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WWLP is the NBC-affiliated television station for the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts that is licensed to Springfield. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 11 from a transmitter on Provin Mountain in the Feeding Hills section of Agawam. Owned by Media General, WWLP has studios at Broadcast Center in the Sandy Hill section of Chicopee at the northwest corner of the I-391/MA 116/Chicopee Street interchange. Syndicated programming on the station includes: ''Jeopardy!'', ''Wheel of Fortune'', ''Judge Judy'', and ''Friends''. WWLP operates a full-time Class A digital repeater, WFXQ-CD channel 28, that has a transmitter at the top of the old Mount Tom Ski Area in Holyoke. Due to the close proximity of the Springfield-Holyoke and Hartford-New Haven markets, many stations in Connecticut can be viewed in the Southern Pioneer Valley. Since WWLP's transmitter on Provin Mountain is not far from the state line, this can be picked up in northern areas of the state. WVIT, which serves as Connecticut's NBC affiliate except for Fairfield County, is currently the only Hartford/New Haven big three station offered on Comcast's basic tier. Charter customers have access to WVIT, but only with a digital set top box. ==History== WWLP began broadcasting on March 17, 1953 one month before rival WGGB-TV (then known as WHYN-TV). The station aired an analog signal on UHF channel 61 and was an NBC affiliate from the start. At its sign-on, the channel had the distinction of being one of the first UHF television stations in the United States after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opened the UHF band as well as Massachusetts' oldest station outside of Boston. It was founded by William L. Putnam and his company, Springfield Television. WWLP's original studios were at the transmitter site on Provin Mountain in Feeding Hills. It switched frequencies to UHF channel 22 on July 2, 1955. The previous analog allotment would remain unused until the second WTIC-TV signed-on from Hartford, Connecticut in 1984. From its beginnings, the Springfield/Holyoke market was designated as a "UHF island" because it was too close to Boston, Hartford/New Haven, and the Capital District of New York State for VHF analog service. As a result of technical limitations UHF stations faced in the 1950s, WWLP's signal was not viewable in much of the northern portion of the market (which at the time included Brattleboro, Vermont and Keene, New Hampshire). The station would sign-on two full-time satellites to solve that problem and extend its broadcasting radius (see below). From 1975 until 1979, the station aired nationally syndicated National Hockey League games from The NHL Network. After three decades, Putnam retired from broadcasting in 1984 by selling his company and its three stations (WWLP, KSTU-TV, and WKEF) to Adams Communications. Adams ran into financial trouble and began breaking up the Springfield Television group in 1987 with the sale of KSTU to MWT Ltd. Adams sold WKEF to KT Communications in 1989 before selling WWLP to Brissette Broadcasting in January 1994. However, Brisette himself ran into trouble and sold all of his stations to Benedek Broadcasting at the end of 1995. Current owner LIN TV acquired WWLP in early 2000 〔http://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/pubacc/prod/app_det.pl?Application_id=428994〕 by swapping KAKE-TV in Wichita, Kansas and WOWT-TV in Omaha, Nebraska to Benedek. This was a result of Chronicle Broadcasting, which owned the latter two, being liquidated. The sale could be seen as the ultimate undoing for Benedek which in 2002 declared bankruptcy and sold most of their stations (including WOWT and KAKE) to Gray Television. In early 2000, the station's studios and offices moved to their current home in the Sandy Hill area of Chicopee. However, its transmitter remained in Feeding Hills. Shortly after the change, then-pending owner LIN TV constructed an addition at WWLP's new facilities which would serve as a master control hub for company-owned stations in the Northeast. At this location, room for future expansion was made in the event LIN TV expanded their Northeast properties. That eventually became the case with sister stations WTNH, WCTX, WPRI-TV (LIN TV flagship), and WNAC-TV having master control and some internal operations currently located at the Chicopee studios. WWLP was well known for producing ''As Schools Match Wits'', one of American television's earliest and longest-running high school quiz programs. The program first aired in October 1961. In September 2006, the show was canceled because of the costs associated with new FCC regulations requiring all over-the-air television programming in the United States to be closed-captioned for the deaf and hard of hearing. The show returned to the air in January 2007 but on the area's PBS affiliate WGBY-TV and based at Westfield State College. On May 18, 2007, LIN TV announced that it was exploring strategic alternatives including the sale of the company. On March 21, 2014, Media General announced that it would purchase LIN Media and its stations, including WWLP and WFXQ-CD, in a $1.6 billion merger. The merger was completed on December 19.〔(Media General Completes Merger With LIN Media ), Press Release, Media General, Retrieved 19 December 2014〕 On September 8, 2015, Media General announced that it would acquire the Meredith Corporation for $2.4 billion, with the combined group to be renamed Meredith Media General once the sale is finalized. Because Meredith already owns WGGB-TV, and the Springfield-Holyoke market does not have enough full-power television stations to legally allow a duopoly in any event (WGGB and WWLP are the only full-power licenses assigned to the market), the companies will be required to sell either WGGB or WWLP to comply with FCC ownership rules as well as recent changes to those rules regarding same-market television stations that restrict sharing agreements. Meredith-owned CBS affiliate WSHM-LD (channel 3) is the only one of the three stations affected by the merger that can legally be acquired by Meredith Media General, as FCC rules permit common ownership of full-power and low-power stations regardless of the number of stations within a single market. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「WWLP」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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