WZME

WZME (channel 43) is a television station licensed to Bridgeport, Connecticut, United States, serving as the New York City market's outlet for the diginet Story Television. It is owned and operated by network parent Weigel Broadcasting alongside Middletown Township, New Jersey–licensed MeTV station WJLP (channel 33), and New York–licensed WNWT-LD (channel 37, officially a low-power station, operating under a channel sharing arrangement with WJLP). WZME's official primary transmitter is located on Booth Hill Road in Trumbull, Connecticut, with its officially secondary, but de facto, main transmitter located at the Empire State Building in midtown Manhattan.

Channel 43 was activated first by Bridgeport radio station WICC as WICC-TV on March 29, 1953. It was affiliated with ABC and DuMont and provided local service to the Bridgeport area. In seven years of operation, the station struggled to compete with the receivable VHF stations in New York and Connecticut. As an early ultra high frequency (UHF) station, most viewers needed converters or new sets to receive it. Though the station continued to air ABC programming into 1960, it had no viewership and largely operated as an investment on the off chance a VHF allocation would become available. After manager Kenneth Cooper suspected that nobody was watching, he ran a contest during prime time: the first caller to the station would receive a $100 bill. The contest was announced 20 times. There were no calls. In December 1959, the station put out a news release declaring itself both the "poorest television station in the U.S." and the "only station in the U.S. without any viewers". That September, to avoid competition from the VHF stations, WICC-TV shifted to a daytime operating schedule. In its first month on the air, it did not sell a single commercial. The station left the air by year's end. An attempt to reactivate it as WFTT with a format consisting of printed news information and background music was abandoned after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled that audio and video programming had to be related. As a result, Cooper put the station on the market in September 1968. Even though the facility was ready to be activated, with no investors expressing interest, Cooper surrendered the permit, which the FCC canceled on July 20, 1971.

A group of women, under the name of Bridgeways Communications Corporation, received a construction permit for a new station on channel 43 on November 20, 1980, and on September 28, 1987, the station signed on as WBCT-TV, airing home shopping programming. Initially, the station planned to become a locally focused independent station, with WBCT's management concerned that Bridgeport was being served only by New York City stations; a year later, however, the station had changed its plans and planned to implement cultural programming aimed at the Jewish community in the New York City market as a whole. Shortly afterward, the station changed its call letters to WHAI-TV, in reference to chai, the Hebrew word for living. However, the station was sold in 1994 to ValueVision, which in turn sold WHAI to Paxson Communications in 1996. By then, the station had also added infomercials to the schedule.

Original plans called for the station to become a charter station of the Pax TV network (as WIPX) when it launched in August 1998, but those plans were scrapped (mainly due to duopoly concerns resulting from Paxson's acquisition of WPXN-TV channel 31, as both stations' signals overlap and are considered part of the New York City market; at that time the FCC did not allow common ownership of such stations) and the call letters were again changed, this time to WBPT. After an attempt to sell the station to Cuchifritos Communications (which planned to make the station the flagship of a Spanish-language home-shopping service) fell through, the station was sold in 1999 to the Shop at Home Network which switched the station to the network and changed its call letters to WSAH.

Azteca América nearly bought the station late in 2000 to serve as its New York City affiliate. The deal quickly collapsed, with Azteca América citing concerns over WSAH's coverage of the market; the network ultimately affiliated with WNYN-LP. The station continued to run Shop at Home, with a brief interruption in 2006 when the network temporarily closed.^{[citation needed]}

On September 26, 2006, The E. W. Scripps Company (the then-owner of the former Shop at Home owned-and-operated stations) announced that it was selling WSAH along with four other stations (KCNS in San Francisco; WMFP in Boston; WOAC (now WRLM) in Canton, Ohio; and WRAY-TV in Raleigh, North Carolina) to Multicultural Television for $170 million. Multicultural assumed control of KCNS, WOAC and WRAY on December 20, 2006, and flipped their programming to an all-infomercial format; it did not take control of WSAH and WMFP immediately due to the stations' pending license renewal. The licenses were renewed in early April 2007, and on April 24, 2007, Multicultural took control of these stations.^{[citation needed]}

In May 2007, WSAH changed shopping networks, switching from Shop at Home to Gems TV, a shopping network that specializes in jewelry. In addition, infomercials once again became a part of the schedule.^{[citation needed]} The Gems TV affiliation was discontinued in 2009.^{[citation needed]}

On July 1, 2009, WSAH affiliated with the Retro Television Network (RTV), becoming one of only a few affiliates to carry RTV on its main channel. Initially, RTV programming was seen from 6 p.m. to midnight, with infomercials continuing during the remainder of the broadcast day. In September 2009, WSAH cut RTV programming back to end at 11 p.m. on weekdays, and 10 p.m. on weekends. Shortly afterwards, the station announced that it would drop RTV completely at the end of the month. The next month, WSAH added a subchannel, airing Chinese-language programming from sister station KCNS. On June 6, 2011, the station rejoined RTV, running its programming from 12 p.m. to 12 a.m.