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Channels | |
Branding | True North TV-25 |
Programming | |
Affiliations |
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Ownership | |
Owner |
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History | |
Founded | January 12, 1995 |
First air date | May 14, 1997 (1997-5-14) |
Last air date |
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Former call signs | W25CA (1995–2000) |
Call sign meaning | Wisconsin Ashland Television |
Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
Facility ID | 8612 |
Class | TX |
ERP | 52kW |
HAAT | 163 m (535 ft) |
Transmitter coordinates | 46°41′16.98″N90°54′23.05″W / 46.6880500°N 90.9064028°W /46.6880500; -90.9064028 |
Links | |
Public license information | LMS |
WAST-LP (channel 25) was alow-power television station inAshland, Wisconsin, United States. The station was asemi-satellite of theUPN-affiliated seconddigital subchannel ofKBJR-TV inDuluth, Minnesota, then-calledNorthland UPN andNorthland 9, but was owned by a separate entity, Martinsen Investments. WAST-LP sold local advertising specifically for the Ashland area, preempting KBJR-DT2's advertising breaks.
Since 1997, WAST-LP had been owned by Superior Water Logged Lumber. It struggled financially. A 2001 attempt to sell the station to ESI Broadcasting Corporation of Montana failed; ESI hoped to combine the station withKDUL-LP, a UPN affiliate.[2] The station then went off the air.[3]
In December 2005, Hank Martinsen and Julie Nuutinen put WAST-LP back on the air. The station featured two daily newscasts focusing on Wisconsin-area news. It had news sharing agreements withKBJR-TV andKUWS radio inSuperior.[3] The effort was short-lived. On May 2, news director Julie Moravchik was fired; she claimed she was dismissed for not making ownership-ordered staffing cuts. Newsroom employees refused to work for anyone else; 10 of them were fired the following day. To fill the void, newscast replays fromKDLH-TV, commonly operated with KBJR, were added to the station's programming.[4] Moravchik was then hired to set up the newsroom atKQDS-TV in Duluth.[5]
On August 1, 2006, the station ended operations and went off the air, a month short of KBJR-DT2's conversion toMyNetworkTV. Despite being off the air for eight years, long after most stations licenses are canceled for not broadcasting, WAST-LP's license remained active until January 3, 2014, when its previous license to broadcast was fully exhausted.[6]
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