| Callsign: | WRDM-CD | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| City: | Hartford, Connecticut | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Logo Alt: | WRDM logo | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Digital: | 31 (UHF), shared with WVIT | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Virtual: | 19 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Founded: | 1985 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Country: | United States | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Callsign Meaning: | Ruzzier, DAgostino, Minniti[1] (former owners) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Owner: | Telemundo Station Group | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Licensee: | NBC Telemundo License LLC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sister Stations: | WVIT | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Erp: | 374 kW | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Haat: | 4500NaN0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Facility Id: | 10153 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Coordinates: | 41.7006°N -72.8319°W | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Licensing Authority: | FCC | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Embed Header: | Translator | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Embedded: |
|
WRDM-CD (channel 19) is a Class A television station licensed to Hartford, Connecticut, United States, serving as the Hartford–New Haven market's outlet for the Spanish-language network Telemundo. It is owned and operated by NBCUniversal's Telemundo Station Group alongside NBC outlet WVIT (channel 30).[2] The two stations share studios on New Britain Avenue in West Hartford and transmitter facilities on Rattlesnake Mountain in Farmington, Connecticut. Despite WRDM-CD legally holding a low-power Class A license, it transmits using WVIT's full-power spectrum. This ensures complete reception across the Hartford–New Haven market.
WDMR-LD (channel 14) in Springfield, Massachusetts, operates as a translator of WRDM, serving the Pioneer Valley. This station's transmitter is located on Provin Mountain in the Feeding Hills section of Agawam, Massachusetts.
WRDM-CD signed on June 14, 1986; it claims to be the first Spanish-language television station in New England.[3] The station initially operated on channel 13 under the call letters W13BF.[1] On June 13, 1991,[4] the station added a simulcast in Springfield, W65BX (channel 65).[1] Initially, in addition to Telemundo programming, W13BF and W65BX aired programming in Italian from public broadcaster Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI)'s international service,[1] with additional programming in Greek and Polish.[5] The television stations were joined by radio station WRDM (1550 AM, now WSDK) in 1993;[1] on September 1, 1995, W13BF changed its call letters to WRDM-LP,[6] and W65BX became WDMR-LP.[7] WRDM radio was sold off in 1998.[8] During the late 1990s, WDMR-LP's schedule also included English-language Boston Red Sox telecasts produced by Boston's WABU (now Ion Television owned-and-operated station WBPX-TV).[9] By 1997, WRDM-LP's programming was simulcast in New Haven on W10BQ (channel 10, now defunct) and in Hartford on W11BJ (channel 11, now WFXQ-CD channel 28 in Springfield).[10]
Original owner Channel 13 Television sold WRDM-LP and WDMR-LP to ZGS Communications on March 27, 2001.[11] [12] In January 2006, WRDM-LP moved to channel 50;[13] WDMR-LP moved to channel 51 that November.[14] WRDM became a class A station as WRDM-CA on May 7, 2008.[6] On November 15, 2012, WDMR flash cut from analog to digital as WDMR-LD;[7] on January 7, 2013, WRDM followed suit and became WRDM-CD.[6] WDMR-LD now serves as a complete simulcast of WRDM-CD.[15]
On December 4, 2017, NBCUniversal's Telemundo Station Group announced its purchase of ZGS' 13 television stations, including WRDM-CD and WDMR-LD. The sale was completed on February 1, 2018.[2] The deal made WRDM a sister station to NBC owned-and-operated station WVIT (channel 30), along with WNBC (channel 4) and WNJU (channel 47) to the southwest in New York City, and WBTS-LD (channel 8), WYCN-CD (channel 15) and WNEU (channel 60) to the northeast in Boston. WVIT began operating WRDM under a local marketing agreement on January 1, 2018 from WVIT's studios in West Hartford; WRDM later entered into a channel sharing agreement with WVIT.[16] ZGS had sold WRDM's spectrum in the FCC's incentive auction for $10,574,516 and indicated that the station would enter into a post-auction channel sharing agreement.[17] One immediate effect of the sale was the end of a brokered programming arrangement to carry English language Jewelry TV programming in overnights for Telemundo's regular overnight schedule, along with the addition of a Connecticut-specific part of the website for WNEU in place of the former WRDM website.
WRDM-LP began producing a newscast in April 1998; at the outset, Spanish; Castilian: Noticiero 13 primarily featured reports from Puerto Rico and Latin America, with local news coverage being added in June 1999.[18] The station's news operation was discontinued in the early 2000s; WRDM then began carrying Spanish; Castilian: Telenoticias Puerto Rico from WKAQ-TV in San Juan.
On December 15, 2017, NBCUniversal announced that, following its acquisition of WRDM-CD, the station (along with WDMR-LD) would begin simulcasting the newscasts of Boston sister station WNEU; the newscasts will include news from Connecticut and western Massachusetts from a reporter based at WRDM's facilities at the WVIT studios in West Hartford.[16]
The stations' signals are multiplexed:
| Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14.1 | WDMR-LD | Telemundo | ||
| 14.2 | XITOS S | TeleXitos | ||
| 14.3 | LocalX | |||
| 14.4 | Oxygen | Oxygen |
On August 2, 2019, WVIT and WRDM-CD were switched from RF 35 to RF 31.