WPSG

Categories: Television stations in Philadelphia | UPN network affiliates | Viacom television stations

WPSG
Image:Wpsg57 philadelphia.jpg
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Branding	UPN 57
Slogan	So Philly. So U.
Analog channel	57 (UHF)
Digital channel	32 (UHF)
Affiliations	UPN
Owner	CBS Corporation
Founded	1981
Call letters meaning	Paramount Stations Group
Former affiliations	Independent
Website	www.upn57.com

WPSG ("UPN 57") is the UPN television affiliate in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Owned by Viacom, its transmitter is in the Roxborough section of the city. WPSG is currently the broadcast home of the Philadelphia Phillies, 76ers and Flyers.

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History

Image:Wwsgident.jpg

A WWSG ident from a 1981 signoff. In 1984, the station was broadcasting a scrambled signal of the PRISM network at this time.

Channel 57 first signed on the air in 1981 as WWSG, a station which aired FNN programming during the day and subscription TV at night. The station ultimately dropped the FNN feed when it decided to become subscription full-time eighteen months later, and changed to the now-defunct PRISM pay-cable service in 1983.

Image:Wgbs93.jpg

A WGBS station ID from 1993.

In 1985, William Gross, the founder of the station, sold it to Milton Grant, who changed the call letters to WGBS and turned the station into an independent.WGBS aired a typical mix of cartoons, sitcoms, movies, dramas, sports, and westerns. Many of the shows that WGBS began with were Viacom shows that were formerly on Channel 48 before that station went off the air in 1983. A distinct feature of WGBS was the very slick look adopted by the station. Instead of going with a simple name like "TV29" or "Channel 17", WGBS boldly branded itself as "Philly 57". The station had a habit of using CGI graphics of near network-quality, and even the station's announcer - Kim Martin - was bold, brash, and entertaining. Grant had hoped to have his stations on satellite and turn them into superstations. However, he ended up in debt and later filed for Chapter 11 in late 1986. In 1988, Grant's creditors took over his stations and were known as Combined Broadcasting.

Combined put the stations up for sale in 1993, but it would be two years before Combined found a buyer, and only then in a roundabout way. Paramount Pictures had announced plans to form a new network, the United Paramount Network (UPN). Paramount owned WTXF-TV, Philadelphia's Fox affiliate, and planned to make that station the Philadelphia UPN affiliate. Tangible signs of the planned switch began showing up in late 1994, with WTXF beginning to call itself simply "29" on-air. Fox then cut a preliminary deal with Combined to buy WGBS and move its Philadelphia affiliation there. However, later that year, Westhinghouse, owners of Philadelphia's NBC affiliate, KYW-TV, cut a deal with CBS to switch KYW and the rest of Westinghouse's television group to CBS affiliates. New World Communications had recently partnered with Fox, and entered a bidding war with NBC for CBS' longtime O&O, WCAU-TV. New World owned several VHF stations that were due to switch to Fox affiliates. Fox canceled its preliminary deal with Combined to buy WGBS, finding the chance of owning a VHF station in the nation's fourth-largest market too much to resist. However, Paramount opted to sell WTXF to Fox, automatically giving WCAU to NBC. As something of a consolation prize, Paramount then bought WGBS and made the station its UPN affiliate.

WGBS became the UPN affiliate on January 16, 1995, the day the network was launched. After UPN launched, the station's image changed to fit its new status as an O&O. The name changed to "UPN Philly 57" and finally "UPN 57", the graphics got simpler, and Kim Martin was replaced by the more staid Larry Van Nuys. In September 1995, Viacom, who had purchased Paramount not long after UPN was launched, changed the call letters to WPSG, for "Paramount Station Group." Also gradually the old sicoms and cartoons were replaced by first run syndicated talk/reality/court shows. Viacom merged with CBS in 2000, and WPSG moved into KYW's studios on Independence Mall.

Due to Fox owning WWOR-TV in New York, KCOP-TV in Los Angeles, and WPWR-TV in Chicago, WPSG is UPN's largest O&O.

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News Operations

Image:Wakeupnews2005.jpg

"wake upnews" open, 2005.

Image:WeatherWPSG2005.jpg

"CBS 3 Eyewitness Weather" rejoin from a repourposed KYW-TV newscast, 2005. Note the CBS elements in the backround.

In September 2002, KYW-AM, KYW-TV, and UPN57 launched a headline news service named KYW Newsradio This Morning. Originally anchored by KYW-AM anchor Beth Tripani, the broadcast was essentially an embellished radio newscast, with simple graphics and video borrowed from KYW-TV. The newscast did surprisingly better than expected, with a popular feature of the broadcast being that the 5-Day weather forecast was always on screen. KYW Newsradio This Morning aired its final broadcast on May 30, 2005.

On May 31, 2005 a locally produced morning news program called "wake upnews", was the first traditional news broadcast specifically produced for the station and not a repurposed KYW-TV broadcast to be aired by the station. It replaced "KYW News Radio on UPN57". KYW-AM reporter Karen Adams, Meteorologist Melissa Sander, and Traffic Reporter Sean Murphy serve as anchors for the 4 hour news, traffic, and weather block. The music and graphics were created by Emmy Award winner Randy Pyburn, and are a variant of KYW-TV's graphics package, with the main difference a change from blue to red.Interestingly, the Pyburn graphics package is quite similar to the one they created for WNBC-TV in 2003, which NBC owned and operated stations are currently standardizing around. It is very likely rival WCAU-TV will have a very similar look in the near future.

During the fall of 2004, KYW began to broadcast its news on WPSG whenever it had an obligation to show network sports programming. These broadcasts carried KYW's CBS 3 branding and graphics, but the channel bug was changed to UPN 57's.

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External links

Broadcast television in the Philadelphia market
KYW 3 (CBS) - WPVI 6 (ABC) - WCAU 10 (NBC) - WHYY 12 (PBS) - WPHL 17 (The WB) - WNJS 23/WNJT 52 (PBS) - WFPA 28 (TFR) - WTXF 29 (Fox) - WYBE 35 (Public) - WLVT 39 (PBS) - WMGM 40 (NBC) - WGTW 48 (TBN) - WTVE 51 (Ind) - WPSG 57 (UPN) - WBPH 60 (Ind) - WPPX 61 (i) - WWSI 62 (TMD) - WUVP 65 (UVN) - WFMZ 69 (Ind)

Viacom Inc.

Annual Revenue: $22.5 billion USD (Image:Red down.png15% FY 2004) | Employees: 38,350 | Stock Symbol: NYSE: VIAB | Website: www.viacom.com