CBS affiliate in Rockford, Illinois
"WSLN" redirects here. For the former radio station in Delaware, Ohio that held the call sign WSLN until 2012, see
OWU Radio
.
WIFR-LD
|
Channels
| |
---|
Branding
| 23 WIFR;
23 News
; Stateline CW (LD5)
|
---|
|
Affiliations
| |
---|
|
Owner
| |
---|
| WSLN
|
---|
|
First air date
| May 31, 2017
(7 years ago)
(
2017-05-31
)
|
---|
Former call signs
| W22EE-D (2011?2017)
[a]
|
---|
Former channel number(s)
| - Digital:
41 (UHF, 2017?2020)
|
---|
| - WIFR-LD:
Wisconsin, Illinois, Freeport, Rockford
- WSLN:
State Line Region
|
---|
|
Licensing authority
| FCC
|
---|
Facility ID
| 183744
|
---|
Class
| LD
|
---|
ERP
| 15
kW
|
---|
HAAT
| 215.8 m (708 ft)
|
---|
Transmitter coordinates
| 42°17′48.3″N
89°10′15″W
/
42.296750°N 89.17083°W
/
42.296750; -89.17083
|
---|
Translator(s)
| |
---|
|
Public license information
| LMS
|
---|
Website
| www
.wifr
.com
|
---|
|
WIFR
|
|
First air date
| September 12, 1965
(
1965-09-12
)
|
---|
Last air date
| - May 31, 2017
(
2017-05-31
)
- (51 years, 261 days)
|
---|
Former call signs
| - WCEE-TV (1965?1977)
- WIFR-TV (1977?1991)
- WIFR (1991?2017)
|
---|
Former channel number(s)
| - Analog:
23 (UHF, 1965?2009)
- Digital:
41 (UHF, 2003?2017)
|
---|
|
Facility ID
| 4689
|
---|
ERP
| 170
kW
|
---|
HAAT
| 219.7 m (721 ft)
|
---|
|
WIFR-LD
(channel 23) is a
low-power television station
in
Rockford, Illinois
, United States, affiliated with
CBS
and
The CW Plus
. The station is owned by
Gray Television
, and maintains studios and transmitter facilities on North Meridian Road in Rockford.
Until 2017, WIFR operated as a full-power television station licensed to nearby
Freeport
. Under its current low-power license, WIFR-LD continues to use channel 23 as its
virtual channel
. WIFR is the only television station in the Rockford market to retain the same network affiliation since it first signed on.
Since WIFR's over-the-air coverage area is effectively limited to Rockford itself and close-in suburbs in
Winnebago County
, it relies mostly on cable and satellite for its viewership. It is also simulcast on a digital subchannel of
NBC
affiliate
WREX
(VHF channel 13.6, mapped to virtual channel 23.10).
History
[
edit
]
The station went on the air as WCEE-TV on September 12, 1965. It was originally owned by Rock River Television Corporation. The area's previous CBS affiliate, WREX-TV, switched to
ABC
full-time, sending CBS to WCEE-TV, whose calls and branding were inspired by the CBS Eyemark logo. It has been with CBS ever since, and is the only station in the market to have never switched affiliations. The call letters were changed to the present WIFR on June 1, 1977. General Media sold the station to Worrell Newspapers of
Charlottesville, Virginia
, in September of that year. Worrell sold all three stations WIFR,
WHSV-TV
in
Harrisonburg, Virginia
, and now-defunct
WBNB-TV
in the
U.S. Virgin Islands
to
Benedek Broadcasting
in 1986. When Benedek went
bankrupt
in 2002, WIFR and WHSV were acquired by current owner Gray Television.
On the morning of July 5, 2003, a severe wind storm swept through Rockford. WIFR's transmitter tower, located behind the studio and office building on North Meridian Road in Rockford, collapsed. Pieces of the tower fell onto a field behind the station's headquarters. No one was injured or killed. Nearly four months later, a new tower was erected and WIFR's signal was back to full power once again.
Spectrum reallocation
[
edit
]
Gray Television sold WIFR's spectrum in the
Federal Communications Commission
(FCC)'s
incentive auction
for $50,060,965; at the time, the station indicated that it planned to enter into a post-auction channel sharing agreement.
[4]
On April 21, 2017, Gray requested
special temporary authority
to move the license of W22EE-D (channel 22), a low-power station it owns in Rockford, to channel 41 with the intent of using it to maintain CBS service in the market; in its request, Gray disclosed that the full-power WIFR license would be surrendered on May 31, 2017, though WIFR's existing transmitter would be still be used, but with its power restricted to meet the transmitting requirements for W22EE-D.
[5]
[6]
The full-power license was cancelled on that date.
[7]
Gray had acquired W22EE-D from
DTV America
in an eight-station deal in 2016; it had never commenced any previous on-air operations since the call letters were issued on May 17, 2011, nor constructed any facilities.
[1]
On November 18, 2019, WIFR-LD attempted a transfer to its post-reallocation channel 28 from a temporary lower-power antenna lower on their transmitter tower, but moved back to 41 in a matter of days with the permission of
T-Mobile
, which would eventually hold that spectrum. This is due to channel 28 also being allocated to the northeast in
Milwaukee
to full-power ABC affiliate
WISN-TV
and causing cross-channel interference in portions of
Boone
and
McHenry
counties. The station again transitioned to channel 28 permanently on January 15, 2020, this time arranging with
Weigel Broadcasting
to simulcast 23.1 over their low-power station in the market,
WFBN-LD
(channel 35) as subchannel 23.11 to address those over-the-air viewers experiencing interference from WISN-TV. Gray expects to transition to their regular higher-power signal at the former position of the channel 41 antenna soon,
[
when?
]
after the
COVID-19 pandemic
forced it to delay its completion from spring 2020 due to a lack of tower maintenance crews across the United States.
[3]
Through all of this, on-air operations continued mostly unchanged, though viewers were asked to rescan their sets in order to continue watching the station. However, few viewers lost access to CBS programming due to the high penetration of cable and satellite.
Gray Television acquisition of Quincy Media
[
edit
]
On February 1, 2021, Gray Television announced it had acquired
Quincy Media
, owner of
NBC
affiliate
WREX
, for $925 million in a cash transaction.
FCC
rules governing television
duopolies
permit the common ownership of a full-power station and a low-power station in the same market.
[8]
Despite this, Gray elected to retain WIFR and sell WREX to Allen Media Broadcasting, a subsidiary of
Los Angeles
based
Entertainment Studios
, on April 29, in a $380 million transaction that included several of WREX's Quincy Media sister stations in overlapping markets, including
WKOW
/
Madison
,
WAOW
/
Wausau
,
WXOW
/
La Crosse
(and its semi-satellite
WQOW
/
Eau Claire
),
KWWL
/
Waterloo
–
Cedar Rapids
, and
WSIL-TV
/
Carbondale
(and its satellite KPOB-TV/
Poplar Bluff
).
[9]
While Gray will not have any direct ownership or control of WREX, it hammered out a 10-year agreement with Allen Media which called for WREX to carry WIFR-LD's main channel on a WREX subchannel, which would give WIFR full-market coverage for the first time since it went to low-power status in 2017.
[10]
Technical information
[
edit
]
Subchannels
[
edit
]
The station's signal is
multiplexed
:
As noted in the last section, channel 23.11 is the fourth subchannel of
Weigel Broadcasting
's WFBN-LD (channel 35), which utilizes physical channel 23 post-spectrum.
WIFR added
Tribune Broadcasting
's
Antenna TV
as their second subchannel on December 17, 2012, replacing
Local AccuWeather
(known on-air as "23 WeatherNow"). The subchannel carries live local and regional sports, including
Rockford IceHogs
hockey. Until the 2020 move of all market sports rights to cable via
NBC Sports Chicago
and
Marquee Sports Network
, it carried the regional telecasts from
WGN Sports
of selected
Chicago Bulls
,
Cubs
, and
White Sox
games. On May 28, 2015, its third subchannel launched, taking an affiliation with the
Justice Network
on July 27; in the interim it carried that year's
Rockford Public School District 205
graduation and overflow games unable to be aired on 23.2. 23.3 would carry White Sox games, with 23.2 carrying all Cubs games. During September 2017, WIFR announced via commercials running on the main signal that the subchannel would change affiliation to
Cozi TV
that month. 23.5 began carrying
Stateline CW
after it moved from WREX-DT2 in 2021.
Analog-to-digital conversion
[
edit
]
WIFR shut down its analog signal, over
UHF
channel 23, at noon on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television stations in the United States were to
transition from analog to digital broadcasts
under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 41,
[12]
[13]
using
virtual channel
23.
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
While the station was licensed as early as 2011, it had not been in operation until its purchase by Gray in 2017.
[1]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
"Station Trading Roundup: 1 Deal, $720,000"
.
TVNewsCheck
. August 2, 2016.
Archived
from the original on February 20, 2019
. Retrieved
May 15,
2017
.
- ^
"Facility Technical Data for WIFR-LD"
.
Licensing and Management System
.
Federal Communications Commission
.
- ^
a
b
"WIFR Spectrum Reallocation FAQ"
. WIFR-LD. November 22, 2019
. Retrieved
February 6,
2020
.
- ^
"FCC Broadcast Television Spectrum Incentive Auction Auction 1001 Winning Bids"
(PDF)
.
Federal Communications Commission
. April 4, 2017.
Archived
(PDF)
from the original on April 14, 2017
. Retrieved
May 15,
2017
.
- ^
"LPTV Engineering STA Application"
.
Licensing and Management System
.
Federal Communications Commission
. April 21, 2017.
Archived
from the original on October 20, 2017
. Retrieved
May 15,
2017
.
- ^
"Request for Special Temporary Authority"
(PDF)
.
Licensing and Management System
.
Federal Communications Commission
. April 21, 2017.
Archived
from the original on October 20, 2017
. Retrieved
May 15,
2017
.
- ^
"Station Search Details - Federal Communications Commission"
.
Archived
from the original on October 20, 2017
. Retrieved
June 5,
2017
.
- ^
Goldsmith, Jill (February 1, 2021).
"Gray Television Acquires Quincy Media For $925 Million In Cash"
.
Deadline Hollywood
.
Penske Media Corporation
. Retrieved
February 21,
2021
.
- ^
"Byron Allen's Allen Media Will Buy 7 Stations From Gray TV for $380 Million"
.
Variety
. April 29, 2021
. Retrieved
May 6,
2021
.
- ^
"FCC Monitor: More Low-Power TV Sales, Extensions,"
from Northpine.com, May 16, 2021
- ^
RabbitEars TV Query for WIFR-LD
- ^
DTV Switch in Rockford Still on for February 17th
Archived
February 8, 2009, at
archive.today
, WIFR, Feb 5, 2009]
- ^
"DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds"
(PDF)
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on August 29, 2013
. Retrieved
March 24,
2012
.
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
Local stations
| Full-power OTA
|
- WREX
(13.1
NBC
, 13.3
MeTV
, 13.4
Court
, 13.5
Crime
,
23.10
CBS
)
- WTVO
(17.1
ABC
, 17.2
MNTV
/
JTV
, 17.3
Laff
, 17.4
Grit
)
- WSLN
(19.1
CW+
, 19.2
The365
, 19.3
ANT
)
- WQRF-TV
(39.1
Fox
, 39.2
Bounce
, 39.3
Mystery
, 39.4
REW
)
|
---|
Low-power OTA
| |
---|
|
---|
Adjacent locals
|
- WTTW
(11.1
PBS
, 11.2 Prime, 11.3
Create
/
World
, 11.4
PBS Kids
,
Chicago
)
- WHA-TV
(21.1
PBS
/
PBS WI
, 21.2 Wisconsin Channel, 21.3
Create
, 21.4
PBS Kids
,
Madison
)
- WQPT-TV
(24.1
PBS
, 24.2
DW-TV
,
Quad Cities
)
|
---|
Defunct
| |
---|
Adjacent areas
| |
---|
CBS
network affiliates licensed to and serving the state of
Illinois
|
---|
Primary*
| |
---|
Secondary**
| |
---|
(*) ? indicates station is in one of Illinois' primary
TV markets
(**) ? indicates station is in an out-of-state TV market, but reaches a small portion of Illinois
|
CW
network affiliates licensed to and serving the state of
Illinois
|
---|
Primary*
| |
---|
Secondary**
| |
---|
(*) ? indicates station is in one of Illinois' primary
TV markets
(**) ? indicates station is in an out-of-state TV market, but reaches a small portion of Illinois
|
|
---|
Primary
| |
---|
Secondary**
| |
---|
(*) ? indicates station is in one of Illinois' primary
TV markets
(**) ? indicates station is in an out-of-state TV market, but reaches a small portion of Illinois
|