Branding Ion Television | Affiliations Ion Television | |
City Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Slogan Positively Entertaining Channels Digital: 50 (UHF)
Virtual: 62 (PSIP) Subchannels 62.1 - Ion HD (720p)
62.2 - qubo (480i)
62.3 - Ion Life (480i)
62.4 - Ion Shop (480i)
62.5 - QVC
62.6 - HSN | ||
KOPX-TV, virtual channel 62 (UHF digital channel 50), is an Ion Television owned-and-operated television station located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States. The station is owned by Ion Media Networks. KOPX maintains offices, master control and transmitter facilities located at 13424 Railway Drive in north Oklahoma City. On cable, KOPX is carried on Cox Communications channel 17 in standard definition and digital channel 706 in high definition, and also carried by AT&T U-verse on channel 62 in standard definition.
Contents
History
The station first signed on the air on March 16, 1996 as KMNZ; it originally operated as an affiliate of InTV, a network operated by Paxson Communications (the forerunner of Ion Media Networks) that specialized in paid programming. On August 31, 1998, KOPX became a charter station of the family-oriented Pax TV network (later formatted as a general entertainment service as i: Independent Television, now Ion Television), with programming from Christian television network The Worship Network airing during the overnight hours.
Digital television
The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
Analog-to-digital conversion
KOPX-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 62, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 50, using PSIP to display KOPX-TV's virtual channel as 62 on digital television receivers, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.
Newscasts
In November 2002, in relation to agreements between Pax TV and several major network affiliates (most of which were affiliated with NBC, which held a minority interest in Pax), KOPX began airing tape delayed rebroadcasts of morning and late evening newscasts from NBC affiliate KFOR-TV (channel 4). The 6 a.m. hour of the morning newscast aired on a one-hour tape delay (at 7 a.m.), while the 10 p.m. newscast aired on a half-hour delay (at 10:30 p.m.), with the latter beginning shortly before the live 10 p.m. newscast on KFOR-TV ended. The news share agreement ended on June 30, 2005 (coinciding with Pax's rebranding as i: Independent Television), due to Paxson Communications's decision to discontinue carriage of network affiliate newscasts as a result of Pax's financial troubles.