WKBS-TV

WKBS-TV is a Christian television station serving the Allegheny area of Pennsylvania that is licensed to Altoona. It broadcasts a digital signal on UHF channel 46. Owned by Cornerstone Television, the station is effectively a satellite of Cornerstone's flagship station, WPCB-TV in Pittsburgh.

History

In 1983, Cornerstone Television was granted a construction permit for channel 47 in Altoona, Pennsylvania to serve the Johnstown/Altoona market. It bought the transmitter used by the original WKBS-TV (channel 48) in Philadelphia when that station went dark in 1983, and used this transmitter to put channel 47 on the air November 2, 1985, reusing the WKBS-TV callsign.

Digital television

Digital channel

Analog-to-digital conversion

WKBS-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 47, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 46. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 47.

WKBS-TV (Philadelphia)

WKBS-TV, UHF analog channel 48, was an independent television station licensed to Burlington, New Jersey, United States, which served the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania television market. The station broadcast from 1965 to 1983.

History

The station first signed on the air on September 1, 1965, and was originally owned by Kaiser Broadcasting. It was the second independent station in the Philadelphia market, having signed on almost six months after WIBF-TV (channel 29, later WTAF-TV and now WTXF-TV) and two weeks before WPHL-TV (channel 17). WKBS-TV's studios were located at 3201 South 26th Street in South Philadelphia, and its transmitter was located on the Roxborough tower farm in Philadelphia. The station struggled at first, in part because it signed on only a year after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) required television manufacturers to include UHF tuning capability. However, WKBS was on stronger financial footing than WPHL and WIBF, and quickly established itself as the leading independent in Philadelphia, retaining the top spot for almost a decade.