The mid-90s was still when 43 had both UPN and The WB, correct? I'm not exactly sure when WB went to 55, but I think it was 1997.
Both UPN and The WB launched at about the same time, just days apart from each other. Both networks were seen on WUAB and supposedly had a limited schedule at that time, making the dual affiliation plausible at first. The WB moved over to WBNX on September 1, 1997. At that point, I would imagine that the dual affiliation was overwhelming and that WUAB had to get rid of one of them.
I'm remembering commercials for "Power Rangers Turbo" being dubbed over by Patti from the kids' club and showing that it was on "WB55," so it was probably that fall. I also remember WB55's launch weekend that was basically showing all of the backlogged WB content that 43 hadn't shown by that point.
WBNX also carried Fox Kids, which was rejected by WJW and other New World Communications stations that exchanged their existing affiliation for Fox in the fall of 1994. Picking up Fox Kids and some of the displaced syndicated programs from the swap helped improve WBNX's presence. Fox Kids, later 4Kids TV, would continue to air along with Kids WB on WBNX, until 2008 when Kids WB ended operations and sold the time slot to 4Kids, which then ended their programming block on the Fox network side.
I can imagine that WUAB wasn't able to clear everything from both networks, especially when they started expanding their operations. I'm not sure what aired, but I'm sure some shows were taped-delayed to other time slots.
I thought cable companies had to carry all of the local channels in an area, regardless of their status. However, speaking of which, I remember Spectrum only carrying a few of the digital subchannels from the affiliates and not all of them. Does the "must carry" status not filter down to subchannels, or are those carried on a basis of "eh, maybe we have space for it down in the 980s of our channel roster, but we still need to have 167 shopping channels"?
Stations have to work out an agreement with the cable companies for subchannel carriage. Some, but not all are carried, and vary with different providers. One of the reasons why Ion purchased WDLI-TV at the time was so that they could place Ion Plus on the .1 sub and gain significant cable coverage in the area, as cable companies were required to carry the main .1 sub.
Spectrum carries WUAB 43.2, but at the launch of Circle a few years ago, WUAB choose to bump Bounce off of 43.2 and over to 43.3, which likely didn't have any cable coverage at the time. My guess was that they wanted to promote Circle, being owned & operated by Gray, and wanted to ensure that it would reach viewers on cable as well. That must have blew up in their face as a few weeks later, Bounce was back on 43.2 and Circle was on 43.3, probably due to a flood of complaints from cable viewers.
I thought Canton was still lumped into the Akron market and, by association, Cleveland. I realize they're about an hour apart and, maybe, it's closer to the Youngstown market. All of that is still confusing, but I guess it makes sense in some manner.
I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps someone else can provide some more info. Otherwise, Gray won't be able to own WOHZ-CD being a Class A station in the same market as WOIO & WUAB. Perhaps being used as a repeater allowed them to get around that limitation, but I don't know if that was mentioned during the purchase agreement. Additionally, they could file to drop the Class A designation, but then they would lose additional benefits as well.
(Randomly, is 96.5 still licensed to the Akron market and just identifies as a Cleveland station, or did iHeart relocate the frequency up north?)
WBNX is technically an Akron station, but in the past, has identified itself as Cleveland for branding purposes. In their ID, they mention both Akron and Cleveland, not only do they serve both cities, but probably because their transmitter is located closer to Cleveland.
96.5's transmitter was originally located in Akron (I think), which was later moved to Brecksville. Because its signal still reaches Akron fairly well, it's still licensed to Akron.
Low power stations can be the worse, and as mentioned before, have less restrictions compared to full power stations. WQDI, KONV, WUEK & WEKA are all low power TV stations that are licensed to Canton, yet broadcast from Downtown Cleveland with signals that fade out by the time they reach Akron. They were all applications for new stations that stated off in Canton, yet made small hops to new locations over time until they reached their final destination.
