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WUGA back to commercial?

mvcg66b3r

mvcg66b3r

From the "Non-Commercial to Commercial TV Stations" thread:

Ccook55 said:
Another in the other direction: WNEG/channel 32 in Toccoa GA (Greenville/Spartanburg/Anderson S C/Asheville N C DMA) started out as an independent ion 1984. It became a CBS affiliate in 1995 controlled by WSPA in Spartanburg for the benefit of those who couldn't get Atlanta's WGNX (now WGCL), which switched to CBS after WAGA switched to Fox. In 2008, owner Media General sold WNEG to the of Georgia in Athens as a media training facility and the station reverted to independent status (running some shows from America One). In 2011, WNEG changed calls to WUGA and became a PBS station, rebroadcasting Georgia Public Broadcasting's World subchannel and moved broadcasting facilities to Athens. It still has Toccoa as its city of license.
Click to expand...


I saw on RabbitEars that WUGA is being handed over to Marquee Broadcasting. I Googled that and found out they own WMDT (ABC) Salisbury MD. Is Marquee about to turn WUGA back to a commercial station?


Crossposted to "Cursed TV Stations" thread
 
That they are, for the price of $2,500,002. They will also have to change the station's callsign as part of the APA.

This is likely a spectrum buy by Marquee. The entire history of channel 32 is marked by a submarket too small to keep it afloat (the original owner of WNEG-TV had been trying to sell the station for five years when Spartan finally came along to operate and own it, and even then that business opportunity was not available until December 1994) and a university that couldn't viably operate the station either commercially or as a non-com (as it has been since 2011). In 2014 UGA axed six employees and all of the scant local programming that the station aired. There's also a sort of muddled confusion as to whether it's in the Western Carolinas market or Atlanta — it's offered on cable and satellite in parts of both.
 
From Neil Griffin on RadioInsight:

According to the articles I’ve seen, they will convert it back to commercial and program it as an Atlanta market independent. New calls will be WGTA (Greenville to Atlanta). While UGA had it, they had it reclassified by Nielsen from the Greenville, SC market to Atlanta. That gives them must-carry on Atlanta market cable systems, as long as they can get the signal there. They are already on Dish, Direct, and AT&T.

Besides the sale amount, UGA gets half of any revenue above $8 million if Marquee participates in the spectrum auction.
Click to expand...

http://radioinsight.com/community/topic/marquee-broadcasting-to-purchase-wuga-tv/#post-134302
 
WUGA's website shows they are running a schedule from the digital service Heroes And Icons (TV shows and movies featuring detectives, war shows like Combat!, the 50s Superman series, etc.) with two independent subcarriers. On air right now they are still running PBS World/GPB Knowledge. They have stated on their Facebook page that this will be corrected.
 
RabbitEars says WUGA will soon add Decades and Movies!, two subchannel networks that are already available in Atlanta on WUPA and WAGA respectively. Movies! is also seen in Greenville on WYFF. Don't those stations have exclusive rights to those networks in their markets?
 
I'm going by what the TitanTV schedule says for them. We'll see if it actually comes to pass.

- Trip
 
WUGA's schedule on their site also shows Decades and Movies! as subcarriers. They've applied to reduce their power to 100kw, which means their signal will not reach into Greenville and Atlanta proper. Just the east fringes of Atlanta and the southwest areas of Greenville.
 
Ccook55 said:
WUGA's schedule on their site also shows Decades and Movies! as subcarriers. They've applied to reduce their power to 100kw, which means their signal will not reach into Greenville and Atlanta proper. Just the east fringes of Atlanta and the southwest areas of Greenville.
Click to expand...

Yet it's closer to Atlanta (right between Gainesville and Athens) and with a higher HAAT (650m vs. 592.5m).
Licensed: http://www.bing.com/maps/?mapurl=ht...&freq=0.0&contour=41&city=TOCCOA&state=GA.kml
CP: http://www.bing.com/maps/?mapurl=ht...&freq=0.0&contour=41&city=TOCCOA&state=GA.kml

And didn't the FCC freeze transmitter moves?
 
Sale of UGA TV station will be complete July 1

The University of Georgia will get out of the TV broadcasting business at the end of this month.

The Federal Communications Commission approved the sale of UGA-owned WUGA-TV earlier this month, and university officials and the station’s buyer, Marquee Broadcasting Georgia, agreed the station’s broadcast spectrum and other assets will be transferred July 1, said Tom Jackson, UGA’s vice president for public affairs.

The station will get new call letters — WGTA, for “Greenville to Atlanta,” the station’s coverage area, said Patricia Lane, the president of Marquee Broadcasting Georgia and WGTA’s general manager.

By July 1, the station will launch a website, wgta.com, with schedules and other information, Lane said.

The station’s signals go out over the air beginning July 1, but cable broadcasting will take a little longer, until the company finishes laying fiber optic to cable provider head ends, she said.

Lane expects to have the WGTA content up soon on Comcast, DIRECTV, AT&T’s U-verse and DISH. Negotiations are underway with Charter, the main cable provider in Athens, she said.
Click to expand...

http://onlineathens.com/uga/2015-06-22/sale-uga-tv-station-will-be-complete-july-1
 
Ccook55 said:
They've applied to reduce their power to 100kw, which means their signal will not reach into Greenville and Atlanta proper. Just the east fringes of Atlanta and the southwest areas of Greenville.
Click to expand...

That permit expired months ago.

- Trip
 
Yep, sure did, back in March as I see. So at 240 kw, they'd still be hard pressed to penetrate into Greenville and Atlanta proper.
 
Just found this article:

WGTA-TV is now broadcasting and WUGA-TV is no more

Television station WGTA took to the air on July 1, officially ending the University of Georgia’s involvement in the TV broadcasting business.

New owner Marquee Broadcasting closed on the previously announced $2.5 million sale of the former WUGA-TV and recently converted the station from noncommercial into a commercial enterprise affiliated with three networks that specialize in “classic” TV shows and movies.

As of 12:01 a.m. July 1, the station began broadcasting over the air on Channel 32, airing programming from Movies!, Heroes & Icons and Decades, all affiliated or owned by Chicago’s Weigel Broadcasting. All of the networks are available over the air on Channels 32.1, 32.2 and 32.3, once owners of digital TV sets re-scan their receivers.

Negotiations are also underway that will get the station onto satellite and cable networks in the station’s broadcast area, which stretches from Atlanta to Greenville, S.C. The last three letters in the station’s new name stand for “Greenville to Atlanta.”

For the moment, the only cable outlet with the station’s programming is a local enterprise in Toccoa, where the station is now located after its move from the UGA campus.

But soon, the station’s signal will be available via cable or satellite in more than 2 million homes in the Atlanta area, according to WGTA general manager Patricia Lane, who is also president of the company that owns the station. Negotiations are completed with those providers, and Windstream is installing fiber optic lines, Lane said.

Negotiations are ongoing with Charter, the company that provides cable to Athens, she said.

Marquee also owns TV stations in Salisbury, Md., and Dover, Del.

WGTA is the only full-power TV station in northeast Georgia, Lane said.

The Movies! network carries classic movies such as “Father Goose,” with Cary Grant, and on Saturdays features film noir movies.

The lineup for Heroes & Icons includes some top TV programming from the past, such as “Hill Street Blues,” “Wanted Dead or Alive” and “The Rebel.”

The Decades Channel’s concept is that each day’s programming of movies, TV shows and documentaries focuses on a specific decade.

The station’s overall programming thrust is toward family-friendly fare.
Click to expand...

http://onlineathens.com/breaking-news/2015-07-06/wgta-tv-now-broadcasting-and-wuga-tv-no-more
 
Wikipedia hasn't updated and changed the WUGA page to reflect this although the FCC query shows it is now WGTA.
 
What is up with WGTA?

There website, WGTA.com, which was to be up on July 1, isn't

And, they were 'up' on U-Verse with a slide that reads, "This station is having technical difficulty". Now, I can't even find them on U-Verse.
 
WGTA To Be New Atlanta Home Of MeTV

Effective March 25, Marquee Broadcasting Georgia’s WGTA Atlanta (DMA 10) will become MeTV’s newest affiliate. MeTV is currently seen in the market via a subchannel of WSB.

The move to WGTA 32.1 will provide full cable and satellite carriage of MeTV while MeTV’s sister network, Heroes & Icons, will be seen on WGTA 32.2.
Click to expand...

http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/100665/wgta-to-be-new-atlanta-home-of-metv

What will replace MeTV on WSB 2.2? Also, some cable systems still don't carry WGTA.
 
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