Affiliations .1: Charge!
.2: Comet | ||
Channels Digital: 49 (UHF)
Virtual: 41 (PSIP) Owner NRJ TV, LLC
(NRJ TV Chicago License Co., LLC) First air date September 27, 1989; 27 years ago (1989-09-27) Call letters' meaning IllinOis, CHicago (disambiguation) Former callsigns W04CK (1989–2000)
WOCH-LP (2000–2005)
WOCH-CA (2005–2014) | ||
WOCH-CD is a class A television station in Chicago, Illinois that is an affiliate of the action and adventure network Charge!. The station currently broadcasts on Virtual channel 41, UHF digital channel 49. It is owned by NRJ TV, LLC.
Contents
History
WOCH started broadcasting on September 27, 1989 as W04CK and has since broadcast on several channels. In 2005, it moved to its present channel location on channel 41 to avoid interference with the digital signal of Milwaukee NBC affiliate WTMJ-TV. WOCH upgraded to class A status on December 29, 2005, thus protecting their channel position from further displacements. During its days on Channel 28 (which was its location prior to moving to Channel 41) it ran The Box Music Network from 12AM-12PM with KBC programming 12PM-12AM. In 2001 when Viacom took over The Box and switched it to MTV2, WOCH began running an MTV-2 feed from DirecTV during the 12AM-12PM timeslot, but gradually phased it out by 2003-2004.
On September 15, 2010, KBC-TV started its carriage on Comcast Channel 338 in the Chicago television market. This move comes after years of effort by KBC to secure carriage on the Comcast system. In addition to programming from South Korea, and some locally produced programs, WOCH aired non-Korean ethnic programming on weekends (such as programming from local cable television network Bostel), in a format similar to that of FBT 26.6.
In September 2012, KM Communications filed to sell WOCH to NRJ TV (a company unrelated to European broadcaster NRJ Radio). The sale was completed on July 30, 2013.
In April 2014, the station became an affiliate of the classic movie network The Works. Prior to April 2014, the station transmitted programs from South Korea as the Korean American Broadcasting Company, or KBC.
On October 31, 2015, the WOCH 41.2 began airing the Comet TV network.
Digital transition
As a low-power analog television station, WOCH-CA was not required to broadcast a digital signal as of the 2009 digital television transition. The station has reported, however, that viewers installing coupon-eligible converter boxes were, in some cases, unable to tune into low-powered analog stations such as WOCH-CA after conversion as many models of the digital converters lack analog passthrough.
On April 27, 2010, the FCC granted WOCH-CA a construction permit to flash cut from analog channel 41 to digital channel 49. As of July 2013 WOCH-CD began broadcasting exclusively in digital.