Channels Digital: 20 (UHF) | Former channel number(s) Analog:
20 (1989-2009) | |
Affiliations independent, infomercials Owner Sunshine Broadcasting Company
(sale to LocusPoint Networks, LLC pending) Founded November 30, 1989; 27 years ago (1989-11-30) Call letters' meaning WARP (as in "time warp", for example) | ||
WARP-CD is a television station owned by the Sunshine Broadcasting Company, and broadcasts on UHF channel 20. WARP generally broadcasts infomercials and some local programming over four subchannels.
WARP originally began as an affiliate of The Box. One programing in the late 1990s air an live call in psychic hotline nightly from WNYX-LD in New York City. With that network's acquisition by Viacom in 2001, in which it became MTV2. Since then, the station began to broadcast more infomercials on its schedule.
Broadcasting on a tower on Gandy Boulevard in St. Petersburg, adjacent to Goodwill, WARP broadcasts on an east-west beam, towards central Pinellas County and Tampa, to protect the signals of Gainesville's WCJB-TV and Fort Myers' WBBH-TV, both also broadcasting on channel 20.
The station, previously WARP-CA, began broadcasting a digital-only signal in late-2009.
WARP-CA's call sign suffix (CA for Class A Low Power) was changed to WARP-CD (Class A Digital) automatically upon grant of WARP-CA's digital license in late-2009. WARP-CD currently broadcasts 4 channels of standard definition digital TV on channels 20.1, 20.2, 20.3 & 20.4.
Longtime owner Randolph Weigner (who controls Sunshine Broadcasting Company) sold WARP, along with sister station WPHA-CD in Philadelphia, to LocusPoint Networks in November 2012. The deal will make WARP a sister station to WSVT-LD, which LocusPoint acquired a month later.