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|---|---|
| City | Archer Lodge, North Carolina[a] |
| Channels | |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations | Bounce TV |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | |
| WRPX-TV | |
| History | |
| Founded | September 14, 1981 |
First air date | March 1985; 40 years ago (1985-03)[b] |
Former call signs |
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Former channel number(s) |
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Call sign meaning | Fayetteville's Pax TV |
| Technical information[3] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 21245 |
| ERP | 170kW[4] |
| HAAT | 563.8 m (1,850 ft)[4] |
| Transmitter coordinates | 35°49′52.8″N78°8′42.8″W / 35.831333°N 78.145222°W /35.831333; -78.145222[4] |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
WFPX-TV (channel 62) is atelevision station licensed toArcher Lodge, North Carolina, United States, broadcasting the digital multicast networkBounce TV to theResearch Triangle region. It isowned and operated by theIon Media subsidiary of theE. W. Scripps Company alongsideRocky Mount–licensedIon Television outletWRPX-TV (channel 47). WFPX-TV and WRPX-TV share a sales office on Gresham Lake Road inRaleigh; through achannel sharing agreement, the two stations transmit using WRPX-TV's spectrum from a tower northeast ofMiddlesex, North Carolina.
Originally licensed toFayetteville, North Carolina, WFPX served as a full-timesatellite of WRPX-TV from 1998 until 2018. WFPX's signal covered areas of south-central North Carolina that received a marginal to non-existent signal from WRPX, although there was significant overlap between the two stations'contours otherwise. WFPX was a straight simulcast of WRPX; on-air references to WFPX were limited toFederal Communications Commission (FCC)-mandated hourlystation identifications during programming. Aside from its former transmitter, WFPX did not maintain any physical presence locally in Fayetteville.
Channel 62 signed on in 1985 as WFCT, anindependent station owned by Fayetteville/Cumberland Telecasters. Attorneys Robinson and Katherine Everett of Durham, founders of WRDU-TV (nowMyNetworkTVaffiliateWRDC) inDurham, along with WJKA (nowFox affiliateWSFX-TV) inWilmington and WGGT (now MyNetworkTV affiliateWMYV) inGreensboro, were two of the principals in this company.
WFCT temporarily carried the programming of then-NBC affiliateWPTF-TV after that station's tower collapsed in an ice storm on December 10, 1989.[5] The station changed call letters to WFAY in 1993 and became a Fox affiliate in 1994; the affiliation came as part of a deal that also saw the Everetts switch theirCBS affiliates, WJKA andKECY-TV inEl Centro, California–Yuma, Arizona to Fox.[6] Even though WFAY was located in the samemarket asWLFL (a Fox affiliate at the time), it mainly focused on communities located south of Fayetteville that did not get a good signal from WLFL. Some of its non-network programming was alsosimulcast to the Raleigh–Durham area onWRAY-TV for a couple of years in the mid-1990s until it was acquired by theShop at Home network.
WFAY later became WFPX and dropped Fox after being bought out by Paxson in the middle of 1998, shortly beforeWRAZ assumed the Fox affiliation for the Raleigh market. Later that year, newly minted Fox stationWFXB out of theFlorence–Myrtle Beach market expanded its signal to cover areas formerly served by WFAY. It is worthy of note that WFPX's signal was not seen at all in the northern portion of the Raleigh–Durham–Fayetteville market, but covered northern portions of the Florence–Myrtle Beach market, which did not have its own Ion Television affiliate until 2015, whenWBTW added Ion on a digital subchannel following a deal made withMedia General.
On April 4, 2017, WFPX was identified by the FCC as receiving $62.4 million for thespectrum reallocation auction.[7] The station later entered into a channel-sharing arrangement with WRPX. Since WRPX's signal does not reach Fayetteville, WFPX changed its city of license toArcher Lodge, east of Raleigh.[1] After the channel share went into effect, WRPX-DT3, carrying Ion Life (laterIon Plus), took WFPX's 62.1 virtual channel, assuring that network market-widemust-carry over pay-TV systems. Since 2021, WFPX has aired various digital subchannel networks, all of them owned byScripps Networks.
| License | Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WRPX-TV | 47.1 | 720p | 16:9 | ION | Ion Television |
| 47.2 | 480i | CourtTV | Court TV | ||
| 47.3 | IONPlus | Ion Plus | |||
| 47.4 | GameSho | Game Show Central | |||
| 47.5 | CRIME | True Crime Network | |||
| 47.6 | GameSho |
| |||
| 47.8 | QVC | QVC | |||
| WFPX-TV | 62.1 | 720p | Bounce | Bounce TV |
WFPX-TV ended regular programming on its analog signal, overUHF channel 62, at noon 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 UHF channel 36,[9] usingvirtual channel 62.
WFPX-TV moved from channel 15 to channel 32 on September 11, 2019.
In recent years, WFPX has been carried oncable in multiple areas within the Wilmington media market.