City Gulfport Slogan TV Now | Branding Gulf Coast CW | |
Channels Digital: WXXV-DT 48.3 (UHF)
Virtual: 25.3 (PSIP) Affiliations The CW
(via The CW Plus) Owner Morris Multimedia
(Morris Network of
Mississippi, Inc.) | ||
WXXV-DT3 is the CW-affiliated television station for the Mississippi Gulf Coast. It is a third digital subchannel of Fox affiliate WXXV-TV (owned by Morris Multimedia) and is part of the national CW Plus service. Over-the-air, the station airs a digital signal on UHF channel 48.3 (or virtual channel 25.3 via PSIP) from a transmitter on Wire Road East, in unincorporated Stone County, northeast of McHenry. It can also be seen on Cable ONE digital channel 476. WXXV-DT3's parent station has studios on U.S. 49 in Lyman (with a Gulfport postal address).
History
What is now WXXV-DT3 began its life on September 21, 1998 as "WBGP" (standing for The WB GulfPort), a cable-only affiliate of The WB through the national WB 100+ service. Since it was only available on cable, the call sign was fictional in nature and thus not officially recognized by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Before its sign-on, viewers in the area received The WB through Superstation WGN or the New Orleans, Louisiana WB affiliate (first WGNO then later WNOL-TV).
With the merge between UPN and The WB on September 18, 2006, the station became part of The CW through the new network's similar national service, The CW Plus. Throughout its cable-exclusive period, the station did not have an actual owner and had a signal provided to cable companies through a closed circuit satellite feed. "WBGP" was carried on Cable ONE channel 7 in Harrison County, Mississippi and channel 80 in Jackson County. Its previous CW logo referred to the channel 7 slot but it was not identified on-air with reference to it.
On January 1, 2015, WXXV took over promotional and advertising responsibilities of "WBGP" from Cable ONE. As a result, the service was added to a new third subchannel of WXXV in order to offer over-the-air viewers access to The CW for the first time. Although "WBGP" was seen on the basic tier of Cable ONE systems, WXXV-DT3 is only available on digital channel 476 which was formerly the location of WXXV's cable-exclusive MyNetworkTV station.