Philadelphia KJWP-2 is new MeTV affiliate

[DavGoodlin]

The signal is pretty good here 55 miles west, if you have a big VHF antenna.

http://www.rabbitears.info/market.ph...cility_id=1283

[jr_tech]

Very unusual to have a DTV station on ch 2, the old 102 inch Rembrandt indoor antenna would be useful close in in the area!

Very strange to have "K" call letters in the East, as well.

But even stranger to have 2 stations with the same calls (one also in Wyoming):

http://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/tvq?list=0&facid=1283


jr

[TVTim]

That is fascinating. Could it be that the Wyoming station is being re-broadcast by a station near you?

[DavGoodlin]

Originally Posted by TVTim

That is fascinating. Could it be that the Wyoming station is being re-broadcast by a station near you?

It seems odd, but the Jackson Wyoming station seems to have stayed as NBC KJWY, but KJWC moved to Wilmington DE as the city of License due to a strange loophole as per the fourth paragraph here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KJWP

And yes Jr.Tech, I find some call letters quite inconsistent in some places. i.e. Dallas has WFAA-TV, Pittsburgh has KDKA AM / TV 2, and Philadelphia's AM and first TV channel has been KYW TV 3 since 1965.

I guess its more about politics at the FCC.

[wa2ise]

As for K's in the east, heard a stort about a station in New Hampshire applying for a construction permit was assigned a K call, as the person at the FCC thought New Hampshire was out west... I would have kept that callsign, as I'd be the only station in town with a K call.

[Dave A]

From Wikipedia;

Soon after taking over, PMCM sought permission to reallocate KJWY from Jackson to Wilmington, Delaware, as part of a legal loophole that allows any VHF station that moves to a state with no FCC-licensed commercial VHF stations to receive automatic permission to move. After of the digital television transition of 2009, Delaware and New Jersey no longer have VHF signals. (PMCM also looked to move KVNV to New Jersey under the same rule.)[5][6] The request was denied by the FCC in a December 18, 2009 letter.[7] The full Commission denied PMCM's application for review in a Memorandum Opinion and Order released on September 15, 2011;[8] however, this denial was reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on December 14, 2012.[9] On March 8, 2013, the call letters were changed to KJWP.[2] KJWP applied for a construction permit to move to Wilmington (though the planned transmitter location is in the Roxborough neighborhood of Philadelphia, where the transmitters for most Philadelphia television stations are located) on May 28, 2013.[10] KJWP discontinued operation from Jackson on August 11, 2013 in anticipation of the move.[1]

[bgadow]

Very interesting...it does bother me that the transmitter would be allowed to be in PA and not DE. It totally circumvents the point of that rule, right?

[Jeffhs]

KYW-AM-FM-TV were in Cleveland from 1955-1965. Owned and operated by Westinghouse Broadcasting. These were the first and only Cleveland stations with K-prefixed call signs. The KYW stations moved to Philadelphia in 1965.

I can still get KYW-AM 1060, all news radio here at night, after sundown. Pittsburgh also had (and still has) KDKA-TV channel 2 and AM 1020, and KQV-AM radio 1400.

Seems very strange that Philadelphia would have a channel 2 TV station right next to channel 3. In the NTSC analog days, this would not be allowed, since the FCC never assigned adjacent channels in the same city except for channels 4 and 5, or 13 and 14. Also, given that Philadelphia is not that far from New York City, the two channel 2 stations (WCBS-TV in New York and Philly's new channel 2) would interfere with each other. Of course, with DTV, channel 2 and channel 3 are probably spaced well apart from each other frequency-wise, despite the fact that they are adjacent to each other on your TV's channel selector knob or electronic ATSC/QAM digital tuner.

[Ed in Tx]

Originally Posted by DavGoodlin

.. I find some call letters quite inconsistent in some places. i.e. Dallas has WFAA-TV..

" in 1922, radio station WFAA in Dallas began transmitting" 1922 before they divvied up the country K & W and from ownership by the Belo Corp later on the air in 1949 with TV. Used to be when a station changed owners the W and K rule applied to the new owner, but I guess no more. Gannett owns Ch 8 WFAA TV now.

[Jeffhs]

I just looked at the Wikipedia listing for KJWP-TV and found that it is an affiliate of the MeTV network. Its subchannels carry Justice TV, Grit, and Escape. However, when I looked up the station's FCC listing, I saw that it was an NBC affiliate, with no mention made of the subchannels. It wouldn't have made sense anyway for this station to be an NBC affiliate, since Philadelphia's NBC station is on channel 10.

It is not possible for two television stations in different cities or states to have the same call sign. The FCC doesn't assign TV call letters that way under any circumstances, although it is possible for radio stations (AM and FM) in two different towns to have the same calls. However, there are exceptions, such as the three network TV stations in New York City, WNBC, WABC and WCBS. The WNBC calls are no longer used by the city's former NBC radio network affiliates, but no other other radio station in the United States can use those call letters; the same applies to WABC-FM (now WPLJ-FM). The reason for this, I think, is the New York callsigns are so iconic that their former owners do not want them to be associated with any other radio station in the country. The same reasoning could also be applied to former NBC-owned and operated radio stations WMAQ-AM-FM (now WSCR-AM and WKQX-FM) in Chicago, although the ruling is especially strict in New York because of the associations with the former NBC and current ABC radio networks.

Another loophole, quirk, call it what you will, exists in San Francisco, applying to its KNBR-AM. This station was formerly owned and operated by NBC but, for reasons unclear to me, it was allowed to keep the callsign when the NBC radio network was disbanded and sold to Westwood One in 1986. The station is now under new ownership (has been for over two decades) and is an ESPN sports radio affiliate. NBC operated an AM and FM radio station and a TV station in Cleveland (WKYC-AM-FM-TV) from 1948 to 1955 and again from 1965 to 1972; however, when the radio stations were sold to different media groups in 1972, they were forced to change their call signs.

The former WKYC-AM, however, recovered its heritage callsign, WTAM, over ten years ago; the reason was the company that currently owns that station wanted a callsign containing the letters "AM", not necessarily because WTAM was the station's original callsign when it first signed on in 1923.

The television station, however, was allowed to keep the WKYC call sign even after it was sold by NBC to a local media group in 1990, and again when the station was sold a second time to yet another media company. That second media group is Gannett Broadcasting, which has owned WKYC-TV since the late 1990s. Why the station was allowed to retain those calls is beyond me, unless NBC's ironclad ownership rule for callsigns only applied to its New York City radio stations.

[Ed in Tx]

Originally Posted by DavGoodlin

Philadelphia KJWP-2 is new MeTV affiliate The signal is pretty good here 55 miles west, if you have a big VHF antenna.

Our MeTV is on 21.2 KTXA a sister station of KTVT Ch 11 owned by CBS. I watch it often. They do have some copyright issue with Carol Burnett here in DFW, so they sub in more Twilight Zone.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Ed in Tx

Our MeTV is on 21.2 KTXA a sister station of KTVT Ch 11 owned by CBS. I watch it often. They do have some copyright issue with Carol Burnett here in DFW, so they sub in more Twilight Zone.

I am surprised there are copyright issues with the Carol Burnett Show in your area. I'm in northeast Ohio, near Cleveland; our cable system, Time Warner, carries the program five nights a week, with no issues whatsoever. Only thing I can think of is the copyright laws are much more strict in Texas than they are in Ohio. I don't see how there could be copyright problems with that show anyway, as it hasn't been on network TV in many years. I would think it would be in syndication across the US by now.

BTW, I like MeTV too, and watch it quite a bit; in fact, I will be watching a MeTV Mystery Movie (McCloud) on that channel in about 20 minutes (as I write this, it is 12:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time here). MeTV is carried in northeast Ohio on channel 19.2, subchannel of WOIO-TV CBS 19 in Cleveland (the station is actually licensed to the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights, about 15 miles east of town).

[Dave A]

KJWP was bought/moved from a low power license in Jackson Hole, WY to a Wilmington, Delaware license with the xmtr in Philadelphia and airs as a METv outlet. No sub channels that I know here. It is there to fulfill a FCC loophole that mandates every state have one VHF over-the-air station be it high or low power. Delaware was without a station. I think there is one other state in the same condition. The call sign was moved and left alone. Please correct me if needed as you are aware.

[colorfixer]

"By hook or by crook" is what it sounds like

[DavGoodlin]

Originally Posted by Ed in Tx

" in 1922, radio station WFAA in Dallas began transmitting" 1922 before they divvied up the country K & W and from ownership by the Belo Corp later on the air in 1949 with TV. Used to be when a station changed owners the W and K rule applied to the new owner, but I guess no more. Gannett owns Ch 8 WFAA TV now.

And that explains KDKA in Pittsburgh, pre-dated the requirement.

BTW - KJWP reception seems pretty stable here 55 miles west, until sunset. The DT low frequency channels act strangely with weather also.