| Callsign: | WEPT-CD |
| Location: | Peekskill, New York |
| Country: | US |
| Digital: | 28 (UHF) |
| Virtual: | 15 |
| Owner: | Venture Technologies Group, LLC |
| Founded: | January 24, 1996 |
| Erp: | 15 kW |
| Haat: | 200.60NaN0 |
| Class: | CD |
| Facility Id: | 30429 |
| Coordinates: | 40.9608°N -73.9225°W |
| Licensing Authority: | FCC |
WEPT-CD (channel 15) is a low-power, Class A television station in Peekskill, New York, United States, affiliated with Jewelry Television. The station is owned by Venture Technologies Group.
The station originated on January 24, 1996,[1] as a construction permit for W02CJ,[2] which was to have operated on channel 2 in Manchester, Vermont, from a tower at the studios of radio station WJAN (95.1 FM, now WVTQ).[1] However, that facility was never built, and later that year owners Ronald and Jan Morlino, who also owned WJAN, transferred W02CJ to Vision 3 Broadcasting,[3] [4] which on May 9, 1997, modified the permit to instead serve Easton, Glens Falls, Hudson Falls, and Saratoga Springs on channel 39 from Willard Mountain,[5] making the station W39CE.[2] The station was designed to be a repeater of WVBG-LP (channel 25) from Albany; however, when channel 39 signed on in December 1997 as an independent station, it was the first of Vision 3's three stations to launch,[6] ahead of W49BU (channel 49, later renamed WVBK-LP; now WHNH-CD channel 2) in Manchester, which signed on in March 1998,[7] and WVBG itself, which debuted in August 1998.[8] Channel 39 became WVBX-LP on April 10, 1998.[2]
On October 5, 1998, WVBX, along with parent station WVBG, became a UPN affiliate;[9] it already carried the UPN Kids block,[10] but the network's prime time programming had previously been seen in the Capital District through secondary affiliations with Fox affiliate WXXA-TV (channel 23)[10] and Pax station WYPX (channel 55),[11] as well as cable carriage of WSBK-TV from Boston.[9] [11] However, from its inception, the station could not get carriage on Time Warner Cable,[10] which chose to continue its carriage of WSBK;[9] this was despite acquiring several sports packages, including Big East football and basketball, the Boston Red Sox (the telecasts of which were dropped following a territorial complaint by the New York Yankees),[12] and the Boston Celtics.[13]
Vision 3 did win must-carry rights in Washington County (in the WVBX coverage area) on December 3, 1999.[14] However, the UPN affiliation ended at the start of 2000 when cable-only "WEDG-TV" (known later as "UPN 4") signed on as a joint operation between Time Warner Cable and WXXA.[15] WVBX would then revert to being an independent station, heavily emphasizing its status as a primarily over-the-air station;[16] that June, Vision 3 put WVBG and WVBX up for sale,[17] and by 2001 much of the station's schedule was taken up by America One[18] and Resort Sports Network programming.[19]
In 2002, a year after parent station WVBG was sold to Wireless Access, Vision 3 was granted a construction permit to move WVBX to channel 15 from a transmitter on the Helderberg Escarpment in New Scotland, near the location of the WVBG transmitter, in effect moving the station to Albany.[20] The new facility was also granted class A status,[20] with the call sign WVBX-CA.[2] On May 22, 2003, Vision 3 sold WVBX to Venture Technologies Group,[21] who took channel 39 off-the-air that June.[22] During this time, Venture built the channel 15 facility, gave it the call letters WNYA-CA on June 30, 2003,[2] and announced that the station would serve as a repeater of WNYA (channel 51) from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, which Venture was in the process of launching; this resulted in the unusual circumstance of a repeater station older than its parent station.[23] Together, the two stations came on the air September 1, 2003, as the Capital District's new UPN affiliate (replacing "WEDG-TV"),[23] operated by Freedom Communications, then-owner of WRGB (channel 6), under a joint sales agreement.[24]
On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced that they would end broadcasting and merge to form a new network, The CW; the new network immediately named WEWB-TV (channel 45, now WCWN) its Capital District affiliate after then-owner Tribune Broadcasting signed a ten-year affiliation deal with the new network on most of its WB stations.[25] On February 22, News Corporation announced that it would start up another new broadcast television network called MyNetworkTV; on March 9, it was announced that WNYA (and in turn WNYA-CA) would join this network, which launched on September 5.[26] A few months after the affiliation change, on December 5, 2006, Freedom Communications purchased WCWN from Tribune, in effect giving it control over three stations in the Capital District;[27] in February 2007, the joint sales agreement with WRGB was terminated,[28] and WNYA moved from WRGB's studios in Niskayuna to a facility in Rotterdam that formerly housed WMHT-FM-TV.[29] In April 2011, WNYA-CA replaced WNYA's main programming with Antenna TV, simulcast from WNYA's second digital subchannel.[30]
On February 25, 2013, Hubbard Broadcasting announced that it would purchase WNYA to form a duopoly with its local NBC affiliate WNYT, for $2.3 million, pending FCC approval.[31] [32] The sale did not include WNYA-CA, which remained with Venture Technologies.[33] Under a clause of the sale of WNYA that required WNYA-CA to use a new call sign that does not feature the letters "N" or "Y",[32] channel 15 became WEPT-CA on March 8, 2013.[2] On May 29, 2013, the FCC approved the sale of WNYA to Hubbard,[34] which was completed July 15;[35] that September, WEPT-CA dropped its WNYA-DT2 simulcast to join AMGTV,[36] moved its transmitter to New Baltimore, and changed its city of license to Kinderhook. Venture then filed on September 25 to construct a digital companion facility on channel 22 broadcasting from Overlook Mountain in Woodstock;[37] the permit was granted on December 23.[38] On December 18, 2014, the station was issued a license for digital operation, with its city of license moving from Kinderhook to Newburgh and its call sign changing to WEPT-CD. The station, which had remained in the Albany television market while licensed to Kinderhook,[39] became part of the New York City market following the move to Newburgh.[40]
On January 10, 2018, WEPT-CD went silent due to antenna and line issues.[41] Per an FCC filing on August 14, 2018, the station resumed operations as of August 7, 2018.[42] On October 22, 2018, WEPT went silent in preparation for the FCC's Phase 4 repack.[43] On March 25, 2020, WEPT-CD filed a Suspension of Operations and Request for Silence STA with the FCC due to what the station called in its filing, "reflective power issues" [44] On September 29, 2020, WEPT-CD resumed operations [45]
The station's signal is multiplexed:
| Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15.1 | WEPT-CD | Jewelry TV | ||
| 15.2 | WEPT-2 | Blank | ||