WCZU LD

Construction permit

WCZU-LD's application history dates back to about 2010. The station was assigned call letters W39CZ-D, but the call letters were changed to the current WCZU-LD before the station even took to the air, licensed under King Forward, Inc. Its elected transmitter site was originally located in rural Edmonson County, Kentucky on Grassland Road off Kentucky Route 70 (Morgantown Road) just northwest of Brownsville. That tower served as an AT&T long-lines microwave tower from the early 1970s until the mid 2000s as part of the AT&T Long Lines wire, cable, and microwave relay system. That tower can be seen in various areas of Edmonson County from Windyville to Sweeden as well as the north side of Brownsville, therefore making the structure a familiar landmark to area residents.

WCZU takes to the air

On December 20, 2013, DTV America Corporation announced that the station will go on air in 2014 as a MyNetworkTV affiliate, with Antenna TV programming surrounding MyNetworkTV's primetime schedule.

Although the actual date of its inception is unknown, WCZU-LD took to the air in either January or February 2014, and was discovered to be on the air no later than April 26, 2014. Most people did not know the station existed until sometime in either late April or May of that year. Upon signing on, WCZU became the first station in the Bowling Green DMA to provide programming from a digital multi-cast specialty network, since the station bears a primary Antenna TV affiliation, with upstart healthy-lifestyle specialty network Doctor TV being carried on WCZU's second sub channel. It also became the first low-power digital station to sign on in the Bowling Green market. In May 2014, WCZU's transmitter site was relocated to a tower near the Wingfield community in southwestern Edmonson County along Kentucky Route 1749 (Wingfield Road). It now shares space on the tower with Brownsville-licensed Adult hits radio station WKLX.

From the time of the station's inception in the first quarter of 2014, WCZU also has a secondary affiliation with MyNetworkTV, a sister channel to the Fox network that was created to give former UPN and The WB affiliates not named as affiliates of fellow-upstart network The CW another option besides becoming an independent station. Although MyNetworkTV doesn't really count as a major television network, ION Television would now be the only major network or syndication service not available directly from Bowling Green. Nashville's ION owned-and-operated station WNPX-TV (licensed to Cookeville) is the default Ion outlet for the market. MyNetworkTV was unavailable in the Bowling Green Area until WCZU stepped in and took the MyNetworkTV affiliation for the Bowling Green media market along with its Antenna TV affiliation. Before WCZU signed on, the Bowling Green market had to rely on WUXP-TV in Nashville as the default MyNetworkTV affiliation for the Bowling Green Area. During UPN's existence from 1995 until the September 2006 inception of The CW after UPN's merger with The WB, WUXP served as the default UPN affiliate for Bowling Green because UPN was never available from a local station in Bowling Green. Some viewers in parts of the market could still receive WUXP's signal with an outdoor antenna. The only Bowling Green area cable system that WUXP remains on is WesternCable, the on-campus cable system in classrooms and residence halls at Western Kentucky University.

For unknown reasons, WCZU did not air MyNetworkTV programming in late June and early July 2014. Programming from that service returned sometime during the week of July 7–12, 2014. Viewers might have been be confused on whether or not they would broadcast MyNetworkTV's programming during these specific hours on weeknights anymore. MyNetworkTV programming permanently returned on August 4, 2014. MyNetworkTV programming was forgone again in March 2015, also for unknown reasons. In times when MyNetworkTV programming was not run on WCZU, WUXP would serve as a backup MyNetworkTV affiliate assuming that one can pick up that station's signal.

On August 15, 2014, the station's licensee was changed from King Forward, Inc. to its parent company, DTV America Corporation, the company that has been operating the station since its inception.

After the first year (2015–2017)

In December 2014, Glasgow, Kentucky-based South Central Rural Telephone Cooperative and DTV America Corporation reached an agreement for the SCRTC to carry both of WCZU's digital subchannels, making WCZU available to the SCRTC's customers in the Bowling Green DMA only, including the SCRTC's customers in Barren, Metcalfe, and Hart Counties. This made the SCRTC the first cable provider in the Bowling Green market to reach such agreement, and to carry either of WCZU's subchannels. In the same month, the Glasgow Electric Plant Board also reached an agreement with DTV America Corporation to carry both of WCZU's subchannels. Both providers began carrying both of WCZU's subchannels in January 2015. Salem, Indiana-licensed WMYO in Louisville was dropped by both cable providers to make way for WCZU. Since Antenna TV was also available on WCZU's main channel, both subchannels of Louisville Fox affiliate WDRB (WMYO's sister station) were also dropped, making WBKO-DT2 the sole Fox affiliate on Glasgow-area cable. For the SCRTC's customers outside the Bowling Green DMA, WUXP remains for the SCRTC's customers in the Nashville DMA, including Allen and Monroe Counties. WMYO, on the other hand, remains for the SCRTC's customers in the Louisville DMA, including those in Green and Larue Counties.

On Tuesday, December 8, 2015, WCZU's second digital subchannel replaced DrTV with the Buzzr network, featuring a whole library of classic games shows owned by FremantleMedia. This makes WCZU the first station in Kentucky to affiliate with that network. In terms of commercial TV stations, the event of WCZU-LD2 switching to Buzzr was also the first affiliation change in the Bowling Green DMA since WNKY's switchover from Fox to NBC in March 2001. On January 27, 2016, WCZU-LD3 was launched as an affiliate of Bounce TV, a multicast network that is specifically geared towards the African American population.

On May 27, 2016, after MyNetworkTV's Friday night lineup, DrTV, which once occupied the second subchannel, returned to the station, but on the main subchannel as a result of a technical error. Antenna TV returned the following Sunday morning, May 29, in time for that network's marathon of racing-inspired movies that commemorated the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500.

More subchannels on WCZU

There was some speculation that WCZU will launch two additional subchannels, WCZU-LD4 and WCZU-LD5, which would have served as affiliates of Katz Broadcasting-operated gender networks Grit and Escape, respectively, at some point in late 2016 or early 2017. Both of those two networks are channels that are considered the Gender Networks that targets people in the 25-54 age group. Instead, on August 24, 2016, WCZU-LD4, alone, was launched as an affiliate of the Sonlife Broadcasting Network, which makes it the first religious network to have an affiliate in the Bowling Green DMA, although WPBM-CD, in nearby Scottsville (technically in the Nashville DMA) is also a religious-formatted station.

Grit and Escape were launched on WCZU's LD5 and LD6 subchannels, respectively, on September 23, 2016. This made WCZU the first station in the market to offer six or more digital subchannels since Kentucky Educational Television offered six subchannels on all of their satellites in the mid 2000s. However, the WAVE-DT3 feed of Grit remains available on SCRTC Cable. On January 6, 2017, a seventh subchannel was launched to carry the NBCUniversal-owned Cozi TV network.

WCZU on Spectrum Cable

The Bowling Green Daily News added WCZU to its TV Listings page on January 9, 2017. The reason for that is because Time Warner Cable (now Spectrum) made WCZU's main channel available on its cable system in the Bowling Green area in that month.

Digital television

The station's digital signal is multiplexed in the manner listed below.

Programming

Local advertising is not currently utilized by the station yet, because WCZU utilizes the network feeds directly from the two networks. The station relies on national advertising utilized by both MyNetworkTV and Antenna TV for revenue. During weeknight primetime hours, the slots where local advertising is supposed to be inserted, it instead airs the MyNetworkTV logo bouncing around until the commercial break is over. At the top of every hour on both subchannels, programming is preempted for five seconds to show the station's legal top-of-hour identification, though it only affects the closing and/or intro of programs or any promo that is run between programs. In spite of low-powered status, until June 2015, the station IDs identify the station as WCZU-TV 39 Bowling Green. It was replaced by a new station ID with the proper "-LD" suffix.

General programming

WCZU-LD clears the full Antenna TV programming schedule for both days of the weekend, and 22 hours every weekday. Most of Antenna TV's programming features classic sitcoms from the 1950s through the 1990s. For a list for all the shows on Antenna TV, see List of programs broadcast by Antenna TV. Any Antenna TV programs that air on weeknights from 7 to 9 p.m. CT are preempted to make way for MyNetworkTV programming, which runs from 7 to 9 p.m. C.T. every weeknight, and would re-join Antenna TV at 9 p.m. This practice is also followed by sister stations and fellow MyNetworkTV/Antenna TV dual affiliates WYJJ-LD in Jackson, Tennessee and KPJO-LP in the Pittsburg, Kansas-Joplin, Missouri market, as those stations has the same affiliations. Reception of WUXP is still necessary to view MyNetworkTV's programming in high-definition, because WCZU's entire broadcasting schedule is aired in standard definition to accommodate Antenna TV's picture format.

Sports programming

There were some speculative rumors in a December 2014 article in the Glasgow Daily Times that WCZU was expected to broadcast Atlantic Coast Conference sports programming from the Raycom Sports-operated ACC Network, because the University of Louisville Cardinals joined the ACC in July 2014. The rumors actually came true on August 29, 2015 at 1:00 p.m. CT, when the station aired the ACC Football Kickoff Special. At some point in early 2015, Raycom Sports and DTV America reached an agreement to bring ACC football and basketball to WCZU. This will also make Raycom's ACC Network the station's only syndicated fare that does not come from its MyNetworkTV or Antenna TV network affiliations. ACC Network programming on WCZU is broadcast in standard definition, but in a 16:9 letterbox widescreen format. The first football game broadcast on WCZU was the Wofford-Clemson game on September 5, 2015. MyNetworkTV programming on WCZU is subject to be preempted by ACC Network games during College basketball season. ACC Network programming will remain with WCZU until 2019, when the ACC-ESPN Network launches and replace the Raycom Sports-operated package.

In the 2014–15 season, since none of the Bowling Green area's local stations carried ACC Network programming, ACC fans in the area could only rely on either Nashville's WUXP or Louisville's NBC affiliate WAVE-TV, or through ESPN's out-of-market sports packages and/or the ESPN3 online-streaming service in order to access those broadcasts.

WCZU-LD2

WCZU-LD2, the second digital sub-channel previously served as an affiliate of the Doctor Television Channel, which provides health-oriented programming, fitness shows, some classic movies, a few infomercials, four hours worth of children's educational programming, as well as a two hours of meditation programming from The Worship Network during the overnights. On Tuesday, November 8, 2015, WCZU-LD2 became affiliated with Buzzr, a classic TV oriented multi-cast network that focuses on the FremantleMedia-owned programming library that mainly includes classic game shows. However, DrTV is still available for users of the Roku digital media receiver.

Over-the-air signal

Due to its low-powered status, and with its 7,000 watts of effective radiated power, WCZU's signal can only cover a 40 miles (64 km) radius around the transmitter. It covers most of the Bowling Green DMA, which comprises Barren, Butler, Edmonson, Hart, Metcalfe, and Warren Counties. In addition to the Bowling Green market, WCZU can also cover parts of Logan, Simpson, and Allen counties, along with far northern parts of Sumner County, Tennessee, which are in the Nashville DMA, along with Grayson County in the Louisville media market, as well as southern Ohio County, which is in the Evansville, IN/Owensboro, KY media market.

Cable availability

In Barren, Hart, and Metcalfe Counties, the main channel is available on SCRTC Cable channel 30, while WCZU-LD2 is on channel 91. In the city of Glasgow, the main channel is carried on Glasgow EPB cable channel 15, while WCZU-LD2 is carried on Glasgow EPB Cable Channel 146.

After DTV America's agreement with Time Warner Cable/Spectrum to carry the station's main channel in January 2017, this leaves the market's Mediacom systems and Dish Network as the only pay-television providers in the market that still does not carry WCZU. DirecTV does not offer any of Bowling Green's local channels.