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The [[Meredith Corporation]] purchased WPGH-TV in 1978 and added stronger shows and some first-run syndicated talk shows to the station. It also gradually added more recent off-network sitcoms. With WPTT-TV (channel 22, now WPNT) now in the competition, WPGH-TV put in very high bids for programming and even overpaid for some to prevent shows from ending up on WPTT-TV. That practice, however, caused the station to become unprofitable despite its high ratings. As a result, Meredith put WPGH-TV up for sale in 1985. The [[Sinclair Broadcast Group]] (owner of WPTT-TV) put in a bid so it could combine assets and sell WPTT-TV to the [[Home Shopping Network]] (HSN). However, it was outbid by [[Lorimar-Telepictures]] which took over the station in 1986. |
The [[Meredith Corporation]] purchased WPGH-TV in 1978 and added stronger shows and some first-run syndicated talk shows to the station. It also gradually added more recent off-network sitcoms. With WPTT-TV (channel 22, now WPNT) now in the competition, WPGH-TV put in very high bids for programming and even overpaid for some to prevent shows from ending up on WPTT-TV. That practice, however, caused the station to become unprofitable despite its high ratings. As a result, Meredith put WPGH-TV up for sale in 1985. The [[Sinclair Broadcast Group]] (owner of WPTT-TV) put in a bid so it could combine assets and sell WPTT-TV to the [[Home Shopping Network]] (HSN). However, it was outbid by [[Lorimar-Telepictures]] which took over the station in 1986. |
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==Fox affiliation (1986–present)== |
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WPGH-TV became Pittsburgh's charter [[Fox Broadcasting Company|Fox]] affiliate upon the network's October 9, 1986, launch; the station was sold to [[Renaissance Broadcasting]] in 1987 after Lorimar-Telepictures reduced the purchase price from $35 million to $21.5 million.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE0DE173DF93AA35752C0A961948260 |title=The New York Times – COMPANY NEWS; Lorimar Cuts TV Deal Price |access-date=August 5, 2008 |work=[[The New York Times]] | date=January 9, 1987}}</ref> As a Fox affiliate, WPGH-TV continued to receive very high ratings. However, it also continued to overpay for programming, keeping it in the red. It was put up for sale again in 1990, and this time, Sinclair was the successful buyer. However, the group struggled to obtain financing, so it worked out a deal to sell WPTT-TV to its general manager and longtime employee Eddie Edwards. Sinclair took over operations of WPGH-TV through a [[local marketing agreement]] (one of the earliest such LMAs to be formed) in the fall of 1991 and moved the best programming on WPTT-TV's schedule to WPGH-TV. The former then became a full-time Home Shopping Network affiliate at midnight on August 30, 1991, with plans of gradually adding entertainment programming. |
WPGH-TV became Pittsburgh's charter [[Fox Broadcasting Company|Fox]] affiliate upon the network's October 9, 1986, launch; the station was sold to [[Renaissance Broadcasting]] in 1987 after Lorimar-Telepictures reduced the purchase price from $35 million to $21.5 million.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE0DE173DF93AA35752C0A961948260 |title=The New York Times – COMPANY NEWS; Lorimar Cuts TV Deal Price |access-date=August 5, 2008 |work=[[The New York Times]] | date=January 9, 1987}}</ref> As a Fox affiliate, WPGH-TV continued to receive very high ratings. However, it also continued to overpay for programming, keeping it in the red. It was put up for sale again in 1990, and this time, Sinclair was the successful buyer. However, the group struggled to obtain financing, so it worked out a deal to sell WPTT-TV to its general manager and longtime employee Eddie Edwards. Sinclair took over operations of WPGH-TV through a [[local marketing agreement]] (one of the earliest such LMAs to be formed) in the fall of 1991 and moved the best programming on WPTT-TV's schedule to WPGH-TV. The former then became a full-time Home Shopping Network affiliate at midnight on August 30, 1991, with plans of gradually adding entertainment programming. |
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| Branding | Pittsburgh's Fox 53 |
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Call sign meaning | Pittsburgh |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 73875 |
| ERP | 800 kW |
| HAAT | 302.8 m (993 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 40°29′43″N 80°0′16″W / 40.49528°N 80.00444°W / 40.49528; -80.00444 |
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Public license information |
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| Website | wpgh53 |
WPGH-TV (channel 53) is a television stationinPittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside dual CW and MyNetworkTV affiliate WPNT (channel 22). The two stations share studios on Ivory Avenue in the city's Summer Hill neighborhood, where WPGH-TV's transmitter is also located.
When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opened up applications for new TV stations after a years-long freeze, in 1952, it allocated three commercial ultra high frequency (UHF) TV channels to the city. The only applicant for channel 53 was Agnes Jane Reeves Greer, owner of WKJF-FM, the city's only standalone FM radio station.[2] The FCC awarded permits for the other two UHF channels, 16 and 47, in December 1952; it deferred action on the channel 53 application until Reeves supplied "further information",[3] granting it on January 8, 1953. Two executives from Pittsburgh's only operating TV station, WDTV, left to take up posts with the new WKJF-TV.[4] Officials expected to be on the air within months based on a prior equipment order.[5] The planned spring date was scrapped when a strike at General Electric delayed fabrication of the antenna, to be fastened to WKJF's tower on Mount Washington.[6] It arrived in July,[7] but a dispute over union jurisdiction held up completion of the job.[8]
On July 11, 1953, WKJF-TV put out its first test picture; it was on for five minutes and still elicited a call from a viewer.[9] A regular schedule of test patterns followed starting on August 14.[10] Days before launching, the station finally secured network programming in the form of a secondary affiliation with NBC. WDTV continued to enjoy right of first refusal to telecast NBC programs in Pittsburgh, so WKJF-TV would only get those programs not aired by channel 2.[11] On July 28, the station initiated its first test programs beyond a pattern.[12] From studios on Grandview Avenue,[13] WKJF-TV began airing regular programming on August 1, 1953. At the end of August, after an AT&T network loop was completed to the Mount Washington facility, the first NBC shows appeared on the station.[14][15][16] In at least one instance, the station also carried a DuMont Television Network program; WDTV passed over DuMont's Boxing from Eastern Parkway Arena to carry Studio One, so WKJF-TV picked it up.[17]
WKJF-TV was one of two UHF stations to start in Pittsburgh in 1953, the other being WENS on channel 16, which operated at much higher power.[16][18] Further, UHF stations performed poorly in rougher terrain.[19] Though Pittsburgh had only one pre-freeze and very high frequency station, WDTV on channel 2, much of the city could receive a second VHF station, WJAC-TV on channel 6. These stations could be received by any set, unlike WENS and WKJF-TV, which required converters to view on many VHF-only sets.[20] On July 2, 1954, the station left the air indefinitely, expressing hope of returning if Congress did something to alleviate the plight of UHF stations;[21][22] it lost $1 million in its operational history.[23] WENS remained on air but struggled to get sponsors despite carrying popular network shows.[24]
A Cleveland mail-order distributor expressed interest in buying WKJF-TV in 1955; he would have renamed the station WDAV and run it for the benefit of disabled veterans.[25] The deal never came to fruition as the owners waited for the UHF situation to change.[26] Rumors circulated that the group putting together Pittsburgh's new VHF station on channel 11 was interested in the property.[27] The call sign on the channel 53 permit was changed from WKJF-TV to WAND-TV on March 13, 1961;[28] the WAND letters had belonged to a Reeves-owned station in Canton, Ohio.[29] The antenna was dismantled in 1962 and replaced with a new FM antenna for the co-located radio station;[30] the former television facility was leased to another tenant.[31]
In November 1964, the FCC told 29 permittees of inactive UHF stations, including WAND-TV, that they faced losing their permits unless action was taken to put them back into service.[32] Faced with the pressing FCC action, in February 1965, Reeves Greer agreed to sell to the New York–based Overmyer Communications Corporation, owned by Daniel H. Overmyer. The purchase presented a complication for Overmyer, as it was the eighth station he was attempting to acquire and the ownership limit was seven stations.[29] The $28,000 transaction did not include any physical facilities.[33] Overmyer, as well as a group attempting to reactivate WENS, were encouraged not only by the FCC's action but by the All-Channel Receiver Act making all new sets UHF-compatible.[34] The FCC denied Overmyer's petition to waive the ownership rule and returned the original filing as unacceptable.[35] It was refiled and approved by the FCC in July.[36]
On November 30, 1965, WAND-TV became WECO-TV, one of four stations named for Daniel Overmyer's children—in this case, Elizabeth C. Overmyer.[28][37] Overmyer had opted not to lease any facilities from WKJF,[36] By March 1966, Overmyer was preparing to put the station on the air for the fall television season as Pittsburgh's first independent station, with a mix of syndicated shows and network programs preempted by the local affiliates. Even before signing on, the station acquired mobile video tape recording equipment.[38] Overmyer was still promising this in May, along with a series of 22 new warehouses to be located in the Pittsburgh area.[39]
Soon after, Overmyer's quest to build WECO-TV hit a series of snags. The station was on target to launch in September when crews erecting its tower found that the anchor points for two of its three guy wires were over abandoned mine shafts, and a third such tunnel was also found.[40] This forced a change of site for the tower and delayed the prospective launch date to June 1967.[41] The delay prevented WECO-TV from being part of its owner's planned Overmyer Network, which went on the air as the United Network on May 1, 1967. Its lone offering, The Las Vegas Show, aired on WIIC-TV.[42]
Needing financing to finish construction of WPGH-TV and the other station permits he held nationwide, Overmyer agreed on March 28, 1967, to sell 80-percent majority control of his construction permits to the American Viscose Corporation (AVC).[43][44][45] One partner in the investment firm facilitating the sale with Overmyer was a stockholder in WPHL-TV, an existing UHF station in Philadelphia; another partner was appointed to the AVC board of directors after the sale.[46] AVC arranged to merge the Overmyer permits with WPHL's parent company to form U.S. Communications Corporation on June 8, 1967, giving the combined company six television stations in the top fifty markets.[47][a] The FCC approved the sale on December 8, 1967,[48][49][50] waiving a proposed rule in place since 1965[51] that sought to limit television station ownership within the top fifty markets;[52] a practice the FCC had employed before in similar transactions.[53]
Days after the deal was approved, Rep. Harley O. Staggers, chairman of the House Investigations Subcommittee, summoned all FCC members to testify over the decision not to hold hearings.[54][50] FCC chairman Rosel H. Hyde testified that if a hearing had been ordered, the sale would have been abandoned. Hyde stated, "I believe that the possibility of refinancing the UHF stations would have failed had we designated the matter for hearing",[55] and that any hearing "...might very well have defeated this effort to salvage a sinking enterprise."[56] Hyde concluded Overmyer's application was sufficient for approval"[57] and agreed with commissioner Kenneth A. Cox that the true nature of the transaction was to raise funds to save the warehouse business.[58] Cox criticized the submission of out-of-pocket expenses and the loan and option agreement in the transaction, claiming it violated an FCC policy by providing a profit.[59]
When the deal closed on January 15, 1968, Overmyer received the second $1.5 million portion of the total $3 million agreed to in the loan contract.[49] AVC was an investment company with no experience in television broadcasting, thus only provided financing for U.S. Communications, while WPHL was used for leadership: two WPHL executives became part of U.S.'s management team.[60][61][62] Overmyer's role was limited to only his 20-percent stock in the Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Houston permits, with no managerial oversight; U.S. also included a provision that could compel Overmyer to divest his 20-percent interest[49] and an option to purchase it between January 16, 1971, and January 15, 1972.[63] The contract limited the highest purchase price to $3 million, the same amount AVC had loaned to Overmyer; the loan was secured by second mortgages on twenty-three of Overmyer's warehouse properties and his 20 percent interest in the TV stations.[64] U.S. never executed its option to buy the stock,[65] and Overmyer repaid the $3 million loan.[66]
After the sale to AVC, planning moved forward in Pittsburgh. By July 1968, the firm was still scouting a site for channel 53, which would have a far more powerful signal than the old WKJF-TV.[67] The station set up its studios, offices, and transmitter at 750 Ivory Avenue in the North Hills area;[68][69] the Ivory facility had previously belonged to WENS.[70] The Pittsburgh Ad Club held a contest to select new call letters to replace WECO-TV,[71] taking the call sign WPGH on December 7.[28]
WPGH-TV made its on-air debut on February 1, 1969—the first broadcast from channel 53 in nearly 15 years.[72] Programs included a local version of Bozo the Clown; Dark Shadows and the CBS Sunday Night News, which the local affiliates did not or were about to cease airing;[73][74] syndicated sports heretofore unavailable in Pittsburgh;[75] and daily movies.[74] Local programming included Duquesne Dukes men's basketball;[75] Pittsburgh Penguins hockey;[76] and an interview show, Pittsburgh Now.[77]
U.S. Communications struggled with the station permits it had acquired from Overmyer and built out. In July 1970, WPGH-TV cut back its broadcasting day to start at noon on weekdays, 3 p.m. on Saturdays, and 1 p.m. on Sundays.[78] The company's woes became more acutely felt in 1971. On March 31, due to financial problems, the firm shut down its stations in San Francisco (KEMO-TV) and Atlanta (WATL).[79] On August 5, 1971, The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. Communications had asked the FCC for permission to take WPGH-TV and WXIX-TVinCincinnati off the air.[80] The two stations, however, got a reprieve because they had instead attracted potential buyers.[81] In the case of WPGH-TV, the reprieve was short-lived. On the afternoon of August 16, 1971, U.S. Communications informed the 48 employees of channel 53 that the station would cease broadcasting at 6 p.m., with the entire staff being laid off.[82]
AVC began liquidating the U.S. Communications stations. With the February 1972 sale of WPHL-TV, the only station never threatened with closure, WPGH-TV became the last unsold station.[83] It was instead assigned to a liquidating receiver.[28] A Black-led group, Aquarius Broadcasting, investigated the purchase,[84] but Leon Crosby emerged the winner in a November 1972 bankruptcy court hearing. Crosby, who also bought KEMO-TV in San Francisco from AVC,[83] promised to program WPGH-TV as an independent station with a mix of movies, reruns, children's shows, and sports, as well as local program concepts that had been successful in San Francisco such as a Black variety show.[85] Crosby and his company, Pittsburgh Telecasting, spent most of 1973 awaiting FCC approval; during that time, a tilt in the antenna was identified as a possible cause of signal reception issues in some areas.[70] The commission granted the purchase on December 12, 1973.[28] To get the station back into operating condition, rotting carpets had to be removed from the studio.[86]
WPGH-TV returned to the air on January 14, 1974. Like its prior incarnation, it picked up preempted network programs; this time, it added some morning programming from the Christian Broadcasting Network.[87]
Initially, the station broadcast for 10 hours daily, beginning at around 2 pm. The station gradually added more hours to its programming lineup, broadcasting about 18 hours a day by the end of the decade.
The deep bass and melodious voice of announcer William C. Trushel II was often heard during station identification and other audio spots. It was a typical independent station airing cartoons, off-network sitcoms and dramas, movies, and religious programs.
WPGH-TV also became known for some locally produced programming fare. Using a similar strategy for producing local programs on KEMO-TV, Crosby believed in creative types willing to cross-train and work cheap very early in their careers, and packaged the shows in a way to make them more attractive to advertisers.
Among the more successful programs included a Polka dance show videotaped at the WPGH-TV studios, and attempting to copy the popular Chiller Theatre program on NBC competitor WIIC-TV, it aired Thing Theater; a show produced around B-grade horror movies, hosted by a man calling himself "Scorpio". The show aired on Saturday afternoons until the station began clearing college football games. In its early years, the station also cleared CBS, ABC, and NBC programs that KDKA-TV, WTAE-TV, and WIIC-TV passed on.
The Meredith Corporation purchased WPGH-TV in 1978 and added stronger shows and some first-run syndicated talk shows to the station. It also gradually added more recent off-network sitcoms. With WPTT-TV (channel 22, now WPNT) now in the competition, WPGH-TV put in very high bids for programming and even overpaid for some to prevent shows from ending up on WPTT-TV. That practice, however, caused the station to become unprofitable despite its high ratings. As a result, Meredith put WPGH-TV up for sale in 1985. The Sinclair Broadcast Group (owner of WPTT-TV) put in a bid so it could combine assets and sell WPTT-TV to the Home Shopping Network (HSN). However, it was outbid by Lorimar-Telepictures which took over the station in 1986.
WPGH-TV became Pittsburgh's charter Fox affiliate upon the network's October 9, 1986, launch; the station was sold to Renaissance Broadcasting in 1987 after Lorimar-Telepictures reduced the purchase price from $35 million to $21.5 million.[88] As a Fox affiliate, WPGH-TV continued to receive very high ratings. However, it also continued to overpay for programming, keeping it in the red. It was put up for sale again in 1990, and this time, Sinclair was the successful buyer. However, the group struggled to obtain financing, so it worked out a deal to sell WPTT-TV to its general manager and longtime employee Eddie Edwards. Sinclair took over operations of WPGH-TV through a local marketing agreement (one of the earliest such LMAs to be formed) in the fall of 1991 and moved the best programming on WPTT-TV's schedule to WPGH-TV. The former then became a full-time Home Shopping Network affiliate at midnight on August 30, 1991, with plans of gradually adding entertainment programming.
WPGH-TV had a huge inventory of programming, but with Fox stepping up its programming, it soon ran out of timeslots to run a large amount of it. So beginning on January 6, 1992, WPGH-TV began running shows on WPTT-TV that it lacked the time to run itself. WPGH-TV bought the 3 p.m. to midnight time period on WPTT-TV. That station continued running HSN for fifteen hours a day. In 1993, WPGH-TV programmed WPTT-TV daily from noon to midnight. Beginning in 1995, it controlled the entire day's programming on WPTT-TV, except for a few hours in the overnight. WPGH-TV then added more first-run syndicated talk and reality shows along with recent cartoons, and sitcoms, while WPTT-TV ran older classic sitcoms, cartoons, movies, drama shows, and some recent sitcoms.
In 1998, to coincide with the launch of its news department the year prior, WPGH-TV launched a new logo based around the colors of black and gold to match that of the city's local sports teams. The station, under various forms of the logo, still use it today, and would later be copied by fellow Fox affiliate and sister station WTTEinColumbus, Ohio, who in 2000 adopted a similar logo in a scarlet and gray color scheme to match the Ohio State Buckeyes.
WPGH-TV and WPTT-TV (the latter has changed its call letters to WCWB after gaining the WB affiliation from WNPA, channel 19, now WPKD-TV) moved into the same building in 1997 and eventually became officially co-owned by Sinclair in 2000 after the FCC relaxed its media ownership rules to allow one company to own two television stations in the same market, provided the market has at least eight full-power stations and that one or both of the stations involved in the duopoly are not among the four highest-rated.
By 2002, WPGH-TV was no longer running cartoons after the Fox Kids weekday lineup was discontinued around the country. It focused now on court shows, talk shows, reality shows, and off-network sitcoms along with Fox programming. Until 2007, the station served as the de facto affiliate for the Wheeling, West Virginia/Steubenville, Ohio market. Although it is still carried on area cable systems, CBS affiliate WTRF-TV added a primary Fox and secondary MyNetworkTV affiliation on a new digital subchannel; sister station WTOV-TV later acquired the Fox affiliation for their second subchannel in 2014. It can also be seen in some parts of the Clarksburg/Weston/Morgantown, West Virginia market, even though that area is served by WVFX.
On May 15, 2012, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Fox agreed to a five-year extension to the network's affiliation agreement with Sinclair's 19 Fox stations, including WPGH-TV, allowing them to continue carrying Fox programming through 2017.[89]
Since acquiring the rights to the NFL's NFC broadcasts in 1994, WPGH-TV normally airs two Pittsburgh Steelers games each season (when they host an NFC team at Acrisure Stadium). A change in the NFL broadcasting contracts for the 2014 NFL season allowing cross-network flex-scheduling allows WPGH-TV the opportunity to broadcast more Steelers games, but as of 2017, the NFL has not yet cross-flexed a Steelers game from CBS (KDKA-TV, in turn) to Fox (and to WPGH, in turn). The Steelers' 2018 Sunday night matchup with the Oakland Raiders, however, was flexed out into the afternoon and will air on Fox, giving WPGH-TV its first all-AFC Steelers matchup.[90]
Under Meredith ownership, WPGH-TV aired locally produced newscasts anchored by Tom Peterson, Mavis Logan, Tim Sohier and others, with varying degrees of success. One such show, Good Day Pittsburgh, aired with a similar format to that of contemporary show Pittsburgh 2Day on KDKA-TV. Some of the staff were alumni of WYTV in nearby Youngstown, Ohio. The newscasts would remain in some form until Sinclair acquired the station and eliminated the news department.[91]
Under Sinclair ownership, WPGH-TV established a news department on January 28, 1997, with the debut of a nightly prime time newscast called the Fox 53 Ten O'Clock News.[92] This program was launched to compete with NBC affiliate WPXI's Pittsburgh Cable News Channel (PCNC), which also offered a 10 p.m. news broadcast in that timeslot. In August 2001, UPN affiliate WNPA launched Pittsburgh's third 10 p.m. newscast, produced by CBS station KDKA-TV.
Sinclair downsized and converted WPGH-TV's news operation into its centralized News Central production on April 21, 2003.[93][94] As a result, the station's weather department was shut down. National news headlines, weather forecasts, and some sports segments originated from Sinclair's corporate headquarters on Beaver Dam Road in Hunt Valley, Maryland. However, local news and sports segments remained based at WPGH-TV's studios.
On January 12, 2006, WPGH-TV shuttered its in-house news department and entered into a news share agreement with WPXI-TV (owned by Cox Media Group) to take over production of the prime time newscast on WPGH. Essentially, PCNC's 10 p.m. show moved over to WPGH-TV.[95] All of WPGH-TV's locally based news staff, except for sportscaster Alby Oxenreiter (who was eventually hired by WPXI full-time), were laid off as a result. The news share agreement with WPXI resulted in WPGH-TV becoming the largest Fox station by market size that outsources its local news programming in lieu of producing its own newscasts; it's also the second largest "Big Four" affiliate (after WPGH-TV's sister station KDNL-TVinSt. Louis) that doesn't produce its own newscasts. Channel 11 News on Fox 53 at 10 debuted just over two weeks later on January 30, 2006; the program originates from WPXI's studios on Evergreen Road in Pittsburgh's Summer Hill neighborhood, next to the US 19 Truck/I-279 interchange. It airs Sunday through Friday nights for 45 minutes, followed by a fifteen-minute sports highlight show called Ox on Fox Sports Extra (hosted by Alby Oxenreiter). On Saturdays, the newscast is 30 minutes long. On October 6, 2007, WPXI began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition, the WPGH-TV shows were included in the upgrade.
Unlike other Sinclair-owned stations with outsourced newscasts, WPGH-TV is permitted to air Sinclair's must-run programming as part of the newscasts, but must air them after the WPXI-produced newscast with a brief disclaimer stating that the editorials are from Sinclair and not WPXI; as a result, WPGH does not air Sinclair's must-runs, though it does air other political programming from Sinclair in prime time during election years due to Pennsylvania's status as a swing state.[96] Because WPGH-TV no longer operates its own news department, Pittsburgh is not available as a local option for Sinclair's streaming service Stirr, defaulting to WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C., though neighboring WJAC-TV and WTOV-TV are available as alternate options.
Since August 2016, the WPXI newscasts have been repeated at midnight on sister WPNT.[97]
On January 18, 2021, WPGH-TV began airing the Sinclair-produced The National Desk, a national morning news program similar in format to Nexstar Media Group's NewsNation in that it sources its news from local stations within Sinclair. None of Sinclair's must-run editorials will air during The National Desk.[98]
On March 14, 2022, Channel 11 News on Fox 53 at 6:30 debuted, replacing a second hour of You Bet Your Life with Jay Leno.[99]
On January 8, 2024, Channel 11 Morning News on Fox 53 debuted at 7 am, replacing one hour of The National Desk.
The station's signal is multiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 53.1 | 720p | 16:9 | FOX | Fox |
| 53.2 | 480i | Antenna | Antenna TV | |
| 53.3 | Charge! | Charge! | ||
| 22.1 | 720p | 16:9 | MyTV | The CW/MyNetworkTV (WPNT) |
Along with all Sinclair-owned stations, WPGH-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 53, on February 17, 2009, the original date on which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (the deadline was later extended to June 12). The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 43,[101][102] using virtual channel 53. It was one of three stations in Pittsburgh to discontinue normal programming on their analog signals on the original transition date, alongside sister station WPNT and then-WQED-owned WQEX (now WINP-TV).
As part of the SAFER Act,[103] WPGH-TV and WPNT kept their analog signals on the air until March 19 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters. Due to the early sign-off, this made WPGH-TV one of the only stations broadcasting among channels 52–69 participating in the SAFER Act as that part of the spectrum would be removed from broadcasting use immediately after June 12 to be freed up for other uses.
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