WPWR-TV

'WPWR-TV', channel 50, is a television station licensed to Gary, Indiana and serving the Chicago, Illinois area. WPWR-TV is owned by Fox Television Stations, a division of the News Corporation, and is a sister station to WFLD-TV (channel 32). On September 5, 2006, this station became an affiliate of MyNetworkTV, a program service operated by Fox Television Stations.
From January 1995 to August 2006, WPWR-TV served as an affiliate of the United Paramount Network (UPN). It was previously branded as ''UPN Power 50'', ''UPN 50'', ''UPN Chicago'' and ''Power 50''.

Contents

History

Logos

Trivia

External links

History

The station began as a split, two-station operation on April 4, 1981 on channel 60, licensed to the Chicago suburb of Aurora. 'WPWR-TV' was founded by Fred Eychaner's Metrowest Corporation, which was the original applicant for the channel 60 license in 1978. WPWR premiered with a large percentage of its broadcast schedule dedicated to a new pay television service called Sportsvision, which Eychaner had developed in a deal with Chicago White Sox co-owners Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn. For the service, viewers had to pay for a set top converter and subscription fees to watch their favorite sports teams. However, Sportsvision was not a success and moved to cable in January 1983. With Sportsvision gone, Eychaner began running public domain movies and old sitcoms from the early to middle-1950s as well as old cartoons. In 1984, familiar classic sitcoms and newer barter cartoons were mixed in.
WPWR shared the channel 60 frequency with another station, Spanish-language 'WBBS', owned by Chicago resident Marcelino Miyares, who assisted Eychaner in completing the construction of channel 60. WBBS featured an array of Spanish-language programs, including novelas and a locally-produced music video show, ''Imagen'', hosted by Chicago Spanish-language radio personality Rey Mena. One of WBBS' notable events occurred in 1984, when the station introduced the teen group Menudo (which included a young Ricky Martin), to Chicago audiences. WBBS programmed channel 60 from 7:00 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. seven days a week, with WPWR broadcasting the rest of the time.
The 1985 announcement of WSNS-TV's affiliating with the Spanish International Network (the forerunner to today's Univision) caused WBBS to end weekday programming at the end of 1985, with the exception on weekends when it ran Spanish movies into 1986.
Meanwhile, Eychaner spent $1.5 million for WGMI, a channel 56 construction permit licensed to Gary that had been held by a group of Indiana businessmen since 1976, but was never built. Then, in 1985, Eychaner acquired the educational broadcast license for WCAE, licensed to channel 50 in St. John, Indiana. He then swapped the licenses and channel 56 became WYIN (now licensed to Gary). Eychaner then proceeded to rebuild channel 50 as a commercial station, with plans to move WPWR's programming there.
In early 1986, Eychaner bought WBBS's share of channel 60 for $11 million, ending the split-channel arrangement. A year later, Eychaner sold channel 60 to the Home Shopping Network for $25 million. The channel switch occurred on January 18, 1987: HSN changed channel 60's call letters to WEHS (it is now WXFT) and at the same time, WPWR moved to channel 50. WPWR's first program on its new frequency was an episode of the anthology series ''Night Gallery''.
It has never been clear why the additional swap to Channel 50 was needed. Eychaner said channel 56 was unable to broadcast from the Sears Tower and that would have put the station with a smaller tower unable to reach much of Chicago. Much like the current situation with WJYS Channel 62 and WYIN Channel 56 both which have their own towers far south of downtown Chicago and cannot even reach the downtown area.
Channel 66 WGBO sued to prevent the channel move but failed. WGBO maintained the additional channel move from 56 to 50 was to isolate WGBO at the far end of the dial and so that no one would mistake 56 for 66 both which end in 6 and could be accidentally punched on a keyboard like remote control.
As time went on, WPWR began acquiring many cartoons, more recent off-network sitcoms, drama shows, movies, and first-run syndicated shows, including '' in 1987 and ''War of the Worlds'' in 1988. At least one ''Star Trek'' spinoff would air on WPWR from that time until June of 2005, when the last network episode of '' was broadcast. In 1994, WPWR picked up ''The Disney Afternoon'' from WGN-TV and PTEN. Early in 1995, WPWR took the UPN affiliation and added more first run syndicated talk/reality/court shows. The station also continued adding off network sitcoms to its lineup.
In July 2002, the Chicago Sun-Times's Robert Feder reported that Eychaner sold WPWR to Rupert Murdoch's Fox Television for $425 million. The sale closed on August 21 2002. As a result of this transaction, Fox now owned UPN's three largest affiliates. It already owned WWOR-TV in New York City and KCOP-TV in Los Angeles as a result of buying most of the television holdings of Chris-Craft Industries a year older. Although rumors abounded that UPN's future was in jeopardy due to its three largest stations being owned by another network, Fox signed a new Its schedule consisted of talk shows, court shows, reality shows, sitcoms, cartoons, and UPN programs.
WPWR has shared with or inherited from WFLD several syndicated shows including ''Cheers'', ''The Cosby Show'', ''Still Standing'', ''King Of The Hill'' and ''That 70s Show''. In addition, in January 2003, WPWR added 4Kids TV, Fox's Saturday morning line-up packaged by 4Kids Entertainment after WFLD dropped the block in favor of a local newscast.
On January 24, 2006, the UPN and WB networks announced they would merge into a new network called The CW. WGN-TV was announced as the CW's Chicago affiliate.
The CW's network list didn't include any of Fox's UPN affiliates. This didn't sit well with Fox, as the CW announcement came just a few months after Fox and UPN agreed to a new eight-year affiliation deal for WPWR and the other Fox-owned UPN affiliates. In response, Fox removed all references to UPN from its UPN affiliates' logos and promotions. Accordingly, WPWR switched to its former on-air name before Fox ownership, ''Power 50''. It is not likely that WPWR would have become Chicago's CW affiliate, however. CW officials were on record as preferring the "strongest" WB and UPN affiliates, and WGN-TV was by far the stronger station.
A month later, Fox announced the formation of its own network, MyNetworkTV with WPWR and the other Fox-owned UPN affiliates as the nuclei. Although most on-air promos retained the "Power 50" slogan for the Summer of 2006, the station began to use the "My 50" moniker in some advertising to promote the change, particularly at sponsored events such as the Taste of Chicago. In July 2006, WPWR officially rebranded itself as ''My 50.''
Occasionally as time permits, WPWR may now air Fox network programming whenever WFLD cannot in the event of an emergency. Also, WPWR breaks into live programming when WFLD does to deliver breaking news coverage.

Logos

Trivia

★ Because sisters WWOR-TV and KCOP are on VHF, WPWR has the distinction of being the largest UHF affiliate of MyNetworkTV. When the station was a UPN affiliate, the same was true.

★ The WCAE calls that were on channel 50 while still an educational license (but never went on the air) were once used on WEAE in Pittsburgh.

★ WPWR is not to be confused with Urban/Hip hop radio station WPWX 92.3 FM, which is called ''Power 92.''

External links

★ WPWR-TV (My50) Website

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