| ATSC 3.0 station | |
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| City | Lakeland, Florida |
| Channels | |
| Branding |
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| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| Orlando:WESH,WKCF | |
| History | |
| Founded | January 11, 1984 |
First air date | April 24, 1986 (39 years ago) (1986-04-24) |
Former call signs |
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Former channel numbers |
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Call sign meaning | "More TV"(former branding) |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 53819 |
| ERP | 1,000 kW |
| HAAT | 459 m (1,506 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 27°49′10.8″N82°15′38″W / 27.819667°N 82.26056°W /27.819667; -82.26056 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
WMOR-TV (channel 32) is anindependent television station licensed toLakeland, Florida, United States, serving theTampa Bay area. Owned byHearst Television, the station maintains studios on Hillsborough Avenue in eastTampa, and its transmitter is located inRiverview.Master control and some internal operations are based at the studios ofOrlandoNBC affiliateWESH (channel 2) on North Wymore Road inEatonville.
WMOR-TV is the only television station owned by Hearst that is not affiliated with any major broadcast network, as well as the only Hearst station that does not maintain a news department. Despite Lakeland being WMOR-TV'scity of license, the station has no physical presence there.
The station first signed on the air on April 24, 1986, as WTMV; branded as "V-32", it originally maintained an all-music video format. The station's owner andgeneral manager was Dan Johnson, former mayor ofSt. Petersburg Beach, who previously owned the oldWXCR-FMclassical music radio station in nearbySafety Harbor.[3][4][5][6] The station originally operated from studio facilities located on South Florida Avenue/SR 37 on the south side of Lakeland, with its transmitter nearMulberry in southwesternPolk County.
After a brief period of broadcasting from its transmitter in Mulberry, WTMV relocated its studio operations to its present-day studios in Tampa in 1988. The facility had been a former headend office for Group W Cable'sHillsborough County system. Around this time, it transitioned to a conventional general entertainment format, filling a void left byWFTS-TV's switch toFox. It aired a schedule of off-network and syndicatedsitcoms anddramas,game shows,movies andcartoons. It also picked up several network programs fromABC, NBC andCBS that Tampa Bay'sBig Three affiliates (WTSP channel 10 (now with CBS),WFLA-TV channel 8, andWTVT channel 13 (now with Fox)) as well as those from Orlando (WFTV channel 9, WESH, WCPX (nowWKMG-TV), channel 6) chose to preempt.
WTMV became Tampa Bay's WB affiliate when that network launched on January 11, 1995, branding itself as "WB 32". By that point, it ran cartoons (such asScooby-Doo,Biker Mice from Mars,Captain Planet and the Planeteers,The Jetsons andThe Flintstones), sitcoms (such asDoogie Howser, M.D.,Blossom,The Wonder Years andToo Close for Comfort),talk shows (such asThe Richard Bey Show), reality shows (such asCheck It Out!) and movies. Johnson sold the station to Hearst Television in 1996,[7] with the station's callsign being changed to WWWB-TV (in reference to its affiliation with The WB) following the finalization of the purchase on September 18.
In September 1999, WWWB lost its WB affiliation toWTTA (channel 38), as a result of a larger nationwide deal between The WB and theSinclair Broadcast Group'sUPN affiliates and independent stations (Kansas City sister station KCWB also lost its WB affiliation to a Sinclair station,KSMO-TV, now owned byGray Television) one year earlier. WWWB changed its call letters to WMOR-TV on September 1 that year and rebranded itself as "More TV 32"—a moniker also adopted by its Kansas City sister (now known asKCWE). In August 2008, the "More TV 32" branding was dropped for the simplified "TV 32". On April 4, 2011, the station's on-air brand was changed to "MOR". To distance itself from the earlier "More TV" branding, the station spells out "MOR", instead of saying it as a word; however, it's still inferred as "more", through its slogan, "Just Can't Get Enough? Get MOR!".
On July 9, 2012, WMOR's parent company Hearst Television became involved in a dispute withTime Warner Cable andBright House Networks, leading to WMOR being pulled from Bright House and temporarily replaced withHBO Family on the main WMOR channel and This TV, withInfoMás inEstrella TV's slot.[8] The substitutions lasted until July 19, 2012, when a new carriage deal was reached between Hearst and Time Warner Cable.[9][10]
WWWB/WMOR was the original television broadcaster of theTampa Bay Devil Rays when it beganMajor League Baseball play in1998. Before that, as WTMV, it showed occasional telecasts ofToronto Blue Jays games, includingNolan Ryan's seventh career no-hitter in1991, to accommodate the Tampa Bay area's unique population ofCanadiansnowbirds in the days beforeMLB Extra Innings andMLB.tv came to prominence.[11]
WMOR currently serves as the local over-the-air broadcaster ofESPNMonday Night Football games involving theTampa Bay Buccaneers, airing simulcasts of ESPN-televised games (Hearst holds a 20% ownership stake in ESPN; the network's remaining ownership interest is held byThe Walt Disney Company) that are not simulcast on ABC, and the company has right of first refusal for simulcasts of ESPN's NFL telecasts in a team's home market. WMOR, along with WFTS which airs the Buccaneers' preseason,Monday Night Football (if ABC simulcasts) andThursday Night Football games (the latter throughAmazon Prime Video), are the only Tampa Bay stations that air select Buccaneers games without having weekly NFL coverage: the team's local preseason andNBC appearances air on WFLA-TV, theirCBS appearances air on WTSP and theirFox appearances air on WTVT.
WMOR announced on March 9, 2017, that they would be theTampa Bay Rowdies' exclusive broadcast partners for the upcomingUnited Soccer League season. All USL home games were broadcast live and in prime time on channel 32.2 thisTV Tampa Bay.[12]
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming | ATSC 1.0 host |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 32.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | WMOR-TV | Independent | WFTS-TV |
| 32.2 | 480i | MeTV | MeTV | WTSP | |
| 32.3 | Estrell | Estrella TV | WTVT |
This TV was added todigital subchannel 32.2 in March 2009. It was followed by the launch of Estrella TV in September 2009 on subchannel 32.3.[13] On September 26, 2019,MeTV was added to subchannel 32.2, replacingThis TV.[14]
| Channel | Res. | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8.1 | 1080p | WFLA | NBC (WFLA-TV) |
| 10.1 | WTSP | CBS (WTSP) | |
| 13.1 | 720p | WTVT | Fox (WTVT) |
| 28.1 | WFTS | ABC (WFTS-TV) | |
| 32.1 | 1080p | WMOR | Independent |
WMOR-TV ended regular programming from its Mulberry analog transmitter, overUHF channel 32, on June 12, 2009, as part of thefederally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[15] The station's digital signal, originating from the market'santenna farm in Riverview, remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 19, usingvirtual channel 32.
As part of theSAFER Act, WMOR-TV kept its analog signal on the air until July 12 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop ofpublic service announcements from theNational Association of Broadcasters.[16]
Prior to the end of analog broadcasting for full-power stations in the United States, WMOR operated four repeaters in the Tampa Bay area. Its analog transmitter was located farther east than the other major Tampa Bay stations because of FCC rules requiring a station to provide a city-grade signal to its city of license—in this case, Lakeland, which is 56 miles (90 km) east ofSt. Petersburg and 34 miles (55 km) east of Tampa. Hence, the repeaters were necessary to reach as much of the most-populated areas as possible. This was not as much of a problem for the station from the 1990s onward, as cable gained greater penetration in the area. The station's former translators were:
The translators were shut down between September 2000 and June 2009, as WMOR's digital signal operates at a full million watts—equivalent to 5 million watts for an analog transmitter—and is more than sufficient to cover the entire market. WMOR's digital transmitter is also located at the market's antenna farm in Riverview, in central Hillsborough County, where all of the market's television stations exceptSarasota-basedWWSB have their transmitters, further making the repeaters redundant.
Includes English-language stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Florida | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent | ||
| PBS | ||
| Religious | ||
| Other | ||
| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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Includes Spanish-language stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Florida | ||
| Telemundo | ||
| Univision | ||
| UniMás | ||
| Estrella TV | ||
| Other | ||
| ATSC 3.0 |
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