WMLW-TV
WMLW-TV is an independent television station licensed to Racine, Wisconsin, United States, serving the Milwaukee area. It is owned by Weigel Broadcasting alongside CBS affiliate WDJT-TV and two low-power stations: Telemundo affiliate WYTU-LD and Class A MeTV owned-and-operated station WBME-CD. The stations share studios in the Renaissance Center office complex on South 60th Street in West Allis; WMLW-TV's transmitter is located in Milwaukee's Lincoln Park.
Even though WMLW-TV is licensed as a full-power station, it shares spectrum with WBME-CD, whose broadcasting radius does not reach all of southeastern Wisconsin. Therefore, the station is simulcast in 16:9 widescreen standard definition on WDJT-TV's third digital subchannel to reach the entire market. This relay signal can be seen on channel 58.3 from the same Lincoln Park transmitter facility.
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 the late Joel Kinlow, a Milwaukee area minister who died on June 7, 2016; his estate and children continue to own Elm Grove-based WGLB. 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 outright minority-owned and run stations in the United States. By 1995, WJJA had dropped HSN programming for The Military Channel. Kinlow dropped that network the following year, and returned to HSN, eventually affiliating with Shop at Home in 2001.When CBS-affiliated WITI switched to Fox in December 1994, Kinlow decided not to affiliate with CBS when approached by the network with an offer to become an affiliate. Kinlow claimed he wanted to maintain his staff while continuing to give broadcasting experience and training to many different people beyond those usually hired to operate a television station. He felt the station could accomplish this better without the responsibilities and obligations of serving as a major network affiliate. The CBS affiliation eventually wound up on WDJT.
Throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, WJJA continued to air Shop at Home programming, while also airing FCC-required educational programming, local church services, public domain sitcoms, and other programs relevant to local residents of Racine and Milwaukee, mostly during the morning. Its cable coverage at the time was usually limited to Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, Walworth and Waukesha counties under must-carry provisions, with the remainder of the market unable to watch it outside of over-the-air reception.
On May 16, 2006, Shop at Home parent E. W. Scripps Company announced that the network would suspend operations, effective June 22 of that year. However, the network's liquidation sale ended one day early on June 21, and WJJA switched to Jewelry Television in the meantime. Shop at Home resumed operations on June 23 after Jewelry Television purchased some assets relating to that network, and began to air a split schedule of programming, with JTV in the morning and afternoon, and Shop at Home during the evening. Shop at Home eventually shut down again in March 2008, and WJJA's last month under Kinlow ownership featured a 24-hour schedule of Jewelry Television programming.
On August 1, 2007, Weigel Broadcasting announced its intention to purchase WJJA. The Federal Communications Commission granted approval for the transfer in mid-September 2007, though the license and financial transfers between the two parties, along with the poor condition of the station's transmitter tower in the southeastern Milwaukee County suburb of Oak Creek took months longer to settle before Weigel could take full control of the station.
As WBME-TV (MeTV Milwaukee)
On April 21, 2008, Weigel assumed full control of the station, and at 12:30 pm, Jewelry Television was replaced by a test card and color bars. Later that afternoon, it became the full-power Milwaukee home of MeTV. Weigel immediately filed to change the station's call letters to WBME-TV; this became official on April 29, 2008.MeTV was originally launched in Milwaukee on WDJT digital subchannel 58.3 on March 1, 2008, at 5 am, with an episode of Route 66. MeTV had full cable coverage throughout the market on Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications, requiring a digital cable receiver to watch the station as it launched on channel 201 of both cable providers. This simulcast continued while technical issues were worked out as WBME transitioned to Weigel's West Allis studios, and Weigel eventually received carriage on both DirecTV and Dish Network on the basic tier of all of those services, as it is allowed to assert must-carry status with those providers. The station had asserted must-carry status with Time Warner Cable years earlier under Kinlow's ownership and is carried on that system on channel 19, while Weigel and Charter came to an agreement to launch the station on its basic tier in late August 2008; the station airs on that provider on channel 20, or a different position depending on market.
The station activated a new digital transmitter on the Weigel tower in Milwaukee's Lincoln Park on October 20, 2008 to better serve the entire market, while the analog signal continued to transmit from Oak Creek until the end of analog television service on June 12, 2009. On October 30, the simulcast on WDJT-DT3 ended to make way for This TV, a new network from Weigel and MGM Television focusing on movies and classic television series, leaving MeTV to broadcast exclusively on WBME, confining the signal to within the inner ring of the Milwaukee metro area. MeTV has been successful in Milwaukee on WBME, outrating daytime programs seen on the Sinclair Broadcast Group duopoly of WVTV and WCGV-TV as of September 2011.
On November 22, 2010, Weigel announced that they would take the MeTV concept national and compete fully with the Retro Television Network and Antenna TV, while complementing its successful sister network This TV. As of December 15, 2010, WBME-TV carries most of the national feed of MeTV. However the station since coming under Weigel ownership also carries a public affairs program called Racine & Me, which airs weekend mornings on WMLW and WBME, and deals with topics and community calendar events relevant to the station's city of license. The station also carries some different educational and informational programming such as Green Screen Adventures to meet the FCC's mandated E/I thresholds. A locally programmed MeToo subchannel was originally expected to be added as a subchannel, but was later set aside for Weigel's other national subchannel concepts.
Channel 49 becomes WMLW-TV
On August 7, 2012, WMLW and WBME swapped channel allocations. The WMLW callsign and its syndicated and brokered programming inventory moved from low-power channel 41 to full-power channel 49, while the WBME calls and MeTV programming moved to low-power channel 41 as WBME-CA. The switch to the full-power channel 49 signal allowed WMLW to begin broadcasting its programming in high definition for the first time. The swap also resulted in WBME taking over the 58.2 subchannel that WDJT-TV previously used to relay WMLW's signal as a low-power station. WMLW retained Racine & Me on the channel 49 schedule under the same title, with a move to Saturday mornings and upgrade to HD telecasts.In September 2013, WMLW's main channel and subchannel feeds moved exclusively to Time Warner Cable's digital tier as that provider begins the transition to an all-digital system by 2015, requiring a QAM-compatible television or a DTA set-top box to view the station.
On September 15, 2014, WMLW changed its on-air brand to "The M", in imitation of Chicago sister station WCIU-TV, "The U".
Programming
From September 2004 to December 28, 2008, WMLW carried the children's programming block offered by Fox, 4Kids TV, due to Fox affiliate WITI declining to carry the block, taking over for WCGV-TV when that station chose not to continue carrying it. WMLW aired the 4Kids lineup on Sundays at 8 am, one day and one hour later than its usual Saturday timeslot for most of the Central Time Zone, and did not pick up the replacement Weekend Marketplace infomercial block from Fox at the start of 2009, which remains unseen in the Milwaukee market, though WITI took the new Xploration Station block from Fox in September 2014.The station currently carries a three-hour block of syndicated E/I programming on Saturday mornings to fulfill the station's E/I programming requirements. The majority of the station's paid programming airs early on weekdays, Saturday morning and most of Sunday morning.
Sports programming
To attract cable providers during its days as a non-must carry low-power station, WMLW formerly pursued a strong sports lineup to lure them to carry the station, though this has been drawn down as most college and professional teams in the area have partnered with Fox Sports Wisconsin and formerly, Spectrum Sports instead, along with streaming services such as ESPN+. Currently the station's sports output is limited to the WIAA basketball and hockey tournaments, which are produced by Allen Media Group for a statewide broadcast network. Additionally, the station carries a postgame show for any Green Bay Packers games carried by channel 58 through CBS, using WDJT's sports staff, along with other sports analysis shows under the title SportsZone.Prior to 2011, the station aired Labor Day coverage of the US Open tennis tournament from CBS, because of WDJT's commitment as the local "Love Network" affiliate for the annual Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon, along with the first three hours of the show in prime time so WDJT could carry CBS programming; this ended when MDA decided to pursue other formats for the telethon.
From 2008 to 2012, the men's final for each US Open that year was aired on WMLW; as the second Monday in September is traditionally the debut date for new and returning syndicated programming, WDJT passed along the tennis coverage to launch their new series, though in 2011 most of WDJT's syndicated programming moved up their season starts to a day later to compensate. The 2013 men's final was pre-scheduled in advance for the second Monday in September, and WMLW again carried it in lieu of WDJT. In 2014, however, all syndicated programming on WDJT moved their premiere dates to the Tuesday after, allowing WDJT to carry the men's final for the first time in six years without preempting any new programming; this turned out to be the last year CBS would have to work around the issue with the tournament's move entirely to ESPN in 2015.
In August 2016, WMLW sublicensed two games produced by the Green Bay Packers preseason television network from WTMJ-TV, which could not air those games due to NBC's coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics, giving the station its first telecasts of any Packers games. WMLW carried the second and third games of the Packers' 2016 preseason against the Cleveland Browns and Oakland Raiders, both home games at Lambeau Field.