WJLP

Origin in Ely, Nevada

Founded in 1998 by Harris Broadcasting the station went on the air two and a half years later. The station, originally located in Ely, Nevada, signed on July 9, 2001 as KBJN, a satellite of KVBC, the NBC affiliate in Las Vegas. It was originally owned by Harris Broadcasting, who soon sold it to KVBC owner Valley Broadcasting Company. The call letters were changed to KVNV on November 15, 2005.

On July 1, 2008, Valley Broadcasting filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to sell KVNV to PMCM TV, LLC (which owns six Jersey Shore radio stations in Monmouth and Ocean County as Press Communications, LLC). The sale was approved on September 17, 2008 and was consummated on November 12, 2008; soon afterward, the station was relaunched as Intelliweather 3, carrying looping weather conditions and a news ticker. KVNV affiliated with My Family TV in October 2009. During 2012, the station began to expand its local programming, including a local weekend public affairs program and a locally produced children's program (to comply with the FCC's E/I regulations); KVNV also began to simulcast the noon and 6 p.m. newscasts of former sister station KRNV-DT in Reno, and added the statewide political show Nevada's Eye on Washington.

Move to New Jersey

Soon after its purchase of the station, PMCM TV sought permission to reallocate KVNV from Ely to Monmouth County, New Jersey, as part of a legal loophole that allows any VHF station that moves to a state with no FCC-licensed commercial VHF stations to receive automatic permission to move. (The loophole was set up because many New Jersey TV viewers felt shortchanged that nearly all their commercial TV stations came from either New York City or Philadelphia, not from their own state.) After the digital television transition of 2009, Delaware and New Jersey no longer had VHF signals, since station owners chose to move their signals to UHF channels, better suited to digital broadcasting. (PMCM also looked to move KJWY, now KJWP, to Delaware under the same rule, to serve the Philadelphia TV market.) The FCC denied the request in a December 18, 2009 letter. The full Commission denied PMCM's application for review in a Memorandum Opinion and Order released on September 15, 2011; however, this denial was reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on December 14, 2012. KVNV applied for a construction permit to move on May 28, 2013 to Middletown Township, New Jersey (though its transmitter location would be at the Condé Nast Building in Midtown Manhattan to serve the entire New York media market).

In January 2014, MeTV announced that KVNV, following its move, would become its New York City affiliate, replacing Bridgeport, Connecticut-based WZME (which is now an affiliate of Heroes & Icons, another network specializing in classic TV shows).

In its June 2014 bill, Comcast systems in central New Jersey stated that KVNV would be added to its lineup on July 31, 2014. This was delayed because of objections from WFSB in Hartford, Connecticut, who voiced concerns to the FCC about the signal overlap of the two virtual channel 3s, as well as carriage on channel 3 in Fairfield County. WFSB's owner, Meredith Corporation, also suggested that the FCC assign virtual channel 33 (which is WFSB's RF channel) to KVNV instead of 3.

On September 12, 2014, the FCC Media Bureau issued a public notice seeking comment on an alternative PSIP channel proposal set forth by PMCM. KVNV would broadcast on virtual channel 3.10 as not to interfere with WFSB. KVNV also would seek cable carriage on channel 3 throughout the New York market, except in Fairfield County, Connecticut.

KVNV commenced test broadcasting on September 29, 2014 at approximately 2:30PM on RF channel 3/virtual channel 3-10. This test transmission consisted of an EBR Test Pattern with a black text field bearing text reading as follows: Line 1: "KVNV TV" static, Line 2: "WJLP-TV" static. Immediately at the base of the black text box, a white rectangular square rapidly moved back-and-forth horizontally. There was no audio or tones to accompany. This test broadcast ended on September 30, 2014 at approximately 2PM. The station made a brief return to the air on October 1, 2014 at approximately 12:30PM; this transmission lasted approximately five minutes.

On October 1, 2014 at 5:01PM, KVNV signed-on its transmitter with intentions to officially commence programming at 6PM. The 5PM transmission consisted of an EBR Test Pattern with a black text field, this time bearing text reading as follows: Line 1: "KVNV-TV" static, Line 2: "CHANNEL 3.10" static. Immediately at the base of the black text box, a white rectangular square rapidly moved back-and-forth horizontally. There was no audio or tones to accompany. The intention of this 58 minute broadcast was to allow for potential viewers to rescan their tuners in order to add channel 3 as an active channel. At 5:59PM, the test pattern gave way to a solid black screen.

At 6:00PM, KVNV commenced regular programming from MeTV with an episode of CHiPs. The launch, consisting of no sign-on message, was basically a soft launch. The station's PSIP TVCT information during this time identified the station as KVNV-HD using virtual channel 3-10.

On October 3, 2014, the call letters were changed to WJLP.

The FCC assigned virtual channel 33 on an interim basis to WJLP on October 23, 2014; this followed an October 3 joint filing by Meredith, CBS Television Stations, and Ion Media Networks urging the FCC to take this action, as both CBS-owned KYW-TV in Philadelphia and Meredith's WFSB use virtual channel 3, along with Ion-owned WPXN-TV (channel 31) being carried on cable channel 3 on most Cablevision systems in the New York market.

On Friday, November 7, 2014, following another joint complaint from Meredith, CBS, and ION television, the FCC ordered that WJLP suspend operations effective 12:00PM EST. on November 10, 2014 unless the station remapped its virtual channel from 3-10 to 33-1.

On November 10, 2014, PMCM TV filed an appeal with the D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. The station in that pleading asked that Court for a stay to allow it to resume broadcasting temporarily until the realization of a final solution regarding the Channel 3 dispute. The station hoped that the court would review the appeal and make a decision on Wednesday, November 12, 2014. Simultaneously, WJLP also filed two petitions with the FCC.

At approximately Midnight on November 11, 2014, WJLP ran a video message from Lee Leddy, Group Station Manager for PMCM TV, LLC. and the owner and licensee of WJLP, explaining what is happening with Channel 3 and what he calls "erroneous complaints" to the FCC by CBS Television Stations Inc., Ion Media and Meredith Corporation. Channel 3 then signed off the air, with WZME resuming its place as the sole MeTV outlet for the New York area.

WJLP returned to the air a day after signing off, with a bumper explaining that the station was granted the emergency stay to continue broadcasting until at least December 1, 2014. On November 25, 2014, a federal court upheld the stay and allowed WJLP to continue broadcasting on Channel 3.10.

On March 16, 2015, the station remapped its virtual channel from channel 3 to channel 33 on an "interim" basis following an order from the FCC.

Programming

As of September 1, 2016, WJLP carries the entire MeTV lineup twenty-four hours a day. The only exception is Jersey Matters and Another Thing with Larry Mendte, two thirty-minute public affairs shows which air Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 11 a.m. WJLP had previously preempted several hours of the MeTV schedule each day to air infomercials.

In 2015, the station added the Justice Network on Digital subchannel 33.2. That was changed to Laff in 2016.

Digital television

Following the 2009 transition, WJLP (as KVNV in Ely, Nevada) flash-cut from analog to digital television service broadcasting on VHF channel 3. Its virtual channel mapped to channel 3.1.

Following the 2014 move to Middletown, New Jersey, WJLP began broadcasting its primary programming on virtual channel 3.10 as an engineering solution in response to protests by WFSB and KYW-TV in neighboring markets Hartford and Philadelphia, respectively, both of which broadcast their primary programming on virtual channel 3.1.

In early 2015, WJLP added a third subchannel in order to test its ability to transmit two high definition streams. The subchannel, which programmed an EBR test pattern and identified via PSIP as Testing, was transmitted on virtual channel 33.3. This stream was discontinued in late 2015.

On March 12, 2015, WJLP management announced that the Federal Communications Commission ordered the station to change from virtual channel 3.10 to virtual channel 33 effective March 16, 2015.

On March 20, 2016, WJLP added two standard definition subchannels to its lineup, Escape and Grit. These diginets are also available on many Univision-owned stations, inclusive of those broadcasting in the New York City television market.

A fifth subchannel was added two months later on 33.10 airing local maritime and weather reports. The underlying audio for this station is provided by WWZY Long Branch (now known as The Boss 107.1 in Monmouth County and 99.7 in Ocean County after the two stations switched formats and returned to a simulcast in March 2017).

WJLP has added audio subchannels to its lineup, Thunder, B985, 107.1 FM, and Great Gold 1410 AM. All of these terrestrial radio stations are owned by Press Communications, LLC., which is a sister corporation to PMCM TV, LLC., the licensee of WJLP.