Hubbry Logo
search
logo
WWJE-DT
WWJE-DT
current hub

WWJE-DT

logo
Community Hub0 Subscribers
Write something...
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
See all
WWJE-DT

WWJE-DT (channel 50) is a television station licensed to Derry, New Hampshire, United States, serving the Boston area as an affiliate of True Crime Network. It is owned by TelevisaUnivision alongside Univision-owned station WUNI (channel 66). The two stations share main studios and transmitter facilities on Parmenter Road in Hudson, Massachusetts. WWJE is operated separately from WUNI's joint sales agreement (JSA) with Entravision Communications–owned UniMás affiliate WUTF-TV (channel 27).

WWJE formerly broadcast local newscasts from a studio located in Concord, branded as the NH1 News Network or NH1 News. Besides WBIN, sister radio station WNNH also used the NH1 News branding from August 2015 to August 2017. WBIN-TV was one of only two television stations based in the state of New Hampshire to broadcast local newscasts (alongside WMUR-TV), as much of the state is part of the Boston media market. On February 17, 2017, WBIN canceled its newscasts as part of a wind-down of the station's operations following the sale of its spectrum in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s incentive auction.

The station shut down its channel 35 transmitter on Merrill Hill in Hudson, New Hampshire, on September 15, 2017, and began operating on channel 27 through a channel sharing agreement with channel 66 (then WUTF-DT); the WBIN-TV license was subsequently sold by Carlisle One Media, a company controlled by Bill Binnie, to WUNI's owner, Univision Communications.

The channel 50 allocation in the Boston market originally belonged to WXPO-TV, which launched in October 1969. It operated from two studios: its offices and master production facilities were located on Dutton Street in downtown Lowell, Massachusetts; however, its transmitter and "main" studio was on Governor Dinsmore Road in Windham, New Hampshire, to comply with FCC regulations requiring that a station's transmitter be located within 15 miles (24 km) of its city of license.[citation needed]

However, the station's coverage in many parts of Greater Boston was spotty at best. The station's Lowell studios were located less than 1,000 feet (305 m) from the transmitter of WLLH, making high-quality production impossible during the day due to RF interference with the cameras. Advertisers were scared off when the Lowell Sun blacklisted anyone who bought commercials on the station. Bills went unpaid for several months. By early 1970, 90% of the station's staff was removed from the payroll, although many continued with the station, believing it could pull through. The Lowell studio was closed down that spring; finally, in June the power company pulled the plug at the Windham studios during a Maverick rerun, taking WXPO off the air.[citation needed]

On July 17, 1973, channel 50 returned to the air with a test transmission, with plans to return the station to the air later that year, possibly as New Hampshire's CBS affiliate. Those plans never materialized, and the WXPO-TV license was deleted in 1975.[citation needed]

The current iteration of channel 50 signed on the air on September 5, 1983, as WNDS, an independent station known on-air as "The Winds of New England." It was owned by CTV of Derry, a company not related to the CTV Television Network in Canada. The program included some cartoons like Scooby-Doo and Super Friends in the morning hours, religious shows like The 700 Club late in the morning, sitcoms on midday afternoons, cartoons for an hour or so after 3 p.m., more sitcoms in the evenings and late nights, and a movie in prime time. Sitcoms came from the Viacom and Paramount libraries, including such well-known series as I Love Lucy, The Brady Bunch, Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley and The Andy Griffith Show, among others.

The station acquired some of the programming assets of WNHT (channel 21, frequency now occupied by WPXG-TV) in 1989 after that station shut down on March 31; the deal did not include the channel 21 license or WNHT's CBS affiliation. In the 1990s, the station increased cartoons a bit and began running more recent sitcoms and drama shows.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.