WAZE-TV was a television station in Madisonville, Kentucky, in the United States, serving the Evansville, Indiana DMA. The station, which was owned by Roberts Broadcasting (who bought it from previous owner South Central Communications in 2006, was an affiliate of the CW Television Network. It broadcasted a digital signal on channel 20, which redirected to former analog channel 19 via PSIP.

On March 24, 2011, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) canceled WAZE's license for failure to construct its digital facilities.^[1]

The station continues to broadcast via three low-powered translators: WAZE-LP channel 17, WJPS-LP channel 4 and WIKY-LP channel 5, all licensed to Evansville. They served as in-town relays of the main signal. WAZE's transmitter is located farther south than the other major Evansville stations because of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations requiring a station's transmitter to be no more than 15 miles from the city of license--in this case, Madisonville, which is 50 miles south of Evansville. As a result, the channel 19 signal provided only a grade B ("rimshot") signal to Evansville itself, and was practically unviewable north and east of the city.

The station must rely on cable coverage to reach most of its viewing area. However, many cable carriers in the market (particularly outside the Evansville and Owensboro areas) don't carry it.

History [link]

WAZE signed on October 15, 1983 as WLCN. It was originally an independent station that ran mostly Christian programing (the call letters presumably stood for "Local Christian Network") along with segments of HSN Spree. On November 1, 1997, it became a WB affiliate and changed its calls to WWAZ-TV. In 1999, it began branding as WAZE-TV, after its Evansville repeater, and changed its call letters to match in 2000. The WWAZ-TV calls are now with a currently silent station in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

WAZE simulcast KSDK's coverage of the St. Louis Cardinals; this ended after the 2010 season, as Cardinals games not telecast nationally were moved exclusively to Fox Sports Midwest.

Soon after taking control, Roberts disabled the station's old Website at wazetv.com. A new site at cwaze.com debuted in 2008, but that site was itself closed down in mid-2009.

Botched sale and legal troubles befall the station [link]

According to FCC documents filed in March 2009, Roberts had agreed to sell WAZE and the station's three Evansville translators to BGT Communications, LLC. However, as of August 2010, no approval has been given, and the station's most recent biennial FCC ownership report lists only Roberts Broadcasting as the owner of the station, with no mention of the BGT transaction.

Additionally, Roberts Broadcasting was sued on three separate occasions by CBS Corporation, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. for failure to pay for programming aired on WAZE and its sister stations in Illinois, Mississippi and South Carolina. The company reached an agreement with Fox in the summer of 2010; however, in March 2011, CBS won its lawsuit against Roberts and was awarded a $1 million judgment. CBS later filed an injunction against Roberts seeking payment.^[2] The result has been major changes in syndicated programming as distributors have pulled their programming from the Roberts stations, leaving the station to air lower profile series that are sold under much less expensive barter arrangements such as the long-cancelled Judge Hatchett and Cash Cab. Warner Bros. would win its case as well in October 2011; on October 7, Roberts Broadcasting filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.^[3]

DTV transition issues [link]

As part of the digital TV transition, on June 12, 2009, WAZE turned off its full-power analog signal on channel 19. The station's digital signal on channel 20 only operated at 1,110 watts (equivalent in power to most low-power stations in analog), and did not travel very far from its location near Hanson, Kentucky. As a result, it did not even reach Evansville itself or the second-largest city in the market, Owensboro.

The station had been issued a construction permit on at least two occasions to increase its power to 1 million watts, which is equivalent to 5 million watts in analog. However, no such operation was ever constructed, and the license was canceled on March 24, 2011.^[1] On July 15, 2011, Evansville Courier & Press columnist and media blogger Jacob Newkirk reported that WAZE's full-power digital signal was still on the air (if not, having had resumed operations at some point following the FCC's cancellation of its license), however the digital signal was operating without any official approval from the FCC; according to FCC rules, unauthorized broadcasting of a television station can result in a fine at minimum of $10,000.^[4]

Newscasts [link]

The station airs the newscast The Daily Buzz weekdays mornings 5 to 8 a.m. At one point, WEHT produced a 9 p.m. newscast for WAZE.

References [link]

External links [link]

• Query the FCC's TV station database for WAZE-LP
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WIKY-LP
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WJPS-LP
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WAZE-TV