"Mid-State Television" redirects here. For the similarly branded television station in New South Wales, Australia, see CBN (Australian TV station). For the Australian TV network formerly known as Mid State Television, see Prime7.
For the television station in Wilmington, North Carolina, that used the callsign from 1954 to 1958, see WECT.
WMFD-TV (channel 68) is an independent television stationinMansfield, Ohio, United States. It is owned by Mid-State Television, Inc., along with sister radio stations WVNO-FM (106.1) and WRGM (1440 AM/106.7 FM). The stations share studios on Park Avenue West in Ontario, Ohio (with a Mansfield mailing address), where WMFD-TV's transmitter is also located.
The station first signed on the air on January 10, 1986, as WCEO-TV, originally broadcasting on UHF channel 68.[2] It changed its call letters to WCOM on July 24, 1987. The station attempted to enter the Columbus market by construction with a tall transmitter tower (the tallest ever erected in Ohio) south of Mansfield in Butler, but it never achieved cable carriage in the market and shut down in 1989.
Channel 68 returned to the air under the current WMFD-TV call letters on June 1, 1992; this time, targeting viewers in north-central Ohio (the WMFD-TV callsign was previously used on what is now WECTinWilmington, North Carolina, from that station's sign-on in 1954 until 1958).
Mid-State Multimedia Group, Mansfield's only locally owned media outlet, and home base to WMFD-TV, along with sister radio stations WRGM AM-FM and WVNO FM.
As the only full-power television station specifically serving the Mid-Ohio region, WMFD concentrates on local programming such as Bon Appetit: The Dining Show and Focus on North Central Ohio.
The station produces local newscasts, branded as NewsWatch, which air Monday through Friday. WMFD also airs Mid-Ohio area high school football and basketball games.
Outside of local programs, the station fills out the remainder of its schedule with syndicated programming and infomercials.
WMFD-TV signed on its digital signal on VHF channel 12 in 1998, claiming to be the first independent station in the United States to begin digital television broadcasts. The station shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 68, on June 16, 2008.[3] The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition VHF channel 12.[4]
