 | |
| |
|---|---|
| City | Dover, Delaware |
| Channels | |
| Branding | WMDE 36 |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
|
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
|
| History | |
| Founded | May 4, 2011 |
First air date | May 24, 2013 (2013-05-24) |
| |
Call sign meaning | Washington (D.C.), Maryland, and Delaware |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 189357 |
| ERP | 10kW |
| HAAT | 145 m (476 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 38°57′17.3″N76°5′34.8″W / 38.954806°N 76.093000°W /38.954806; -76.093000 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
WMDE (channel 36) is atelevision station licensed toDover, Delaware, United States. Owned byWRNN-TV Associates, the station maintains a transmitter in the unincorporated community ofWye Mills inTalbot County, Maryland, 41 miles (66 km) southwest of Dover along Maryland'sEastern Shore. Despite its physical location well east of the center of the market and across theChesapeake Bay, the station is assigned byNielsen to theWashington, D.C.,television market, though its over-the-air coverage outside most of Delaware itself mainly favorsBaltimore,Annapolis, andSalisbury. With the repeal of theFederal Communications Commission (FCC)'s Main Studio Rule in 2019, WMDE is fullyautomated out of WRNN-TV's studios inRye Brook, New York, with no local presence whatsoever.
Outside of a morning rebroadcast of the Japanese networkFuji TV'sNews Catch program, the station's schedule on its main channel is made up ofhome shopping programming fromShop LC, which also airs on the main channel of all of WRNN's stations.
WMDE signed on May 24, 2013. The station was originally owned by Western Pacific BroadcastLLC.[2]
Shortly after sign-on, Nielsen granted WMDE's request to be assigned to the Washington market instead ofPhiladelphia (where Dover is located) orBaltimore (where Wye Mills is located). Because WMDE is a full-powered station covered bymust-carry regulations, it is thus carried on every cable and satellite provider in the Washington market, with the exception ofCox Communications' systems inFairfax County, Virginia. Cox filed a complaint to theFederal Communications Commission seeking to avoid carriage and prevailed in 2015. Although the FCC's ruling called Nielsen's market modification decision "inexplicable", must-carry rules otherwise defer to Nielsen with respect to market assignment.[3]
WRNN-TV Associates agreed to acquire the station for $11.5 million on April 25, 2018;[4] the sale was completed on July 11, 2018.[5]
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 36.1 | 720p | 16:9 | WMDE.1 | Shop LC |
| 36.2 | FUBOSPT | Fubo Sports Network | ||
| 36.3 | 480i | Hrtland | Heartland | |
| 36.4 | 4:3 | Retro | Retro TV | |
| 36.5 | 16:9 | The365 | 365BLK | |
| 36.6 | WMDE.6 | Outlaw | ||
| 36.7 | Arirang | Arirang TV | ||
| 36.8 | ShopLC | Shop LC | ||
| 36.9 | BINGE | Binge TV |