WPRH-TV

WPRH-TV, virtual and UHF digital channel 36, is an independent television station licensed to Hartstead, Ohio, and serving the Thunder Bay region and the Rhodes County area, including Cedar Woods and Lindsay. The station has been owned by The Pierre Péladeau Company since its inception.
==History==
WPRH-TV first signed on on April 16, 1978 operating as an independent station. As such, it is Péladeau's/Quebecor's first independent station. The station began with a limited test schedule airing six hours per day, but expanded to broadcasting eight hours per day on January 27, 1979, initially airing from 12 p.m. to 11 p.m. daily.
Initially, WPRH-TV ran a lineup of older movies, some low-budget syndicated programs, a few off-network westerns and sitcoms, and some cartoons. In the station's early days, its slogan was "WPRH... As Far as the Eye Can See", which was made famous by its mid-1980s station identification package. WTOG caught on with viewers immediately. As such, it competed with other independents at the time: WDSY-TV (channel 25), WFDX (channel 32, which became a charter Fox affiliate in 1986) and WFMY (channel 39, which is now an MNTV affiliate). During the 1970s, WTOG gradually expanded its programming hours: by 1972, the station signed on at 10:30 a.m. on weekdays and around 1 p.m. on weekends. By 1986, WPRH signed on the air daily by 5 a.m. Gradually, WPRH added better sitcoms, more cartoons, off-network dramas, and better movies. While the station was profitable all along, its programming improved significantly in the late 1980s.
Quebecor purchased Capitol States-Central, the then-current owner of WTRB-TV (channel 7), in 1986; which resulted it to sell WPRH to a third-party owner, and Dallas-based A.H. Belo was the highest bidder. They would later re-acquire the station in 2003.
WPRH gained network relationship when it became a charter affiliate of The WB on January 11, 1995. Its then-owner (A.H. Belo), it changed WPRH's on-air branding to "WB36", which remained in use for the remainder of the network's run. By the late 1990s, older sitcoms and older cartoons made way for talk shows, court shows and reality programs during the daytime. Recent cartoons and recent sitcoms continued to air but movies also were eliminated almost completely.
On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation (which split from Viacom, one month earlier) and the Warner Bros. Entertainment unit of Time Warner announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW. WPRH became the charter affiliate of The CW on September 18, 2006. It lost its CW affiliation when WNDH launched a subchannel affiliation of CW in 2013.
==Newscasts==
From its sign-in throughout 1984, news capsules, mainly at sign-on and sign-off, with an announcer reading the day's headlines over a slide. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the station featured an on-camera newsreader providing a news summary during its morning discussion program, Ohio Daybreak. WPRH started using the Action News brand in the late 1970s, though its news was still a rather staid, low-key affair.
In 1982, Quebecor established a full-fledged news department for WPRH, and debuted a nightly 10 p.m. newscast. At first, WPRH continued to use the Action News name, with Mary Van Hoose and Gavin Yadon as co-anchors. During the mid-1980s, the station's newscast was renamed Thunder Bay Tonight, subsequently changing in 1988 to 36 News at Ten and then WPRH 36 News at Ten in 1992. Between 1985 and 1995, John Summer served as primary anchor with various co-anchors, including Van Hoise.
WPRH's news department was shut down in 2000, as a result of competition from Fox station WFDX's own 10 p.m. newscast. From that point until 2017, WPRH did not air any newscasts. WPRH had aired the syndicated morning show The Daily Buzz from 2004 until its sudden cancellation in 2015. It replaced its former time slot with paid programming and children's shows.
On January 17, 2017, Media General (which was in the process of being acquired by Nexstar Media Group), owner of WJHG-TV in Cleveland, announced that they will be introducing nightly 10 p.m. newscasts for WPRH, which debuted on March 9. It also marked WPRH's return to airing local news programming since its own in-house news department shut down 17 years earlier.
==Logos==
WPRH 1982 ID.png|Station ID (1982-1984).
WPRH WB ID early 1995 1.png|Station ID (WB variant, 1995, 1).
WPRH WB ID early 1995 2.png|Station ID (WB variant, 1995, 2).
WPRH WB36.svg|Logo under WB affiliation
CW36 WPRH.svg|Logo under CW affiliation, 2006-2013
WPRH open.png|Open as of 2017
Category:Independent television stations
Category:Channel 36
Category:Hartstead, Ohio
Category:Lindsay, Ohio
Category:Thunder Bay, Ohio
Category:Cedar Woods, Ohio
Category:Ohio
Category:Television channels and stations established in 1978
Category:The Pierre Péladeau Company
Category:Quebecor Media
Category:Court TV subchannel-only affiliated stations
Category:Circle Affiliates