Branding WHPR TV Detroit Live Founded August 31, 1990 | Affiliations Independent station | |
Channels Digital: 33 (UHF)
Virtual: 33.1 Owner LocusPoint Networks
(sale to HME Equity Fund II pending)
(LocusPoint W33BY Licensee, LLC) Call letters' meaning W
Highland Park Radio
(unofficial calls, named after its sister radio station) | ||
WHPR is the unofficial call sign of TV channel 33 (officially called W33BY-D), a low-power broadcasting station based in Highland Park, Michigan, United States. The station broadcasts from its studios at the corner of Victor and Brush Streets (near the intersection of Woodward Avenue and the Davison Freeway) in Highland Park, with its transmitter located near Burt Road and Capitol Avenue in the Weatherby section of Detroit, shared with radio stations WMUZ and WEXL.
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The station is a Class-A operation, even though the station's official calls are still translator-style calls.
WHPR is not carried on any cable providers, but it is available nationwide through online streaming and on Roku.
Until December 4, 2014, W33BY was also the only remaining American station in the Metro Detroit area to still broadcast only in analog. On April 23, 2014, the station had announced that LocusPoint Networks was beginning procedures to purchase it, making it a sister to WDWO-CD and potential sister to WUDT-LD, if that station is allowed to be sold from Daystar to LocusPoint. The sale closed successfully.
Background
WHPR was the Detroit area's first Black-owned TV station since channel 62 (then WGPR) became a CBS affiliate. The station was owned until 2015 by R.J. Watkins, who, in the late-1980s and early-1990s, hosted and produced a dance program for WGPR-TV, The New Dance Show.
The station's television airtime is occupied mostly by phone-in talk shows (most are radio simulcasts), televangelism, paid advertisements, and a children's show called K.E.Y.S. Kids, which encourages kids to "Enjoy Yourselves Without Drugs".
W33BY, WHPR-FM, and WVIE-FM, a Virgin Islands radio station owned by Watkins, are also streamed online via their website. W33BY is also on Roku. WVIE-FM has been simulcast on 33.3 since November 7, 2015. And WHPR-FM has been simulcast on 33.2 since November 8, 2015. In December 2015, the simulcast of 33.1 on 33.4 was replaced with The Dream Network.
History
The station started out as W68CH on channel 68 back in 1990, and branded itself as "UHF 68, Highland Park". The station "moved" to W33BY in November, 2001, but the station still operated on both channels. This continued until August 2002, when 33 and 68 carried separate schedules. Channel 68 would close down for good in September 2003. However, as of July 2006, TVguide.com still shows the station as on the air, carrying a schedule separate from W33BY. [1] As of current, however, the FCC database has no listings for W68CH, or any channel 68, in the Detroit area. Viewers in the area have confirmed that channel 68 is no longer broadcasting, and hasn't for quite some time.
They later filed a construction permit to flash cut channel 33 to a digital signal, broadcasting at 4kW from facilities at its studios in Highland Park. The permit was to expire September 1, 2015, the date in which all low-powered television stations in the United States must convert to digital or close down, as per the FCC's digital conversion plan. The station converted to digital operations on December 4, 2014, and was licensed by the FCC for digital operation on January 29, 2015.
When W33BY converted to digital, it was given a total of 4 subchannels. 33.1 was broadcast in 720p, with the other 3 subchannels being 480i simulcasts with a 4:3 aspect ratio. However, on November 7, 2015, a simulcast of WVIE-FM with a slide saying "W33BY DETROIT" was added to 33.3. On November 8, 2015, WHPR-FM was added to 33.2, and The Dream Network" was added to 33.4. 33.4 was however, reverted to a simulcast of 33.1 again in May 2016.