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|---|---|
| City | Newton, New Jersey |
| Channels | |
| Branding | WMBC TV 63 |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner | Mountain Broadcasting Corporation |
| History | |
| Founded | August 1987 |
First air date | April 26, 1993 (31 years ago) (1993-04-26) |
Former channel number(s) |
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| |
Call sign meaning | Mountain Broadcasting Corporation |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 43952 |
| ERP | 250 kW |
| HAAT | 520 m (1,706 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 40°42′46.8″N74°0′47.3″W / 40.713000°N 74.013139°W /40.713000; -74.013139 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | wmbctv |
WMBC-TV (channel 63) is atelevision station licensed toNewton, New Jersey, United States, serving theNew York metropolitan area as an affiliate ofMerit Street Media. The station is owned by the Mountain Broadcasting Corporation, and maintains studios on Clinton Road inWest Caldwell, New Jersey; it transmits from atopOne World Trade Center inLower Manhattan.
Mountain Broadcasting was founded in 1985 by a group ofKorean Americans, led by the Reverend Sun Young Joo ofWayne, New Jersey. The group secured aconstruction permit from the FCC to build channel 63 in 1987,[2] and the station began operations on April 26, 1993, with a Christianreligious format, running mostly programs fromFamilyNet. Later in 1993, the station also began runningpublic domainmovies andfilm shorts from Main Street TV, along with FamilyNet programs.
In 1996, when New York City-owned WNYC-TV (channel 31, nowIon Televisionowned-and-operated stationWPXN-TV) dropped its ethnic, foreign-language television programming following its sale to private interests, many of these programs were picked up by WMBC-TV. WMBC also dropped FamilyNet and Main Street TV programming and began to air moreinfomercials and religious shows directly from ministries. By 1997, it ran a blend of religion and infomercials during the day and ethnic shows at night and on Saturdays. It was also running several hours a week of educational kids' shows, and began producing a local newscast.
In the immediate aftermath of theSeptember 11 attacks, the station temporarily broadcastNBC'sflagship stationWNBC (channel 4).[3]
WMBC had an extremely weakover-the-air signal in New York City, but with a new antenna atop One World Trade Center, it can be seen more clearly. The station is also carried on most of the cable providers in that market, includingCharter Spectrum andOptimum. Its signal was dropped fromDirecTV's New York City local stations package onDecember 31, 2005; however, DirecTV resumed carriage of WMBC in early 2009.
Prior to the switch to Merit Street Media, WMBC-TV's lineup consisted of brokered ethnic and religious programs, a half-hour weekday newscast, infomercials andchildren's programs to satisfy theFederal Communications Commission (FCC)'s "educational/informational" requirements.[4]
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 63.1 | 720p | 16:9 | MeritSt | Merit Street Media |
| 63.2 | MYSTERY | Ion Mystery | ||
| 63.4 | 480i | Blank | [Blank] | |
| 63.5 | 4:3 | NTDTV | NTD Television(in Chinese) | |
| 63.6 | 16:9 | JTV | Jewelry TV | |
| 63.7 | 4:3 | ALIENTO | Aliento Vision(in Spanish) | |
| 63.8 | Audio only | WDNJ | WDNJ 88.1 FM (Spanish Christian) | |
| 63.9 | KCBN | Korean Christian Broadcasting Network | ||
WMBC-TV ended regular programming on its analog signal, overUHF channel 63, on February 17, 2009, to conclude thefederally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[6] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 18, usingvirtual channel 63.[7]
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