WPGH-TV (channel 53) is a television station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside dual CW/MyNetworkTV affiliate WPNT (channel 22). Both stations share studios on Ivory Avenue in the city's Summer Hill neighborhood, where WPGH-TV's transmitter is also located.
History
Early history of channel 53 (1953–1971) The station originally signed on the air with a test pattern on July 14, 1953 as WKJF-TV, with regular programming starting August 1, becoming Pittsburgh's first UHF television station. The studio and transmitter facilities of both WKJF-TV and WKJF-FM (now KDKA-FM), were located at 1715 Grandview Avenue in Pittsburgh's Duquesne Heights section. WKJF-TV carried some NBC programming declined by their primary affiliate WDTV.
Southwestern Pennsylvania is a very rugged dissected plateau, and compared to VHF, UHF stations typically do not get good reception in rugged terrain. In addition, WKJF-TV was operating at very low power while awaiting delivery of a high-power transmitter. The transmitter upgrade never took place, which severely degraded the reception and area of coverage. At the time, UHF stations could only be seen with a separately purchased converter and UHF antenna (television sets were not required to have UHF tuners until 1964, after passage of the All-Channel Receiver Act), and even then the picture quality was spotty at best. WKJF-TV was certainly no exception to this, with much of Pittsburgh actually receiving better reception from Johnstown's NBC affiliate, WJAC-TV, a VHF station that appeared in the TV listings along with local stations.
The station never thrived against Pittsburgh's then-only VHF station, WDTV (channel 2, now KDKA-TV) which had the additional advantage of affiliation with all the major networks, DuMont, NBC, CBS and ABC. In June 1954, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave WKJF-TV permission to go off the air on July 2 for ninety days pending the outcome of a Senate subcommittee investigation into UHF television. WKJF-TV never signed back on. Pittsburgh would eventually get individual network affiliates when two commercial VHF stations signed on, WIIC-TV (channel 11, now WPXI), in 1957 with NBC and WTAE-TV (channel 4) in 1958 with ABC.
On February 12, 1965, the FCC announced that an application was filed to sell the Channel 53 construction permit (now with call letters WAND-TV) from Agnes Jane Reeves Greer to Daniel H. Overmyer for consideration of $28,000, with the FCC granting approval of the sale on July 28, 1965. Mr. Overmyer was planning a group of UHF stations to be part of the Overmyer Network which was intended to begin programming in 1967. The Pittsburgh station call letters were changed to WECO-TV for one of his daughters, Elizabeth Clark Overmyer.
Channel 53 remained silent for nearly 15 years, it returned to the air under new owners U.S. Communications Corporation on February 1, 1969 as independent station WPGH-TV. It was jointly owned by the U.S. Communications Corporation (a subsidiary of AVC Corporation) station group of Philadelphia holding an 80% interest and the remaining 20% by D.H. Overmyer. Mr. Overmyer had previously sold the majority interest (80%) in his construction permits for stations in Atlanta, Cincinnati, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Houston to AVC on March 28, 1967, with FCC approval of their sale coming December 8, 1967. None of the stations were on the air at the time of their sale to AVC. U.S. Communications also operated WPHL-TV in Philadelphia, WATL-TV in Atlanta, WXIX-TV in Cincinnati and KEMO-TV (now KOFY-TV) in San Francisco. WPGH-TV signed on from its new studio and transmitter location at 750 Ivory Avenue, just north of the city of Pittsburgh. This location had been the home of another Pittsburgh station, WENS, which went off the air in 1957. WPGH-TV still broadcasts from this location today.
To overcome the UHF terrain problem that plagued WKJF-TV, WPGH was only the second station to use the most powerful UHF-TV transmitter available at that time, an RCA 110 kW model TTU-110. Despite excellent signal quality and a well-programmed lineup, financial problems continued to trouble the station, leading U.S. Communications Corporation to take WPGH-TV off the air on August 16, 1971.