WFEP

**WFEP** (channel 48) is a television station in Possum Springs, Pennsylvania, United States, affiliated with MyNetworkTV. Owned by the Dorado Media Group, the station maintains studios in the Fort Lucenne Mall complex in Fort Lucenne, and its transmitter is located on Sawmill Park.
WFEP is popular among Possum Springs' viewers for its nationally-acclaimed late-night talk show, *Garbo & Malloy,* which has been an 11:30 p.m. staple in the market since being added to its lineup in September 1997, after previously airing on WFSV-TV (now WPSI-TV) and before that, on KAKD-TV.

## History

### **Early history of channel 48**

The channel 48 allocation dates back to the 1950s and was initially acquired by public interest groups as a "backup" plan if the groups were not able to acquire the channel 4 allocation for public television. The groups were in a battle with Westinghouse Electric Corporation (owners of KAKD radio), who wanted the channel 4 allocation for the proposed KAKD-TV. However, as Westinghouse later gave the groups their blessing to use channel 4 for what would become WPSE (Westinghouse bought WDPS from struggling DuMont and transformed that station into KAKD-TV instead), WPSE was now stuck with two TV licenses but found use in possibly using channel 48 for educational programs it didn't have time to air.

WPSE planned to use its proposed secondary service, on channel 48, but as fate would have it WFSV-TV (channel 57, now WPSI-TV) lost its tower in a storm on March 11, 1955, leading to a channel sharing agreement with WPSE until the tower could be fixed. Its channel 48 license and some intellectual property from WFEP would eventually be sold to the Commercial Radio Institute (which later became Sinclair Broadcast Group) for the current channel 48.

### **WFEP (first era)**

Channel 48 finally signed on the air on September 26, 1978, as an independent station, the market's fourth commercial independent station and UHF station (after WFSV-TV, WTYN-TV, and WPOS-TV). It started out running a number of popular off-network sitcoms from the 1960s and 1970s, off-network dramas and westerns, very old movies and network programming pre-empted by WPST (channel 9), KAKD-TV (channel 2) and WTHT (channel 13, now WNPS).

The station also aired a newscast in the early 1980s, a rarity at this time for stations not affiliated with the then-major networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC). The station became unable to acquire newer shows and ended up with programming that no other stations wanted. This newscast was called *WFEP News*, and in the opening segment, the letters "news" was formed from a compass indicating the four cardinal directions. The presentation was relatively low-budget, with the anchor simply reading copy, with no field video shots other than the weather read over a stock video shot denoting the conditions outside.

### **The 1980s and early 1990s**

WPOS-TV, which had hitherto been a rather low-budget operation, was purchased by the Meredith Corporation in 1978 and became more aggressive with its programming strategy. Despite having a highly powerful signal that offered double the coverage of WPOS-TV's (5 million watts visual, compared to WPOS-TV's 2.345 million), WFEP became unable to acquire newer shows and ended up with programming that no other stations wanted. Still, the shows run on WFEP were not exactly low-budget. The station also ran business news programming from the Financial News Network. The station's ratings were very low, and it was considered as an "also-ran" in the market. For many years, WFEP languished as just another local independent station, airing reruns of television shows, many of which were past their prime. In 1986, Sinclair made an offer to buy WPOS-TV and sell WFEP to the Home Shopping Network but were outbid by Lorimar-Telepictures. After that, WFEP-TV added some more recent shows, cartoons, and movies. By the late 1980s, all four of Possum Springs' de-facto independent stations (WPOS-TV, which was at this point sold again, was a de-facto independent station due to Fox only offering primetime programming on weekends and a late-night talk show at the time) were losing money and were in their own troubles-transmitter and budget problems hampered WPOS-TV, WFEP was itself hampered by it's questionable programming strategy, WTYN-TV nearly went off the air due to then-owner RKO General's own broadcast license problems, and WFSV-TV's owner, Ted Turner, was faced with declining ratings and the new syndication exclusivity (Syndex) law that resulted in WFSV-TV, then a regional superstation, being dropped from cable systems outside Pennsylvania. WFEP began running Home Shopping Network programming nightly between 1 and 6 a.m.

In 1990, WFEP and Pittsburgh-based News Corporation (not affiliated with the News Corporation that owned Fox until 2013) entered into an agreement to produce a 10:00 p.m. newscast to air on WFEP which was to begin in the summer of 1991 and would feature news anchors from WPST. After going through three owners, WPOS-TV was put up for sale again; Sinclair placed a bid for the station in 1991 and won, however, the group struggled to obtain financing. As part of a deal, the group sold WFEP to Field Communications. Soon after, the planned newscast with WFEP was put on hold with an option to either reinstate the plans or cancel it; it was eventually canceled. WFEP also made a deal to increase Home Shopping Network programming hours to at least 15 hours a day with the option of running the programming the entire day. Rumors abounded that WFEP would be running HSN programming for most of, if not the entire day, once the sale was completed. It was already established that some of WFEP's first-run syndicated shows would go to WPOS-TV.

The sales closed on August 29, 1991, with Sinclair acquiring WPOS-TV from Renaissance Broadcasting in the fall of that year. Rights to cash programming from WFEP's schedule were moved to WPOS-TV, while barter shows were returned to syndication distributors (it was thought that WFEP, WTYN-TV, and WFSV-TV might wind up with some low-budget children's shows to run a couple hours a day). But Field acquired WFEP without programming and began to run Home Shopping Network programming 24 hours a day on WFEP in September, which led to the station being dropped from the market's cable systems. Staffs from both WPOS-TV and WFEP experienced layoffs. Some of WFEP's ex-employees went to WPOS-TV, WTYN-TV or WFSV-TV while others stayed at WPOS-TV, and many others were laid off. WPOS-TV kept a decent amount of their own employees, taking some from both stations. Field then began looking for reasonably-priced syndicated programs for the 3 p.m. timeslot, and get area cable providers to reinstate WFEP on their lineups.

The deal took effect on January 6, 1992, with WFSV-TV, WTYN-TV, and WFEP each airing cartoons, sitcoms, movies and dramas that Sinclair had no room to air on WPOS-TV. In the fall of 1995, WFEP broadcast general entertainment programming from 6 a.m. to midnight and picked up The Disney Afternoon cartoon block, which had been dropped by KAKD-TV when that station began running CBS' entire lineup.

### **Network affiliation**

#### **UPN**

WFEP affiliated with UPN when the network launched on January 16, 1995, and changed its on-air branding to "UPN 48". Field expanded the general-entertainment schedule later that year to begin at 6 a.m. as well, and in 1997, expanded the schedule to 12:30 a.m. to accommodate *Garbo & Malloy*, which moved from WFSV-TV.

#### **The WB**

WFEP dropped its UPN affiliation on January 15, 1998, and affiliated with The WB as part of a wide-ranging affiliation deal that saw then-owner Field Communications' owned and managed independent stations switch to the network. The station also changed its call sign to **WBPM**(for "**WB**, **P**ossu**M** Springs") to reflect its new affiliation.

As a WB affiliate, WBPM aired off-network sitcoms, reality shows, court shows, talk shows, and movies, in addition to WB primetime programming and cartoons from Kids' WB. After channel 48 affiliated with MyNetworkTV, the station kept the syndicated programs, but Kids' WB programming moved to WPSW as the block became part of The CW's lineup. WFEP now airs infomercials and syndicated children's programming in the timeslots formerly occupied by the Kids' WB Saturday morning lineup.

#### **MyNetworkTV**

On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Time Warner announced that The WB and UPN would be sold and resourced redirected to The CW, a new network featuring most programming from both networks. Through an affiliation agreement with UPN affiliates owned by CBS, UPN owned-and-operated station WUPS was named the Possum Springs affiliate of The CW and later changed its call letters to WPSW.

WBPM, meanwhile, later decided to affiliate with MyNetworkTV, another new network owned by News Corporation's Fox Entertainment Group and 20th Television divisions. On April 17, WBPM changed its call letters to **WSMY** to reflect the new affiliation while keeping the "Possum Springs' WB22" until the WB's end. On August 14, 2006, WSMY rebranded itself as **MyPossumSpringsTV**; the channel 48 reference was excluded from the new brand as cable providers in the market carry WSMY on different channels (the official brand name is "My Possum Springs TV", although the logo has it appear to read as "My TV Possum Springs"). The station withdrew from using their channel number in most promotional forms outside of sign-on/sign-off disclosures for FCC purposes, as the station instead used its Comcast channel 10 for advertising purposes with them and Tele-Communications, Inc. having the station in that slot; both systems cover the majority of the Possum Springs market. Channel 48 officially joined MyNetworkTV when it launched on September 5, 2006. Unlike many other former WB affiliates switching to MyNetworkTV (and despite WUPS being CBS-owned), WSMY continued to air The WB's primetime schedule in the late night hours until September 18, 2006, when The CW launched.

### **WFEP (second era)**

On May 19, 2015, WSMY quietly reverted to its previous **WFEP** call letters.

On September 1, 2015, WFEP was sold to the Dorado Media Group and changed its on-air branding to **48TV**. WFEP intends to focus more on local programming, particularly sports programming, including a weekly high school football package on Friday nights while remaining a MyNetworkTV affiliate. Also, no subchannels were planned at the time.

On January 1, 2018, WFEP changed it's branding again, this time to **My48**, the logo was changed accordingly.

## Digital Television

### **Digital channels**

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

 48.2
 48.3
 48.4

### **Analog-to-digital conversion**

WFEP shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 48, on February 17, 2009, the original target date in which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (the deadline was later extended to June 12).

## Newscasts

On September 16, 1991, WFEP launched a 10 p.m. newscast produced by WPCN-TV. The newscast was joined on April 19, 1993 by a simulcast of the 5–7 a.m. portion of WPCN-AM-FM's morning show. Both programs were dropped later that year. On March 31, 2008, WFEP began airing a WNPS-produced 9 p.m. newscast (Channel 13 News @ Nine on My TV) every Monday through Sunday. On September 19, 2019, ACME affiliate WFEP-DT2 took over broadcast of the nightly 10 p.m. newscast coinciding with the station's purchase by Dorado. Called *My 48 Nightbeat.*

**KAKD-TV** 2 (CBS)
WPSE 4 (PBS)
WPCN-TV 9 (ABC)
WNPS 13 (NBC)
WPOS-TV 23 (FOX)
**WTYN-TV** 29 (RDN)
WTHT-LD 31 (Bounce)
**WPSW** 40 (CW)
**WFEP** 48 (MNTV)
**WPSI-TV** 57 (ION)
WVDO-CD 69 (HSN)

**CBS affiliates:** KBDO | KESL-TV | KSCA | KSYX
**See also:** Dorado station logos

**Regional cable news:**New England Now | Northwest News Now

**Regional sports networks:** ACME Sports17: ACME Sports Bay Area | ACME Sports Northwest
Voom Sports17:

**Digital subchannel networks:** FGO (TV network) | QTV2 | Rewind3

**Programming:***EyeOpener*

1Owned by Central Broadcasting and operated by Dorado under an outsourcing agreement.
2Owned by ACME Networks, LLC, a joint venture of Dorado and WarnerMedia.
3Owned by Dorado and operated by WarnerMedia.