WAWW-LD
Television station in Rochester, New York
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
WAWW-LD (channel 20) is a low-power television station in Rochester, New York, United States. The station is owned by Squirrel Broadcasting Company, a joint venture of James Smisloff and New York radio and TV station owner Craig Fox. Its main subchannel broadcasts HSN.
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| Channels | |
|---|---|
| Programming | |
| Subchannels | see § Subchannels |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Squirrel Broadcasting Company |
| History | |
First air date | April 20, 1990 |
Former call signs |
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Former channel numbers |
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| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 27573 |
| ERP | 15 kW |
| HAAT | 105.6 m (346.5 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 43°8′7″N 77°35′6″W |
| Links | |
Public license information | LMS |
History
Hometown Vision, Inc., received a construction permit on July 31, 1989, to build a new low-power TV station on channel 38 in Rochester with call sign W38AW. Construction began by year's end on the new station's studios on Monroe Avenue.[2] Test broadcasts began April 20, 1990, with All News Channel as a primary program source and the station filling the last 30 minutes of each hour with local and national syndicated shows.[3] The station's fare also included dubbed South American soap operas, 1920s movies, and professional wrestling.[4] Programming from HSN began to appear on W38AW in 1994.[5]
In 1995, Hometown Vision sold W38AW for $125,000 to Kaleidoscope Affiliates of Little Rock, Arkansas.[6] Kaleidoscope owned a service known as "America's Disability Channel", which channel 38 began to air as Kaleidoscope's 16th such station; the service included programs with audio description for the visually impaired and closed captioning for the hearing impaired.[7] The call letters were changed to WAWW-LP in December 1995, when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) permitted the use of conventional four-letter call signs by low-power television stations. Kaleidoscope Affiliates changed its name in 1998 to Equity Broadcasting Corporation. Equity then sold WAWW-LP to Venture Technologies Group in January 2002.[8]
After moving to channel 20 in 2005 due to displacement by the digital facility of WKBW-TV in Buffalo, Squirrel acquired WAWW-LP from Venture for $10,000.[9] It continued to broadcast in analog until the final shut-off date for low-power stations in the United States, July 13, 2021,[10] and resumed broadcasting in digital for the first time by the start of December.[11]
Subchannels
The station's signal is multiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20.1 | 720p | 16:9 | WAWW-LD | HSN |
| 20.2 | 480i | Story | Story Television | |
| 20.3 | MVSGLD | MovieSphere Gold | ||
| 20.4 | 4:3 | CTVN | Cornerstone |