WBPH-TV

Bethlehem–Allentown–Easton– Philadelphia, Pennsylvania United States
City	Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Channels	Digital: 9 (VHF), shared withWPPT,WLVT-TV andWFMZ-TV[1] Virtual: 60
Branding	WBPH
Programming
Affiliations	60.1: Lighthouse TV 60.2:Radiant TV
Ownership
Owner	Sonshine Family Television, Inc.
Sister stations	WLYH
History
First air date	December 27, 1990 (34 years ago) (1990-12-27)
Former channel numbers	Analog: 60 (UHF, 1990–2009)
Call sign meaning	Bethlehem and Philadelphia (alternatively, Pat Huber, station founder)
Technical information[2]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	60850
ERP	80.6kW
HAAT	332.5 m (1,091 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	40°33′52″N75°26′24″W / 40.56444°N 75.44000°W /40.56444; -75.44000
Translator(s)	see§ Translators
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	lighthousetv.org

WBPH-TV (channel 60) is areligiousindependent television station inBethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States, serving theLehigh Valley and thePhiladelphiatelevision market. The station is owned by Sonshine Family Television. WBPH-TV's studios are located on North Fenwick Street inAllentown, with a secondary studio on Columbia Avenue inFolcroft, and its transmitter is located onSouth Mountain inSalisbury Township.

This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding to it.(October 2017)

The station was an outgrowth ofChristian programming that Pat Huber had begun on a localpublic-accesscable television channel. In 1985, Huber formed the Sonshine Family Television Corporation and applied for a television broadcast license with theFederal Communications Commission.^[3] The station first signed on the air on December 27, 1990.

WBPH broadcasts select programs from locally produced special interest programs,televangelism, three hours per week of legally mandated seculareducational programming for children, andLafayette College sports events. Since the station's inception, two of WBPH's original programs have been60 Live andBethlehem Glory, both hosted by station owner Pat Huber.^{[citation needed]} The station affiliated with FamilyNet until it converted to a secular classic sitcom format in 2013 and ended all over-the-air affiliate contracts in 2017 after converting to a new Western sports format asThe Cowboy Channel, and withThe Worship Network until that network shut down in 2015. Unfilled airtime is occupied with "Song and Scripture" from Radiant TV, a service ofWLMB.

WBPH is also an affiliate of the Lafayette Sports Network. Broadcasts are produced byRCN channel 4 and include all of Lafayette College'sfootball games (including early rounds of the playoffs) and all men's and women'sbasketball home games. Very few of the basketball team's away games are televised by the station, though one notable exception are men's games played atPrinceton University.

WBPH also carries aSpanish-language newscast produced byWFMZ-TV.

Through the course of its existence, the station has also produced shows in conjunction with area radio stations and churches. One program that had short-lived popularity among area church youth wasLive from Studio 60. Produced along withWBYO (88.9 FM),Live from Studio 60 showcased local Christian bands performing to a live audience at the WBPH-TV studio in Allentown. The program reached its peak in 2000 when it played host to Christian bandThe Waiting, in conjunction with the Fallout concert, a largeChristian music festival held annually in theLehigh Valley as a promotional event forSee You at the Pole. The end of the program was brought on by the need to put efforts into the building of their 3-megawatt transmitter facility to reach beyond the Lehigh Valley into Philadelphia.

WBPH also previously carried theEaston–Phillipsburghigh school football game onThanksgiving Day; that game, as of 2015, now airs onWFMZ-TV.

In 2002, WBPH applied to have its digital channel assignment reallocated from UHF channel 59 toVHF channel 9. The reason for this was that both the station's analog and digital channels were among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that would be removed from broadcasting use upon the formal transition to digital broadcasts. With the FCC's approval of this application, WBPH became the first station in the Lehigh Valley to broadcast on aVHF channel.^[5]

WBPH shut down its analog signal, overUHF channel 60, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United Statestransitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcasts on its pre-transition VHF channel 9,^[6] usingvirtual channel 60.

• WBZM-LD 17Wilkes-Barre, PA
• WTOO-LD 22Clearfield, PA
• W24FB-DBrazil, IN
• W34FL-DHarrisburg–Lancaster, PA

WBPH-TV is seen on cable systems in most of the Philadelphia media market except a majority ofChester County, most ofSouth Jersey, andDelaware.^[7] The majority of areas in which WBPH-TV is carried are those within reach of the station's over-the-air broadcast signal.

Verizon FiOS began carrying WBPH on April 17, 2020.^{[citation needed]}

WBPH-TV is carried onDish Network channel 8169. It is also carried onDirecTV channel 60 in thePhiladelphia market.^[7]

• Media in the Lehigh Valley

• Official website

• 1990 establishments in Pennsylvania
• Mass media in Allentown, Pennsylvania
• Religious television stations in Pennsylvania
• Television channels and stations established in 1990
• Television stations in Philadelphia
• Television stations in the Lehigh Valley

• Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from May 2024
• Coordinates not on Wikidata
• Articles using infobox television station
• Articles to be expanded from October 2017
• All articles to be expanded
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from October 2020
• Articles with unsourced statements from April 2020