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WIWN
WIWN (channel 68) is a television station licensed to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, United States (in the Green Bay market), but primarily serving the Milwaukee area. Owned by Family Worship Center Church of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the station maintains a transmitter on North Humboldt Boulevard in Milwaukee's Estabrook Park neighborhood.
WIWN carries Cozi TV on its primary channel. The SonLife Broadcasting Network, also owned by FWCC, airs on the station's eighth digital subchannel; it was carried on DT1 from 2014 to 2017.
The station first signed on the air in 2000 as WMMF-TV, which carried programming from FamilyNet, under the ownership of Pappas Telecasting. It shared transmitter facilities with WWRS-TV (channel 52), north of Iron Ridge in Dodge County. WIWN is the second television station to be licensed to Fond du Lac. KFIZ-TV (channel 34), an independent station that was co-owned with KFIZ (1450 AM) and WFON (107.1 FM) and had operated from 1968 to 1972. The station changed its call letters to WWAZ in late 2004, in anticipation for a change in affiliation to the Spanish-language network Azteca América; however, the station never did join Azteca and Pappas ended up dropping almost all of its affiliations with the network from its stations in July 2007 during a conflict with the network, replacing it with its own new Spanish-language service, TuVision. During TuVision's life, the network was never carried by WWAZ.
Most of the station's audience prior to 2007 received its signal over-the-air, as WWAZ and Pappas had previously not pursued any must-carry provisions with local cable and national satellite providers because of affiliation uncertainties; for instance, the station was not carried on the Charter Communications system in Fond du Lac. From Iron Ridge, the station's coverage area ranged from most of the northern part of the eleven-county Milwaukee market area, to the eastern portion of the Madison market, along with the southern portions of the Green Bay market. However, as the station's transmitter was located west of the Kettle Moraine range that bisects the station's coverage area, communities in Sheboygan and Ozaukee counties were unable to receive the station without an outdoor antenna at minimum.
However, this changed in mid-2007, when Pappas filed a must-carry provision with Time Warner Cable's Northeastern Wisconsin system, and the station was subsequently added in Green Bay and the Fox Cities on June 26, 2007, replacing Milwaukee CW affiliate WVTV (channel 18), which had aired on the provider since the mid-1980s during that station's phase of becoming a superstation with intrastate coverage across Wisconsin. Eventually though, FamilyNet was added to Charter systems through a national deal to add it to their digital family tier, and carriage of WWAZ was of no priority to Charter, as the station carried the network without any local deviation, along with having on-air malfunctions to the point their hourly station identification would often not show up.
The station ceased broadcasting in January 2008 as the financial issues of Pappas Telecasting elsewhere began to build up, resulting in the ceasing of operations of sister station KCWK in Walla Walla, Washington. After the station went silent, a slide on the station's slot on Time Warner Cable went up containing the sentence "WWAZ-TV informed Time Warner Cable that it has ceased broadcast operations until further notice." On January 15, 2008, WWAZ-TV filed a request with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to cease broadcasting in analog before the end of the digital television transition period and become a digital-only station, broadcasting on UHF channel 44. The request was approved in late July 2008. The station continued to broadcast for a short time before permanently ending its analog service within two weeks.
Pappas filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on May 10, 2008, though the WWAZ license, operations and facilities were not covered under the filing. Due to Pappas's financial problems, the station remained silent long-term, and in an FCC filing, the station requested a move to channel 5 after CBS affiliate WFRV-TV discontinued its analog signal and vacated the channel in March 2009 (retaining its digital channel 39), but asserted it was unable to complete the new transmitter and tower until 2010 at the earliest.
In August 2009, the FCC conditionally approved the move to channel 5 after the build-out of the new transmitter, which was approved for the traditional tower site on the northeast side of Milwaukee from the Milwaukee PBS tower. The channel 5 construction permit was accepted by the FCC on October 16, 2009.
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WIWN
WIWN (channel 68) is a television station licensed to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, United States (in the Green Bay market), but primarily serving the Milwaukee area. Owned by Family Worship Center Church of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the station maintains a transmitter on North Humboldt Boulevard in Milwaukee's Estabrook Park neighborhood.
WIWN carries Cozi TV on its primary channel. The SonLife Broadcasting Network, also owned by FWCC, airs on the station's eighth digital subchannel; it was carried on DT1 from 2014 to 2017.
The station first signed on the air in 2000 as WMMF-TV, which carried programming from FamilyNet, under the ownership of Pappas Telecasting. It shared transmitter facilities with WWRS-TV (channel 52), north of Iron Ridge in Dodge County. WIWN is the second television station to be licensed to Fond du Lac. KFIZ-TV (channel 34), an independent station that was co-owned with KFIZ (1450 AM) and WFON (107.1 FM) and had operated from 1968 to 1972. The station changed its call letters to WWAZ in late 2004, in anticipation for a change in affiliation to the Spanish-language network Azteca América; however, the station never did join Azteca and Pappas ended up dropping almost all of its affiliations with the network from its stations in July 2007 during a conflict with the network, replacing it with its own new Spanish-language service, TuVision. During TuVision's life, the network was never carried by WWAZ.
Most of the station's audience prior to 2007 received its signal over-the-air, as WWAZ and Pappas had previously not pursued any must-carry provisions with local cable and national satellite providers because of affiliation uncertainties; for instance, the station was not carried on the Charter Communications system in Fond du Lac. From Iron Ridge, the station's coverage area ranged from most of the northern part of the eleven-county Milwaukee market area, to the eastern portion of the Madison market, along with the southern portions of the Green Bay market. However, as the station's transmitter was located west of the Kettle Moraine range that bisects the station's coverage area, communities in Sheboygan and Ozaukee counties were unable to receive the station without an outdoor antenna at minimum.
However, this changed in mid-2007, when Pappas filed a must-carry provision with Time Warner Cable's Northeastern Wisconsin system, and the station was subsequently added in Green Bay and the Fox Cities on June 26, 2007, replacing Milwaukee CW affiliate WVTV (channel 18), which had aired on the provider since the mid-1980s during that station's phase of becoming a superstation with intrastate coverage across Wisconsin. Eventually though, FamilyNet was added to Charter systems through a national deal to add it to their digital family tier, and carriage of WWAZ was of no priority to Charter, as the station carried the network without any local deviation, along with having on-air malfunctions to the point their hourly station identification would often not show up.
The station ceased broadcasting in January 2008 as the financial issues of Pappas Telecasting elsewhere began to build up, resulting in the ceasing of operations of sister station KCWK in Walla Walla, Washington. After the station went silent, a slide on the station's slot on Time Warner Cable went up containing the sentence "WWAZ-TV informed Time Warner Cable that it has ceased broadcast operations until further notice." On January 15, 2008, WWAZ-TV filed a request with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to cease broadcasting in analog before the end of the digital television transition period and become a digital-only station, broadcasting on UHF channel 44. The request was approved in late July 2008. The station continued to broadcast for a short time before permanently ending its analog service within two weeks.
Pappas filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on May 10, 2008, though the WWAZ license, operations and facilities were not covered under the filing. Due to Pappas's financial problems, the station remained silent long-term, and in an FCC filing, the station requested a move to channel 5 after CBS affiliate WFRV-TV discontinued its analog signal and vacated the channel in March 2009 (retaining its digital channel 39), but asserted it was unable to complete the new transmitter and tower until 2010 at the earliest.
In August 2009, the FCC conditionally approved the move to channel 5 after the build-out of the new transmitter, which was approved for the traditional tower site on the northeast side of Milwaukee from the Milwaukee PBS tower. The channel 5 construction permit was accepted by the FCC on October 16, 2009.