WMLW-TV

WMLW-TV, virtual channel 49 (UHF digital channel 48), is an independent television station serving Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States that is licensed to Racine. The station is owned by Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting, as part of a duopoly with CBS affiliate WDJT-TV (channel 58), and is also a sister station to Telemundo affiliate WYTU-LD (channel 63, which is simulcast over WMLW's fourth digital subchannel) and Me-TV owned-and-operated station WBME-CD (channel 41).

All four stations share studio facilities located on South 60th Street in Milwaukee (near West Allis), and the station's transmitter is located in Milwaukee's Lincoln Park. On cable and satellite, the station is available on Time Warner Cable and AT&T U-verse channel 7, Charter Communications channel 8, and channel 49 on DirecTV and Dish Network. The station's HD channel is carried on Time Warner and U-verse channel 1007 and Charter channel 608.

History

As WJJA

The station first signed on the air on January 27, 1990 as WJJA, operating as an affiliate of the Home Shopping Network. The station was founded by Joel Kinlow, a Milwaukee area minister, who also owns Elm Grove-based WGLB (1560 AM); the WJJA calls stood for Joe, Joel and Arvis, all members of the Kinlow family that owned and operated WJJA as one of the few minority-owned stations in the United States. By 1995, WJJA had dropped HSN programming for The Military Channel (a network unrelated to the Discovery Networks-owned cable and satellite known by that name from 2005-14). Kinlow dropped that network the following year, and returned to HSN, eventually affiliating with Shop at Home in 2001.