WWJE-DT
WWJE-DT (channel 50) is a television station licensed to Derry, New Hampshire, United States, serving the Boston area as an affiliate of True Crime Network.
WWJE is operated separately from WUNI's joint sales agreement (JSA) with Entravision Communications–owned UniMás affiliate WUTF-TV (channel 27).
On February 17, 2017, WBIN canceled its newscasts as part of a wind-down of the station's operations following the sale of its spectrum in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s incentive auction.
It operated from two studios: its offices and master production facilities were located on Dutton Street in downtown Lowell, Massachusetts; however, its transmitter and "main" studio was on Governor Dinsmore Road in Windham, New Hampshire, to comply with FCC regulations requiring that a station's transmitter be located within 15 miles (24 km) of its city of license.
The station's Lowell studios were located less than 1,000 feet (305 m) from the transmitter of WLLH, making high-quality production impossible during the day due to RF interference with the cameras.
[citation needed] The current iteration of channel 50 signed on the air on September 5, 1983,[2] as WNDS, an independent station known on-air as "The Winds of New England."
Sitcoms came from the Viacom and Paramount libraries, including such well-known series as I Love Lucy, The Brady Bunch, Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley and The Andy Griffith Show, among others.
[4] However, GSN soon ran into financial problems;[5] after it missed a payment for the station, CTV of Derry canceled the sale and reverted WNDS to its previous general entertainment format that June.
[7] Soon after assuming control, in August 2005, Shooting Star Broadcasting announced that WNDS would change its call letters to WZMY-TV and its branding to "My TV".
Operation of WZMY was taken over by New Age Media, LLC, making it a sister station to WPXT and WPME in Portland, Maine.
[14] On March 3, 2011, Portsmouth-based Carlisle One Media, Inc., a company controlled by Bill Binnie, announced that it had reached an agreement to purchase WZMY-TV.
Binnie originally indicated that WBIN-TV would retain its affiliations with MyNetworkTV and Universal Sports;[15] however, the station announced on June 15 that it would leave MyNetworkTV and become an independent again as part of an increased local emphasis, with the service's programming moving to WSBK-TV (channel 38) on September 19,[18][19][20] while Universal Sports restructured itself into a cable- and satellite-only channel in January 2012, then shut down in October 2015.
[27] WBIN was the flagship of Binnie Media, a group that also included WYCN-LP (channel 13) in Nashua and 16 northern New England radio stations formerly owned by Nassau Broadcasting Partners.
[28][29][30][31] On February 17, 2017, Binnie Media announced that WBIN-TV had sold its spectrum in the FCC's spectrum incentive auction for $68.2 million; concurrently, the station's "remaining television license rights" would be acquired by an undisclosed "major television group" for an estimated $10–30 million in what it described as a "channel-sharing sale".
Binnie Media also announced that WBIN-TV would "cease broadcasting in the coming months", with proceeds from the sale going toward the acquisition of additional digital, outdoor, and radio assets.
[33] In the channel sharing agreement, reached on January 11, 2016, the stations agreed to grant put and call rights that could result in WUTF's owner, Univision Local Media, acquiring the WBIN license; under the terms of the agreement, Univision would be required to change WBIN-TV's call letters as a condition of the sale.
The station also covered live local sports, including high school football, college hockey and minor league baseball.
In addition, during the early 2000s, channel 50 ran a public affairs program titled Capitol Ideas hosted by Arnie Arnesen.
The original show under this format was My New England,[9] but variants focusing on specific topics were subsequently added, such as My Premier Bride and My Good Health and My Home and Garden.
At the time of the relaunch, two other local programs also existed: a talk show entitled MyTV Prime[9] (which originally aired from 9 to 10 p.m.[9] and later from 8 to 9:30 p.m.), and Wild World (a review of action sports around the region, which was produced by Dan Egan).
Following Carlisle One Media's acquisition of the station, WBIN-TV announced that it would offer increased coverage of high school, college, and professional sports;[45] this includes telecasts of New Hampshire Wildcats hockey and basketball (produced by the University of New Hampshire in association with Pack Network)[46] Merrimack Warriors hockey,[47] and the UMass Minutemen.
As a result, WZMY eliminated all daily news cut-ins, political commentary, and locally produced public affairs programming.
The station maintained additional partnerships with the Boston Globe (which originally provided headlines through an on-screen ticker), the Nashua Telegraph, and Bloomberg.
[25][58] The station also aired a daily INN-produced half-hour political newscast, Campaign Countdown, at 5 p.m. during the latter portion of the 2012 election season.
[31][59] WBIN also established bureaus throughout New Hampshire, including Laconia[54] (at a former police station[60]), Manchester, and Lebanon, in addition to Derry and Portsmouth.
[54] WBIN-TV ended its INN-produced newscast on April 26, 2013, leaving Kaprielian's forecasts as the only local news content on the station.
[68] The station's ATSC 1.0 channel is carried on the multiplexed signal of ABC affiliate WCVB-TV: WWJE-DT (as WZMY-TV) shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 50, on December 1, 2008, which was within the permissible 90-day window prior to the original February 17, 2009, deadline for full-power television stations in the United States to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (this deadline was later moved to June 12, 2009).
