WMBC-TV

WMBC-TV (channel 63) is an independent television station licensed to Newton, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York metropolitan area. The station is owned by the Mountain Broadcasting Corporation, and maintains studios on Clinton Road in West Caldwell, New Jersey; it transmits from atop One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan.

Not to be confused with MBC, KMBC-TV, or WNBC.

WMBC-TV
CityNewton, New Jersey
Channels
BrandingWMBC TV 63
Programming
Affiliations
Ownership
OwnerMountain Broadcasting Corporation
History
FoundedAugust 1987
First air date
April 26, 1993 (1993-04-26)
Former channel number(s)
  • Analog: 63 (UHF, 1993–2009)
  • FamilyNet (1993–1996)
  • Main Street TV (1993–1996)
Call sign meaning
Mountain Broadcasting Corporation
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID43952
ERP250 kW
HAAT520 m (1,706 ft)
Transmitter coordinates40°42′46.8″N 74°0′47.3″W
Links
Public license information
Websitewmbctv.com

History

Mountain Broadcasting was founded in 1985 by a group of Korean Americans, led by the Reverend Sun Young Joo of Wayne, New Jersey. The group secured a construction permit from the FCC to build channel 63 in 1987,[2] and the station began operations on April 26, 1993, with a Christian religious format, running mostly programs from FamilyNet. Later in 1993, the station also began running public domain movies and film shorts from Main Street TV, along with FamilyNet programs.

In 1996, when New York City-owned WNYC-TV (channel 31, now Ion Television owned-and-operated station WPXN-TV) dropped its ethnic, foreign-language television programming following its sale to private interests, many of these programs were picked up by WMBC-TV. WMBC also dropped FamilyNet and Main Street TV programming and began to air more infomercials and religious shows directly from ministries. By 1997, it ran a blend of religion and infomercials during the day and ethnic shows at night and on Saturdays. It was also running several hours a week of educational kids' shows, and began producing a local newscast.

In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the station temporarily broadcast NBC's flagship station WNBC (channel 4).[3]

WMBC had an extremely weak over-the-air signal in New York City, but with a new antenna atop One World Trade Center, it can be seen more clearly. The station is also carried on most of the cable providers in that market, including Charter Spectrum and Optimum. Its signal was dropped from DirecTV's New York City local stations package on December 31, 2005; however, DirecTV resumed carriage of WMBC in early 2009.

Programming

WMBC-TV's lineup consists of brokered ethnic and religious programs, a half-hour weekday newscast, infomercials and children's programs to satisfy the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s "educational/informational" requirements.[4]

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of WMBC-TV[5]
Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
63.1 720p16:9WMBC-HDMain WMBC-TV programming
63.2 480iQUESTQuest (English)
63.3 4:3WMBC-HDInfomercials
63.4 16:9SinoVsnSinoVision (Chinese)
63.5 4:3NTDTVNTD Television (Chinese)
63.7 ALIENTOAliento Vision (Spanish)
63.8 Audio onlyWDNJWDNJ 88.1 FM (Spanish Christian)
63.9 KCBNKorean Christian Broadcasting Network
63.11 WWGBWWGB 1030 AM (Spanish Christian)
63.12 WBTKWBTK 1380 AM (Spanish Christian)

Analog-to-digital conversion

WMBC-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 63, on February 17, 2009, to conclude the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[6] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 18,[7] using PSIP to display WMBC-TV's virtual channel as 63 on digital television receivers, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.

See also

References
  1. "Facility Technical Data for WMBC-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. "Koreans Win TV Franchise". The New York Times. Section 1. August 22, 1987. p. 50 – via Associated Press.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  3. Dempsey, John (September 20, 2001). "TV beams back into N.Y." Retrieved January 19, 2017.
  4. "WMBC-TV 63.1 September 2023 Program Schedule" (PDF). wmbctv.com. Mountain Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  5. "RabbitEars.Info". Retrieved December 21, 2019.
  6. "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and Second Rounds" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013.
  7. "CDBS Print". Fjallfoss.fcc.gov. Retrieved December 10, 2011.
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