Branding WMCN44 | ||
City Atlantic City, New Jersey Slogan Tri-State Area's Independent TV Station Channels Digital: 44 (UHF)
Virtual: 44 (PSIP) Subchannels 44.1 Independent
44.2 The Action Channel Affiliations Independent (mid December 2014–present) | ||
WMCN-TV, UHF digital channel 44, is an independent television station serving Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States that is licensed to Atlantic City, New Jersey. The station is owned by Lenfest Broadcasting, LLC. WMCN maintains studio facilities in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and its transmitter is located in Waterford Works, New Jersey.
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It is carried throughout the market by DirecTV, Dish Network, Verizon FiOS and on most Comcast cable systems. WMCN is also carried on cable in Ocean County (part of the New York City television market) on Comcast channel 27 in standard definition, and on digital channel 794 in high definition.
History
The station first signed on the air on May 29, 1981 as WWAC-TV, originally broadcasting on UHF channel 53. The station changed its callsign to WMCN-TV in 2003. In 2009, the station was rebranded as "Get It On TV Philadelphia" to reflect its focus on the entire Philadelphia market, not just Atlantic City. Most of the station's programming consisted of infomercials, many of which were produced by WMCN for local companies. The remainder of WMCN's schedule is filled with several hours per week of regional faith-based telecasts as well as children's and community interest programming.
In 2011, WMCN obtained rights to broadcast games from the Philadelphia Soul, broadcasting a majority of their regular season games on the station.
In 2012, the station was once again rebranded as "WMCN44," signaling a shift towards a more traditional independent station. WMCN also added several syndicated programs to its schedule, including Cold Case Files, Dog the Bounty Hunter and Punk'd. On September 10 of that year, WMCN announced that it would produce three new original weekly series: A New View, an issues-oriented show hosted by former WTXF-TV (channel 29) personality Dawn Strensland, Tolly's Awesome Friends, a series centered on noteworthy locals hosted by ex-WTXF sports director Don Tollefson, and Philly Sports Spotlight, a locally focused series hosted by former WPVI-TV (channel 6) sports anchor Phil Andrews.
On December 4, 2014 voluntary assignment of the station's license was changed from Lenfest Broadcasting, LLC to WMCN License Holdings, LLC, which will have exactly the same ownership structure as Lenfest.
In the fall of 2016, WMCN added programming from Newsmax TV during the 4-6 PM and 8-9 PM hours, as well as nightly broadcasts of the Cowtown Rodeo and NASCAR's Raceline TV program, plus the weekly Ring of Honor Wrestling series.
Digital channels
On August 22, 2011, WMCN announced that it would carry Bounce TV on digital subchannel 44.2 starting on September 26, 2011.
On December 15, 2014, WMCN-TV lost its affiliation with Bounce TV; sub-channel 44.2 was temporarily replaced with SMPTE color bars. Just over 2 weeks later, on December 31 Soul of the South Network took over the frequency.
Analog-to-digital conversion
WMCN discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 53, on October 2002. The station's digital signal began operating on UHF channel 44, instead of its former UHF analog channel 53, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the digital television transition in 2009. WMCN was the first television station in the United States to receive permission from the Federal Communications Commission to discontinue its analog signal. The move to digital channel 44 was intended to provide better signal coverage of the Philadelphia market from a new transmitter location which would qualify for must-carry status on cable television in the metropolitan area.