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| City | Richmond, Kentucky[a] |
| Channels | |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| History | |
| Founded | October 14, 1985 |
First air date | June 1, 1998; 26 years ago (1998-06-01) |
Former call signs | WAOM (1998–2001) |
Former channel number(s) |
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Call sign meaning | Kentucky's Pax |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 23128 |
| ERP | 465kW[3] |
| HAAT | 354.11 m (1,162 ft)[3] |
| Transmitter coordinates | 37°47′18″N84°40′49″W / 37.78833°N 84.68028°W /37.78833; -84.68028[3] |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | iontelevision |
WUPX-TV (channel 67) is atelevision station licensed toRichmond, Kentucky, United States, serving theLexington area as an affiliate ofIon Television. The station is owned by Inyo Broadcast Holdings, and maintains a transmitter on High Bridge Road north ofBryantsville, Kentucky.
Aconstruction permit for WAOM was issued on October 14, 1985.[4] Originally licensed toMorehead, Kentucky, the station signed on the air on June 1, 1998, withlow-powerUPN affiliateWBLU-LP (channel 62) signing on a year later. Both stations simulcast programming from UPN andThe WB as well asinfomercials until WAOM was sold off in 2001. After WAOM was sold, WBLU-LP lost both The WB and UPN in 2003 and 2004, respectively, to become independent, and at some point became affiliated withMyNetworkTV andRTV. WBLU-LP is no longer broadcasting as it wentdark in 2009 after its parent company wentbankrupt.
In 2001, WAOM-TV was sold to Paxson Communications (nowIon Media), became a Pax TV owned-and-operated station and changed itscallsign to the current WUPX-TV. Pax TV became i: Independent Television in 2005, and then Ion Television in 2007.
On December 11, 2018, the FCC granted WUPX-TV's petition to change itscity of license from Morehead toRichmond, Kentucky. The move was conditioned upon the station providing continued service to Morehead.[1]
On September 24, 2020, theCincinnati-basedE. W. Scripps Company announced that it would purchase Ion Media for $2.65 billion, with financing fromBerkshire Hathaway. With this purchase, Scripps would divest 23 Ion-owned stations, but no announcement was made as to which stations that Scripps would divest as part of the move. However, on October 16, 2020, it was announced that WUPX-TV would be one of the stations that Scripps would spin off as part of the merger. The buyer, revealed in an October 2020 FCC filing to be Inyo Broadcast Holdings, has promised to maintain the stations' Ion Television affiliations after the purchase. The proposed divestitures will allow the merged company to fully comply with the FCC local and national ownership regulations. This would have made it asister station toNBC affiliateWLEX-TV (channel 18) if Scripps had decided to keep WUPX-TV, but Lexington has fewer than eight independently owned and operating full-power television stations, not enough to permit a duopoly in any case.[5][6][7] The transaction was finalized and closed on January 7, 2021.[8][5][6][7][9][10][11][12]
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 67.1 | 720p | 16:9 | ION | Ion Television |
| 67.2 | 480i | Mystery | Ion Mystery | |
| 67.3 | Grit | |||
| 67.4 | Laff | Laff | ||
| 67.5 | IONPlus | Ion Plus | ||
| 67.6 | GameSho | Game Show Central | ||
| 67.7 | QVC2 | QVC2 | ||
| 67.8 | HSN | HSN | ||
| 67.9 | QVC | QVC |
WUPX-TV shut down its analog signal, overUHF channel 67, 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 remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 21, usingvirtual channel 67.[14]
WUPX moved its channel allocation from digital channel 21 to channel 25 in 2019, but it remained on virtual channel 67.[15] The station relocated its transmitter to a tower southwest of Lexington formerly used byFox affiliateWDKY-TV (channel 56).[3]