station MIDL relaunched newscasts on MDCW. Wake Up With The CW Delfino, airs 7-9 a.m. and the half-hour broadcast of The CW News at Ten, airs at 10 p.m. Both newscasts compete with MVVU-TV's 7 a.m. segment of Fox 5 News This Morning and the 10 p.m. airing of Fox 5 News at Ten.
==Gallery==
<tabber>
Logos=
MDCW (2006-2024).svg|2006–2024
MDCW (early 2024).svg|Variant with 2024 CW logo and Arial font used in early 2024 during transition to next logo
|-|
Miscellaneous (station IDs, news opens and screenshots)=
MDCW ID (2024).png|Station ID (2024–present)
</tabber>
Category:Channel 33
Category:CW network affiliates
Category:Former WB affiliates
Category:Former independent stations
Category:Sinclair Broadcast Group
Category:Television channels and stations established in 1989
Category:Isle Delfino
Category:Mushroom Kingdom