WMPV-TV (channel 21) is a religious television station licensed to Mobile, Alabama, United States, serving southwest Alabama and northwest Florida as an owned-and-operated station of the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). The station's transmitter is located near Robertsdale, Alabama.
The station formerly operated from a studio located along the Interstate 65 Service Road in Mobile. That facility was one of several closed by TBN in 2019 following the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s repeal of the "Main Studio Rule", which required full-service television stations like WMPV-TV to maintain facilities in or near their communities of license.[1]
History
The station was founded in December 1985 by professional poker player Doyle Brunson and operated as a general-entertainment independent station[2] until it switched to a Christian television format following a 1989 sale to Sonlight Broadcasting Systems, a new broadcast ministry based in Mobile and co-founded by television producer Paul Crouch Jr. and attorney and broadcaster Jay Sekulow. WMPV was Sonlight's flagship station, and over the next several years Sonlight would acquire other stations including