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KWPX-TV

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

KWPX-TV
CityBellevue, Washington
Channels
BrandingIon
Programming
Affiliations
Ownership
Owner
History
First air date
May 17, 1989 (35 years ago) (1989-05-17)
Former call signs
KBGE (1989–1998)
Former channel number(s)
  • Analog: 33 (UHF, 1989–2009)
  • Digital: 32 (UHF, until 2009)
Call sign meaning
Washington State Pax
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID56852
ERP400 kW
HAAT716 m (2,349 ft)
Transmitter coordinates47°30′16.3″N 121°58′10″W / 47.504528°N 121.96944°W / 47.504528; -121.96944
Links
Public license information
Websiteiontelevision.com

KWPX-TV (channel 33) is a television station licensed to Bellevue, Washington, United States, serving as the Ion Television outlet for the SeattleTacoma area. The station is owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. KWPX-TV's offices are located on 304th Avenue Southeast in Preston, and its transmitter is located on West Tiger Mountain near Issaquah.

History

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The station signed on the air as KBGE on May 17, 1989. Its original transmitter site was atop Columbia Center; the transmitter was later moved to West Tiger Mountain. The call letters became KWPX-TV on March 9, 1998, after the station was purchased by Paxson Communications, replacing ValueVision with its inTV network until the launch of Pax on August 31, 1998.[2] The station was never a part of the early-2000s initiative by NBC to rebroadcast local newscasts a half-hour later on a Pax station, as KING-TV already featured newscasts on sister station KONG-TV.

Until 2021, the station carried Telemundo on its seventh subchannel, before Scripps' purchase of Ion Media nullified the agreement, in order to carry their own subchannel networks. Cox-owned KIRO-TV relaunched the network in the market in the fall of 2022 over subchannel 7.4.

Technical information

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Subchannels

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The station's signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of KWPX-TV[3]
Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
33.1 720p 16:9 ION Ion Television
33.2 CourtTV Court TV
33.3 480i Bounce Bounce TV
33.4 Grit Grit
33.5 IONPlus Ion Plus[4]
33.6 SCRIPPS Scripps News
33.7 Jewelry Jewelry Television
33.8 QVC QVC

Analog-to-digital conversion

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KWPX-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 33, on February 17, 2009, to conclude the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[5] The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 32 to channel 33.[6]

References

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  1. ^ "Facility Technical Data for KWPX-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. ^ Levesque, John (November 18, 1997). "Growing Paxson empire extends its reach into Seattle". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. p. D6.
  3. ^ "Digital TV Market Listing for KWPX". www.rabbitears.info.
  4. ^ Keys, Matthew (June 28, 2024). "Scripps replacing Defy TV with Ion Plus on broadcast TV". TheDesk.net. Retrieved June 28, 2024.
  5. ^ List of Digital Full-Power Stations Archived August 29, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ CDBS Print
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