WAXQ-CD

**WAXQ-CD** (channel 41), branded on-air as **Power 24 Plus**, is a low-power, Class A television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area as the flagship of the RKO network. It is owned and operated by the network’s ACME Television Stations Group alongside ACME flagship WWPR (channel 24). Both stations share studios on Pinehurst Avenue in Upper Manhattan’s Hudson Heights neighborhood, while WAXQ-CD’s transmitter is at One World Trade Center.
WAXQ-CD was sold to Burbank, California-based Liberman Broadcasting (renamed Estrella Media in February 2020, following a corporate reorganization under private equity firm HPS Investment Partners, LLC) for $6 million in April 2009, making New York the sixth market served by Liberman by 2010; WAXQ-CD was acquired by the ACME Television Stations Group in 2023.

## History

### As W26AA

On September 29, 1974, the station became known as W26AA on UHF channel 26. Initial ownership was held by Metromedia. It was one of several television translators in New York City that operated at the upper end of the UHF television band in order to provide dependable coverage to sections of the city where reception was compromised by the World Trade Center's construction. This translator station relayed WNEW-TV, which operated on VHF channel 5 at the time.

Historically, the majority of television stations in New York City used the Empire State Building as the location of their primary transmitters. However, once the majority of the World Trade Center was erected, dependable reception for some viewers was impaired, and thus necessitated the deployment of UHF translators in order to compensate for the issue. As a direct result of this, almost all of the television stations, including WNEW-TV, were forced to relocate to the World Trade Center's North Tower in the year 1975.

UHF channels 70–83 were decommissioned for use as television stations in 1982, and the frequencies were reassigned for the Advanced Mobile Phone System, an analog mobile phone system standard developed by Bell Labs and officially implemented in the Americas in 1983. Depending on the owners' objectives, TV stations operating on these channels were either switched to other broadcast channels, sold, or cancelled.

While some stations, such as WNYJ and WCBS-TV, continued to broadcast on relay translators by shifting to lower channels, WNEW-TV eventually decided to close channel 26. The channel was inactive for eighteen years, until channel 11 WNYJ temporarily used channel 26 as a translator station following the September 11th attacks in 2001. WNYJ service on channel 11 was fully restored within a few weeks. By the end of 2001, the channel 26 allocation had been removed once more.

### Infomercials and Chinese programming

While some stations, such as WNYJ and WCBS-TV, continued to broadcast on relay translators by shifting to lower channels, WNEW-TV eventually decided to close channel 26. The channel was inactive for eighteen years, until channel 11 WNYJ temporarily used channel 26 as a translator station following the September 11th attacks in 2001. WNYJ service on channel 11 was fully restored within a few weeks. By the end of 2001, the channel 26 allocation had been removed once more.

Venture Technologies signed on W26CW over UHF channel 26 on January 30, 2003, two years later. It started out with 30 watts, and its transmitter was located just west of downtown Port Jervis, in the triangle formed by New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. On January 12, 2007, the call letters were changed to **WAXQ-LP**. The station had planned to transmit Estrella TV in September 2008, however the network was instead picked up by a WNYJ subchannel.

WAXQ's signal seemed to go off the air every few minutes and then come back on, resulting in a tear-down pixelation visual effect. This was corrected when the station deleted the NYC Slideshow video that had been showing on Virtual 26.2 since its establishment in favor of two new subchannels celebrating the introduction of ICN (Information Culture News) Channel English and Chinese feeds.

WAXQ used to broadcast a repeating rotation of five half-hour infomercials on its principal channel 24 hours a day. Technically, the five episodes were recorded on one DVD and played on a Philips DVD player (whose screensaver appears when the loop ends and is not replayed). The infomercials included the Nu-Wave Oven, TriVita Super B-12, Sweet Soul of the '70s, Montel William's Living Well Health Master Blender, and The H2O Ultra Steam Mop. This looping rotation came to an end in January 2011. On April 22, 2011, the looping infomercial programming was reinstated.

In 2023, the ACME Television Stations Group purchased WAXQ, and channel 41 began carrying Countdown Power 24 Plus, a transitional programming service. The service, which featured RKO 41's upcoming syndicated programming, Fusion TV shows, and newscasts simulcast from WWPR, was aimed to advertise the changeover and assist viewers in identifying RKO's over-the-air stations.

## Technical information

### Subchannels

The digital signal from the station is multiplexed:

 **41.2** | 480i
 **41.3** | ESTNEWS

### Analog-to-digital conversion

As part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television, WAXQ-CD discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 41, on June 12, 2009; the station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 40.