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WPXS
WPXS (channel 13) is a religious television station licensed to Mount Vernon, Illinois, United States, serving the St. Louis area. The station is owned and operated by the Daystar Television Network. WPXS' transmitter is located on Five Forks Road near New Athens, Illinois. Although Mount Vernon is part of the Paducah, Kentucky–Cape Girardeau, Missouri–Harrisburg, Illinois television market, WPXS is assigned by Nielsen to the larger St. Louis market.
Channel 13 at Mount Vernon—the last VHF television allocation in southern Illinois, added in 1970 after a years-long fight that depleted the resources of the aspiring station owners—emerged as a bone of contention when the Southern Illinois Broadcasting Corporation, a subsidiary of Evans Broadcasting, was granted a construction permit in 1979. Southern Illinois Broadcasting had been one of three competing applicants for the channel, alongside a group of local businessmen and Bill Varecha, owner of Murphysboro radio station WTAO, under the name Pyramid Broadcasting Corporation. Evans fueled a prolonged legal fight that prompted Varecha to reach a settlement agreement. However, opposition arose because Evans Broadcasting owned St. Louis independent station KDNL-TV and intended for channel 13 to repeat it 95 percent of the time. A local landowner who owned a strategically located parcel that Evans considered for the transmitter refused to lease it. The landowner and others formed the Citizens Committee for Independent Local Television in Southern Illinois to oppose the grant of the permit. Evans argued that Mount Vernon, a town with a population of 18,000, could not sustain the station, and that national advertising revenues would be poor since the station would be located in the St. Louis market without covering St. Louis.
Evans pressed ahead despite the opposition. It had segments of a 1,000 ft (300 m) tower waiting at a site near Salem when the FCC, responding to the Citizens Committee's appeals, rescinded the grant of the permit. In early 1980, however, it sold KDNL-TV and announced it was pulling out of contention for channel 13, saying it wanted to avoid "years of litigation". The Pyramid application was reinstated in 1981, and in June 1982, the FCC granted it a construction permit.
WCEE, known on air as "C-13", began broadcasting February 28, 1983. Its program schedule heavily emphasized programming of interest to southern Illinois viewers that St. Louis stations did not offer; channel 13 aired the Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, and Illinois high school and college sports, and it started a local news department. After operating the station nearly three years, Pyramid sold WCEE to Sudbrink Broadcasting for $3.6 million in late 1985. The sale of the station, which was struggling with cable carriage but financially successful, raised capital for Varecha to build television stations in Melbourne, Florida, and Paducah, Kentucky; it also marked Sudbrink's first television property.
Under Sudbrink, the station remained an independent airing programming oriented to southern Illinois. In 1994, WCEE was purchased by McEntee Broadcasting for $1.475 million.
Christian Network, a company backed by Lowell Paxson, bought WCEE from McEntee in 1995 for $3.2 million, representing a doubling of the purchase price McEntee had paid just a year prior. A year later, WCEE and three other Christian Network stations were sold to Paxson Communications—the forerunner of Ion Media Networks—for $18.3 million.
As part of the launch of the Pax TV network in 1998, WCEE became the designated St. Louis station. It changed its call sign to the current WPXS and began simulcasting on a translator in St. Louis, KUMO-LP (channel 40, later 51). The WPXS transmitter, which was located north of Kell, Illinois, was close enough to St. Louis to cover most of the Illinois portion of the St. Louis market; St. Louis itself was served by KUMO-LP.
In 2004, the station affiliated with the Daystar religious broadcast network. The following year, Equity Broadcasting bought the station from Paxson; WPXS subsequently rejoined Pax (which rebranded as i: Independent Television that summer, and then to Ion Television in 2007).
WPXS
WPXS (channel 13) is a religious television station licensed to Mount Vernon, Illinois, United States, serving the St. Louis area. The station is owned and operated by the Daystar Television Network. WPXS' transmitter is located on Five Forks Road near New Athens, Illinois. Although Mount Vernon is part of the Paducah, Kentucky–Cape Girardeau, Missouri–Harrisburg, Illinois television market, WPXS is assigned by Nielsen to the larger St. Louis market.
Channel 13 at Mount Vernon—the last VHF television allocation in southern Illinois, added in 1970 after a years-long fight that depleted the resources of the aspiring station owners—emerged as a bone of contention when the Southern Illinois Broadcasting Corporation, a subsidiary of Evans Broadcasting, was granted a construction permit in 1979. Southern Illinois Broadcasting had been one of three competing applicants for the channel, alongside a group of local businessmen and Bill Varecha, owner of Murphysboro radio station WTAO, under the name Pyramid Broadcasting Corporation. Evans fueled a prolonged legal fight that prompted Varecha to reach a settlement agreement. However, opposition arose because Evans Broadcasting owned St. Louis independent station KDNL-TV and intended for channel 13 to repeat it 95 percent of the time. A local landowner who owned a strategically located parcel that Evans considered for the transmitter refused to lease it. The landowner and others formed the Citizens Committee for Independent Local Television in Southern Illinois to oppose the grant of the permit. Evans argued that Mount Vernon, a town with a population of 18,000, could not sustain the station, and that national advertising revenues would be poor since the station would be located in the St. Louis market without covering St. Louis.
Evans pressed ahead despite the opposition. It had segments of a 1,000 ft (300 m) tower waiting at a site near Salem when the FCC, responding to the Citizens Committee's appeals, rescinded the grant of the permit. In early 1980, however, it sold KDNL-TV and announced it was pulling out of contention for channel 13, saying it wanted to avoid "years of litigation". The Pyramid application was reinstated in 1981, and in June 1982, the FCC granted it a construction permit.
WCEE, known on air as "C-13", began broadcasting February 28, 1983. Its program schedule heavily emphasized programming of interest to southern Illinois viewers that St. Louis stations did not offer; channel 13 aired the Chicago White Sox, Chicago Cubs, and Illinois high school and college sports, and it started a local news department. After operating the station nearly three years, Pyramid sold WCEE to Sudbrink Broadcasting for $3.6 million in late 1985. The sale of the station, which was struggling with cable carriage but financially successful, raised capital for Varecha to build television stations in Melbourne, Florida, and Paducah, Kentucky; it also marked Sudbrink's first television property.
Under Sudbrink, the station remained an independent airing programming oriented to southern Illinois. In 1994, WCEE was purchased by McEntee Broadcasting for $1.475 million.
Christian Network, a company backed by Lowell Paxson, bought WCEE from McEntee in 1995 for $3.2 million, representing a doubling of the purchase price McEntee had paid just a year prior. A year later, WCEE and three other Christian Network stations were sold to Paxson Communications—the forerunner of Ion Media Networks—for $18.3 million.
As part of the launch of the Pax TV network in 1998, WCEE became the designated St. Louis station. It changed its call sign to the current WPXS and began simulcasting on a translator in St. Louis, KUMO-LP (channel 40, later 51). The WPXS transmitter, which was located north of Kell, Illinois, was close enough to St. Louis to cover most of the Illinois portion of the St. Louis market; St. Louis itself was served by KUMO-LP.
In 2004, the station affiliated with the Daystar religious broadcast network. The following year, Equity Broadcasting bought the station from Paxson; WPXS subsequently rejoined Pax (which rebranded as i: Independent Television that summer, and then to Ion Television in 2007).