WGBY-TV

WGBY-TV
Springfield–Holyoke, Massachusetts; United States;
City	Springfield, Massachusetts
Channels	Digital: 13 (VHF); Virtual: 57;
Branding	New England Public Media
Programming
Affiliations	57.1: PBS; for others, see § Subchannels;
Ownership
Owner	WGBH Educational Foundation
Operator	New England Public Media via program service agreement
Sister stations	Radio: WFCR
History
First air date	September 26, 1971 (53 years ago)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 57 (UHF, 1971–2008); Digital: 58 (UHF, 2000–2009), 22 (UHF, 2009–2019);
Call sign meaning	Great Blue Yonder (referring to WGBH's transmitter and distance from mother station; all WGBH television stations include these two letters)
Technical information
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	72096
ERP	63 kW
HAAT	303.2 m (995 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	42°14′29.5″N 72°38′54.1″W / 42.241528°N 72.648361°W
Links
Public license information	Public file; LMS;
Website	nepm.org

WGBY-TV (channel 57) is a PBS member television station in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States. Owned by the Boston-based WGBH Educational Foundation, it is a sister station to that organization's flagship and namesake, WGBH-TV, channel 2 (however, it brands as a separate, locally focused PBS outlet); New England Public Media, which also controls Amherst-licensed NPR member WFCR (88.5 FM), operates WGBY-TV under a program service agreement. WGBY-TV provides programming to much of western Massachusetts and northern Connecticut, with studios based in the Irene Mennen Hunter Public Media Center on Hampden Street alongside I-91 in downtown Springfield (named for the heiress to the Mennen personal care fortune and former WGBY-TV board member). Its transmitter is located on the peak of Mount Tom in Holyoke with the area's commercial television stations. WGBY-TV is also available on Comcast Xfinity channel 2 in Windham County, Vermont (alongside Vermont Public).

History

The station first signed on the air on September 26, 1971, as a PBS member station.^[2] Prior to the station's sign-on (and for the network's first year of existence), viewers in Western Massachusetts could watch PBS programming over the air on outskirt public television stations, including WGBH-TV to the east, WMHT from Albany from the west, or WEDH from Hartford (the latter remains available on most cable providers in the Springfield market). In October 2006, WGBY became the first television station in New England to produce all of its local programming content in high definition. Some Spanish-language programming is also broadcast for Springfield's Hispanic and Latino community.

Unlike its Boston counterpart, WGBY had no affiliation with an NPR member station in the area previously; the area has been served by the Five College Consortium's WFCR and WNNZ/WAIC, collectively known as New England Public Radio. The WGBH Educational Foundation held the license of WFCR from 1961 until its transfer to the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1967, four years before WGBY-TV began operations.

On April 11, 2019, WGBY and WFCR announced that they would consolidate operations under the New England Public Media banner, effective in July; the WGBH Educational Foundation will retain the WGBY-TV license, with NEPM operating the station under a program service operating agreement.^[3]^[4] All of the various NEPR stations and WGBY will continue to have their licenses and facilities owned by their individual organizations and schools. In July 2020, WGBY officially rebranded as a part of New England Public Media, rather than being a part of WGBH's overall September 1, 2020, rebranding of their Boston operations to remove the "W" as branding for their radio and television stations.

Programming

WGBY features several locally produced programs, including the daily program Connecting Point, which has local features and roundtables involving aspects of Pioneer Valley arts, issues, economic, criminal, and educational issues. The Friday edition of the series is entitled The State We're In and deals with local and Commonwealth political issues, along with debate programming in election years.

As Schools Match Wits is a long-running local quiz bowl program which originated on WWLP in 1961, and moved to WGBY in 2007 under license from WWLP due to costs associated with newly enacted FCC regulations involving closed captioning. The program is co-produced with Westfield State University.

Finally, Presencia is a weekly bilingual program which spotlights the region's Hispanic-American community, and uses captioning, dubbing, and subtitling to allow both Spanish and English-speaking viewers to equally watch the program.^[5]

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of WGBY-TV^[6]
Channel	Res.	Aspect	Short name	Programming
57.1	1080i	16:9	WGBYDT1	Main WGBY-TV programming / PBS
57.2	480i	4:3	WGBYDT2	NEPM World
57.3			WGBYDT3	NEPM Kids
57.4			WGBYDT4	NEPM Create

Analog-to-digital conversion

On August 4, 2008, WGBY filed a request with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to discontinue regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 57, on November 5, 2008—some three months prior to the original mandated analog shut-off date. The petition cited the need to replace the current analog antenna with the post transition digital 22 antenna.^[7] WGBY also filed for an STA to operate at 50% analog power prior to the early shut down date due to equipment failure^[8] Although it had an assigned digital channel that it would move to post-transition that differed from its original digital channel, WGBY continued to broadcast its digital signal on its pre-transition allocation (UHF channel 58). On April 27, 2009, the station's digital signal later moved to UHF channel 22,^[9] using virtual channel 57.

As a result of the FCC's 2016 spectrum auction, the WGBH Educational Foundation accepted a $57 million offer to moved WGBY-TV to the VHF spectrum on July 22, 2019, on channel 13, along with WGBH-TV for $161.7 million.^[10]

On January 16, 2017, the station launched the newest iteration of the PBS Kids Channel on their third subchannel.^[11]