WMNT-CA - History

History

The station was licensed as W48AP on March 23, 1987, with broadcasts commencing in March 1989 from studios and transmitters located at 716 North Westwood Avenue, in west Toledo. Initially, "HomeTown TV 48" carried a wide variety of locally-produced programming including a trivia quiz game show ("Trivia in Toledo" or "TnT", hosted by Jerry Millen); a current affairs and political program ("High Level Views" hosted by Chuck Schmitt); "Neighbor Talk", an interview-driven talk show hosted by general manager Bob Moore, and featuring local guests talking about topics ranging from political issues to hobbies; a nightly auction program featuring products from local merchants and hosted by Douglas Goff; broadcasts of entertainment acts from local fairs and festivals; a weekly autos and boats for sale program called "Wheels, Keels, and Deals" and a spin-off called "Homes for Sale" featuring local real property and hosted by Bob DuParis; a children's series called "Abracadabra" featuring games, activities, and ventriloquism; a variety show hosted by long-time actor and singer Johnny Ginger; local high school football and basketball games (several each week); as well as other specials and series. Programming during non-prime hours was initially provided by FamilyNet (now seen in Toledo on WLMB TV40), which featured classic movies and religious programs.

Despite the fact that TV48 was widely recognized as a pioneer of community-oriented LPTV, W48AP suffered initially in its bid for cable TV carriage as the local cablesystems did not generally grant LPTV stations space on their networks. This effectively relegated their signal to being viewed on "second TVs" and in the minority of households that did not subscribe to cable—which meant that getting advertising support was difficult. Exaccerbating the difficulties posed by lack of cable carriage, the local newspaper (The Toledo Blade, whose owners, Block Communications, also own the local cable system) refused to publish TV listings for TV48. TV48 bought small ads in the Sunday TV listings booklet, but was not able to list their programming alongside the other stations in the main listing section. However, TV48 was able to secure a cable slot on April 24, 1989 on Buckeye Cablesystem, though on channel 29B (or "B-29", as TV48 referred to it), away from the other local channels. This marginalization of TV48 led to not being able to survive the expense of producing dozens of hours of local programming each week, and by 1990 TV48 had dropped the "HomeTown TV48" moniker and resorted to full-time satellite-fed programming from the short-lived STAR Television Network (featuring classic TV shows from the 1940s through 1970s as well as reruns of old game shows), using the moniker "WAVE TV", and then Channel America.

As a last-ditch effort to keep the TV48 signal on the air and producing a revenue stream, in 1992 TV48 began airing pay-per-view music videos from The Box full-time (with audio simulcast from local CHR radio station WTWR-FM during periods with no videos), which lasted until 1995. Station co-founder Robert S. "Bob" Moore, along with Denny Long, managed the station from its beginning until 1995. W48AP was then sold to Marty and Linda Miller, who affiliated the station with the then-new UPN network in 1995, and changed its call letters to WNGT-LP(New Generation Television) in 1996. After UPN ceased operations in September 2006, WNGT became a MyNetworkTV affiliate, and changed its call letters to WMNT-CA on September 15, 2006. In early 2013, the station's call letters were officially WMNT-LD, due to the fact that the station was still a "Class A" (community based and served) station, but with low power digital signal. The call letter designation was changed due to the switch to DTV, over analog.