WZRB

WZRB (channel 47) is a television station in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, airing programming from the Ion Television network. Owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E.W. Scripps Company, the station maintains transmitter facilities on Cushman Drive (near US 1) on the northeast side of Columbia.

History

Early history

The station first signed on the air on January 1, 2005, as the sixth commercial television station to sign on the air in the Columbia television market. Founded by St. Louis–based Roberts Broadcasting, it originally operated as a UPN affiliate. Prior to WZRB's sign-on, Sumter-licensed WB affiliate WBHQ (channel 63, now WKTC) carried UPN programming on a secondary basis, airing its prime time schedule on a two-hour delay.

Sale to Gary Chapman and switch to Ion

On December 2, 2013, Roberts filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to sell WZRB to Radiant Light Ministries, a subsidiary of religious broadcaster Tri-State Christian Television;[3] however, on December 11, the United States bankruptcy court gave initial approval for a plan by Roberts' creditors to instead transfer WZRB and its sister stations, WRBU in St. Louis and WAZE-LP in Evansville, Indiana, to a trust overseen by former LIN Media CEO Gary Chapman with Ion Media Networks (a creditor in Roberts' Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings) as its beneficiary, with Roberts' attorney subsequently stating that Ion would purchase the three stations.[4][5]

On February 10, 2014, WZRB became an Ion affiliate, carry the network's programming for the majority of its broadcast day, resulting in the removal of WZRB's syndicated programming inventory in the process. For the first month of its tenure as an Ion O&O, CW programming—including prime time shows—continued to air on the station as a secondary affiliation, preempting one hour of Ion's daytime lineup and the first two hours of its prime time schedule (although the Vortexx children's block on Saturday mornings, was aired one hour earlier than the network's recommended timeslot nationwide, at 6 a.m. in order to accommodate Ion programming that started at 11 a.m.). This was a departure from the standard Ion programming structure (in which stations carry only Ion programming with limited to no local content and no acquired programming outside of that offered by the network); as a result, it marked the first time since 2009, the end of a three-year period in which Ion Media Networks ran MyNetworkTV programming on select i/Ion owned-and-operated stations, that the company had carried another network's programming on its stations. This arrangement proved to be only temporary, as existing MyNetworkTV affiliate WKTC took the CW affiliation on March 17, 2014, allowing WZRB to carry the entire Ion Television schedule.

callsign	WZRB
digital	25 (UHF)
virtual	47
affiliations	47.1: Ion Television for others, see
owner	Ion Media
licensee	Ion Media License Company, LLC
location	Columbia, South Carolina
country	United States
airdate	January 1, 2005
callsign meaning	Roberts Broadcasting (former owner)
former channel numbers	Analog: 47 (UHF, 2005–2009) Digital: 47 (UHF, 2009–2019)
former affiliations	UPN (2005–2006) The CW (primary 2006–February 2014, secondary February–March 2014)
erp	155 kW
haat	192 m
facility id	136750
coordinates	34.04417°N, -80.99722°W
licensing authority	FCC
website	https://iontelevision.com/

History

Early history

Sale to Gary Chapman and switch to Ion

Eventual sale to Ion Media

Technical information

Subchannels

References