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| City | Greenwich, New York |
| Channels | |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations | see§ Subchannels |
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| History | |
First air date |
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Former call signs |
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Former channel numbers |
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Call sign meaning | Vision 3 Broadcasting Group (former owner)[1] |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 74018 |
| Class | LD |
| ERP | 15kW |
| HAAT | 159.4 m (523 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 42°32′26.9″N73°58′23.3″W / 42.540806°N 73.973139°W /42.540806; -73.973139 (WVBG-LD) |
| Links | |
Public license information | LMS |
WVBG-LD (channel 25) is alow-power television station inGreenwich, New York, United States, serving theCapital District as an affiliate ofBinge TV. Owned byBridge Media Networks, the station maintains atransmitter inClarksville, New York.
What is now WVBG-LD has its origins in atranslator station on channel 4 servingGilboa,Prattsville, andRoxbury, operated by theBoard of Cooperative Educational Services of the Third Supervisory District ofDelaware,Greene, andSchoharie counties and carrying programming fromWMHT inSchenectady,WCNY-TV inSyracuse, andWNDT inNew York City.[3] The station, which was granted itsconstruction permit in 1966,[3] went on the air two years later as W04AS.[4] On February 8, 1991, the Otsego-Northern Catskills BOCES transferred the station to the WSKG Public Telecommunications Council;[5] by this point, W04AS was a translator forWSKG-TV inBinghamton.
On May 17, 1996, WSKG filed an application to move W04AS to channel 25 inAlbany, Schenectady, andTroy, New York, with a transmitter located on theHelderberg Escarpment.[6] That July, Vision 3 Broadcasting announced that it would purchase W04AS and operate the station as the flagship of a group of three low-power television stations in theCapital District, along with W83AL (channel 83) inAndes (which would have also been acquired from WSKG and be converted into W21BU channel 21 inHudson,Catskill, andChatham) and W02CJ (channel 2) inManchester, Vermont (which was acquired from Ronald and Jan Morlino, two of Vision 3's principals, and converted to W39CE channel 39 inGlens Falls,Saratoga Springs,Easton, andHudson Falls).[7] The channel 21 signal was dropped from the network by 1997 after it was determined that its coverage area could be served with the channel 25 signal; by then, the group (which, despite each station operating on different channels, was branded simply "TV 25") also included W49BU (channel 49) in Manchester, Vermont.[8] The move to channel 25 was granted a construction permit on October 2, 1997,[6] and issued the call sign W25CF;[9] on November 5, Vision 3's parent company Sharp Vision completed its purchase of the station from WSKG.[10] The call letters were changed to WVBG-LP on December 12, 1997.[11]
Because of the delay in receiving the construction permit, channel 25 was the last of the three stations to go on the air; W39CE (later renamed WVBX-LP; nowWEPT-CD channel 15 inNewburgh) signed on in December 1997,[1] and W49BU (later renamed WVBK-LP; nowWHNH-CD channel 2) went on in March 1998,[12] with WVBG itself debuting on August 27, 1998.[13] Initially anindependent station,[14] WVBG and its satellites became aUPN affiliate on October 5, 1998;[15] it already carried theUPN Kids block,[14] but the network's primetime programming had previously been seen in the Capital District through secondary affiliations withFox affiliateWXXA-TV (channel 23)[14] andPax stationWYPX (channel 55),[16] as well as cable carriage ofWSBK-TV fromBoston.[15][16] However, from its inception, the station could not get carriage onTime Warner Cable,[14] which chose to continue its carriage of WSBK;[15] this was despite acquiring several sports packages, includingBig East football and basketball, theBoston Red Sox (the telecasts of which were dropped following a territorial complaint by theNew York Yankees),[17] and theBoston Celtics.[18]
WVBG-LP changed itscity of license to Greenwich, New York, on April 22, 1999 (Greenwich had earlier been added as a fourth city of license after Albany, Schenectady, and Troy); this helped Vision 3 winmust-carry rights inWashington County on December 3, 1999.[19][20] However, the UPN affiliation ended at the start of 2000 when cable-only "WEDG-TV" (known later as "UPN 4") signed on as a joint operation between Time Warner Cable and WXXA.[21] WVBG would then revert to being an independent station, heavily emphasizing its status as a primarily over-the-air station;[22] that June, Vision 3 put WVBG and WVBX up for sale,[23] and by 2001 much of the station's schedule was taken up byResort Sports Network programming.[24]
On June 28, 2001,[25] WVBG-LP was sold to Wireless Access, a group of telephone companies in the region, as part of plans to introduce wireless Internet service.[26] However, the plan was never implemented,[26] and by early 2003 channel 25 had gone off the air;[27] it returned a year later airingcolor bars.[26] On September 2, 2005, WVBG was granted a construction permit to move to channel 41.[26] The station lost its transmitter site lease on November 30, 2006, forcing the station off-the-air[28] until gettingspecial temporary authority to operate from a new location inClarksville (the proposed site for the channel 41 operation) a year later.[29] Broadcasting on channel 25 ended on August 10, 2008;[30] on September 3, the station filed for a license to cover construction of the channel 41 facility.[31] On September 15, 2009, WVBG was granted a construction permit toflash cut to digital operation; this facility will change the station's city of license back to Albany and return the transmitter to the Helderberg Escarpment.[32][33] WVBG lost access to its tower in Clarksville on April 8, 2010, due to an ownership dispute involving the tower, forcing the station to suspend broadcasting;[34] it returned to the air on April 6, 2011, from another nearby tower under special temporary authority.[35][36]
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25.1 | 720p | 16:9 | WVBG-LD | Binge TV |
| 25.2 | 480i | Bridge1 | Infomercials | |
| 25.3 | Bridge2 | |||
| 25.4 | WBPI | WBPI-CD (Religious) | ||
| 25.5 | AceTV | All Women's Sports Network | ||
| 25.6 | OAN | One America Plus | ||
| 25.7 | InTouch | Religious | ||
| 25.8 | Sales | Infomercials | ||
| 25.9 | BarkTV | Bark TV | ||
| 25.10 | RNTV | Z Living | ||
| 25.11 | FTF | FTF Sports | ||
| 25.12 | MTRSPR1 | MtrSpt1 | ||
| 25.13 | AWE | AWE Plus | ||
| 25.14 | NBTV | National Black TV | ||
| 25.15 | ZLiving | Oz TV | ||
| 25.16 | Sales2 | beIN Sports Xtra | ||
| 25.17 | GDTV | Infomercials |
Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the state ofNew York | ||
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Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of New York | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent | ||
| PBS | ||
| Religious | ||
| Spanish | ||
| Other | ||
| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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