WPXV-TV


WPXV-TV, virtual channel 49, is an Ion Television owned-and-operated station licensed to Norfolk, Virginia, United States, serving the Hampton Roads area of southeastern Virginia, and the Outer Banks region of northeastern North Carolina. The station is owned by West Palm Beach, Florida-based Ion Media Networks. WPXV-TV's studios are located on Nansemond Parkway in Suffolk, Virginia, next to the transmitter tower it shares with several radio stations.

History

Before WJCB (1985–1989)

Before WJCB signed on the air on May 29, 1989, WJCB and presumably Tidewater Christian Communications had a construction permit license for a television station on August 9, 1985. WJCB became DWJCB on January 23, 1987, as a possible indication that the WJCB construction permit license was going to be deleted by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC restored DWJCB to the WJCB calls on October 6, 1987, almost two years before WJCB signed on the air, thus granting WJCB and presumably Tidewater Christian Communications the construction permit needed to build a television station for over-the-air broadcasting.

WJCB (1989–1998)

WPXV-TV signed on the air on May 29, 1989, as WJCB. The former WJCB call letters stood for W Jesus Christ Broadcasting. WJCB was initially owned by Tidewater Christian Communications. During its years as WJCB the station aired religious programming, infomercials and home shopping programming. In April 1997, WJCB went under new ownership when Tidewater Christian Communications sold WJCB to Lockwood Broadcasting of Hampton, Virginia. Lockwood Broadcasting purchased WJCB from Tidewater Christian Communications for $6.75 million. In December 1997, WJCB went under new ownership again when Lockwood Broadcasting sold WJCB to Paxson Communications for $14.75 million, thus making WJCB into a Pax TV owned and operated station.

WPXV–TV (1998–present)

Paxson Communications changed the WJCB calls letters from WJCB to WPXV on March 2, 1998, in order to reflect the station's new ownership with Paxson and the pending affiliation with Pax TV of which had not yet launched as an over the air broadcast television network.
Religious programming and infomercials as well as shopping programming continued to air on WPXV until August 31, 1998, when the station started airing Pax programming in the late afternoons and evenings with infomercials and religious programming during the day, with the launch of the then new Pax network. WPXV aired rebroadcasts of WAVY-TV's 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. weeknight newscasts at 7 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. weeknights from 2003 to 2004 and had master control in WAVY's studios until 2004 when Paxson and NBC broke up the agreement.

Digital television

was previously seen on WPXV-TV's fourth digital subchannel; however, Ion dropped The Worship Network on all Ion owned and operated stations on January 31, 2010, at midnight.

Analog-to-digital conversion

WPXV-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 49, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 46, using PSIP to display WPXV-TV's virtual channel as 49 on digital television receivers.