City Milwaukee, Wisconsin | ||
Branding Telemundo Wisconsin (general)
Noticiero Telemundo Wisconsin y tú (newscasts) Channels Digital: 17 (UHF)
Virtual: 63 (PSIP)
WMLW-DT4 49.4, Racine Translators WFBN-LD 35.2 Rockford, Illinois
WMYS-LD2 69.2 South Bend, Indiana Affiliations Telemundo
Heroes & Icons (WFBN-LD1 only) Owner Weigel Broadcasting
(Channel 41 and 63 Limited Partnership) | ||
WYTU-LD, virtual channel 63 (UHF digital channel 17), is a Telemundo-affiliated television station located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. The station is owned by Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting, and is a sister station to CBS affiliate WDJT-TV (channel 58), Me-TV owned-and-operated station WBME-CD (channel 41) and independent station WMLW-TV (channel 49). All four stations share studio facilities located on South 60th Street in Milwaukee (near West Allis), and its transmitter is located in Milwaukee's Lincoln Park (next to the transmitter belonging to ABC affiliate WISN-TV).
Contents
Even though WYTU-LP has a digital signal of its own, the low-powered broadcasting radius does not reach the entire Milwaukee market. Therefore, the station is simulcast in standard definition over WMLW-TV's second digital subchannel in order to reach the entire market. This signal can be seen on UHF channel 48.4 (or virtual channel 49.4 via PSIP) from the same Lincoln Park transmitter site. The station's signal is also relayed on WMYS-LD (digital channel 69.2) in South Bend, Indiana and WFBN-LD (channel 35) in Rockford, Illinois.
The station airs all of Telemundo's schedule along with Spanish-language coverage of some Milwaukee Brewers baseball games. WYTU is also available via Spectrum's systems throughout their entire state service area as far west as La Crosse and as north as Wausau, making for a rare example of an intra-region superstation in the digital age.
History
The station has mostly been a feeder of the entire schedule of Univision and Telemundo through most of its history with minimal local programming. In 1999, Weigel dropped Univision in a compensation dispute and affiliated with Telemundo, and within the year, the station moved to UHF channel 63 from channel 46 as W63CU, in order to accommodate WDJT's channel 46 digital signal and the company's move to one tower in Lincoln Park for all its operations. In mid-December 2003, the station took the lettered call sign WYTU-LP, as it began to solicit local advertising from the growing Latino population in the Milwaukee area and Weigel began to push for extended cable coverage by including it in retransmission consent negotiations for WDJT.
The station signed on its digital signal on UHF channel 17 on December 10, 2007. Unlike the channel 13 digital signal of WMLW (which receives interference from WZZM in Grand Rapids), WYTU-LD's digital signal reaches the southern portion of the adjacent Green Bay/Appleton DMA, and is somewhat unrestricted as WXMI, the former occupant of channel 17 in the Grand Rapids market, now broadcasts on digital channel 20, although that station's Muskegon translator W17DF-D also broadcasts on channel 17. As a result of carriage agreements by Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications for access to the WDJT signal and to provide network service to areas without a Telemundo affiliate, WYTU is carried on those cable providers in portions of both the Green Bay/Fox Cities and Madison markets. For Charter, it has an additional channel slot within each provider's "Latino tier" of Spanish language programming, and in this form, the WYTU-LD feed is used statewide to provide Telemundo service to areas such as Wausau, Eau Claire and La Crosse otherwise unserved by over-the-air Spanish language television.
In January 2009, WYTU was added to sister station WBME's digital signal on digital subchannel 49.4, calls which changed on August 16, 2012 as part of the channel swap between WBME and WMLW to allow WMLW to launch full-power high definition operations. A power increase for its transmitter is currently on hold due to the station's signal conflicts with WHME-TV in South Bend, Indiana, but beyond those systems carrying 63.1's high definition signal, WMLW-DT4 effectively acts as the feed used for cable providers and is promoted ahead of 63.1 during station identification sequences.
The station's analog signal on channel 63 did not broadcast the Telemundo Wisconsin schedule from June 12, 2009 onward, when Weigel decided to convert that signal to an enhanced nightlight service instead, carrying WDJT's CBS schedule for the benefit of those viewers who were not yet prepared for the digital transition for full-power stations. The special agreement to carry CBS in an analog form ended on January 1, 2010, and from then until 2011 WYTU-LP carried the Me-TV lineup, while Telemundo Wisconsin remained a digital-only offering via WYTU's digital signal and WMLW-DT4. On February 11, 2013, the Federal Communications Commission cancelled WYTU's analog license.
The station converted their low-power channel 17 digital signal into a 720p high definition signal on July 25, 2012, in time for Telemundo's Spanish language coverage of the 2012 Summer Olympics. Following the Games, the station carried for the first time in team history Green Bay Packers preseason football with Spanish language play-by-play in full high definition on its designated digital signal. These broadcasts are simulcast in the Green Bay market over English-language MyNetworkTV affiliate WACY-TV (Channel 32). In summer 2014, the standard definition simulcast on WMLW-DT4 began to scale network content to standard definition widescreen depending on Active Format Description codes sent out over the Telemundo network feed.
Further extended coverage in South Bend and Rockford
With the launch of WYTU's high definition digital signal also came a further extension in the station's coverage area beyond the state of Wisconsin in markets where regular reception of Chicago's Telemundo owned-and-operated station WSNS-TV is not possible or signal exclusivity has not been claimed, both by Weigel sister stations. WYTU's signal also is carried by WMYS-LD in South Bend, Indiana, over the MyNetworkTV affiliate's DT2 subchannel, and in Rockford, Illinois, as the second signal of WFBN-LD, which had traditionally been an extended translator of Weigel flagship station WCIU-TV. Despite the extended signal into two other states, including one that does not border Wisconsin, the station continues to brand itself as "Telemundo Wisconsin". In 2015, WFBN had the Telemundo schedule moved from the first subchannel to the second subchannel to accommodate Weigel's TouchVision network, which left the air in mid-January 2016. After a transitional period where WFBN-LD1 carried a loop of the WCIU morning program You & Me This Morning, that signal currently serves as the Rockford outlet for Weigel's Heroes & Icons network.
Digital channels
The station's digital channel features one signal. As mentioned above in Milwaukee, the Telemundo schedule is carried in both standard and high definition versions.
Newscasts
The station launched a nightly 10-minute newscast in July 2007 within the 10:00 p.m. national edition of Noticiero Telemundo called Noticiero Telemundo Wisconsin, with production assistance from WDJT. Several on-air reporters and anchors within the WDJT newsroom are bilingual, allowing reporters to file stories for both stations. Until mid-October 2015 when WDJT/WMLW's new combined studio and newsroom remodel was completed, the WYTU newscast had to be recorded before and between WMLW's 9 p.m. and WDJT's 10 p.m. newscasts as all three stations shared the same news set; after that point, a 'temporary' set utilized by the three operations during the remodel was given over to WYTU permanently, allowing the show to air live for the first time.
Currently local content makes up the bulk of the 35 minutes of the program, with parts of the national newscast and stories from CNN en Español via CNN's Newsource wire service blended into the show. A public affairs program titled ¡Qué Pasa Wisconsin! airs on weekend mornings on the station. Currently that program, along with the 10 p.m. newscast, are anchored by Jocelyne Pruna.