WPXA

WPXA
Brand	Positively Entertaining
City of License	Rome, Georgia
Market	Atlanta, Georgia
Channel	16.3 digital 14 virtual Subcarrier 16.4 (Court TV) 16.5 (Laff TV) 16.6 (Court TV Mystery) 16.7 (QVC) 16.8 (HSN) 16.9 (retransmission of WKTB-CD, Telemundo affiliate) Previous: 14 analog (1988-2009) 51 digital (2000-15) 31 digital (2015-19)
Network Affiliation	Current: Ion Television Formerly: Independent (1988-98) PAX (1998-2006) i (2006-07)
Founded	1988
Company	Ion Media (E.W. Scripps subsidiary; Ion Television Licensee LLC)
President
Current Popular Non-Network Shows

WPXA is the call sign for the ION affiliate in the Atlanta GA market and is licensed to the city of Rome GA (approximately 75 miles northwest of Atlanta). It broadcasts on digital channel 16.3, displayed as virtual 14. Its subcarriers carry Court TV (14.2), Laff TV (14.3), Court TV Mystery (14.4), QVC (14.5), HSN (14.6) and a retransmission of Telemundo affiliate WKTB-CD (47.1).

Channel 14 was originally slated to sign on in 1984 under the call WZGA. It wound up opening in 1988 as WAWA and was a standard independent. In 1991 they changed calls to WTLK and began airing network daytime shows passed up by the Atlanta NBC and CBS affiliates in the morning and locally produced and hosted talk shows in the afternoon. They were also jockeying for a place on Atlanta's cable systems. The cable companies were not obliged to pick up an additional channel locally until 1992 when after President George H.W. Bush vetoed a bill requiring cable companies to carry all local stations, Congress overrode it. By 1994, WTLK was on Atlanta's cable systems.

The tiny network Pax (headed out of Florida by Bud Paxson) started up in 1998 and made channel 14 its Atlanta home. The station's call changed to WPXA, where it remains to this day. In 2006, Pax changed to "i" and then a year later it became Ion. As the digital transition neared, WPXA sought to relocate from channel 51.3, where it originated digital broadcasts, to 14, but interference issues precluded the move. Also, WSB (digital 32, virtual 2) has an application pending to broadcast on a translator out of Rome on channel 14. WPXA itself moved its digital signal to channel 31.3 in June 2015, retaining virtual 14. WPXA moved to physical digital channel 16 on September 11, 2019 as WPCH-TV moved from its digital channel of 20 to 31 at that time as a result of the spectrum auction.

WPXA's parent company, Ion Media, has been purchased by E.W. Scripps through a funneling of $600 million from Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway, thus turning Ion Media into a subsidiary. Scripps has sold Ion stations in certain markets to INYO Broadcasting in order to meet ownership caps; Atlanta is not among them. On February 28, 2020, Scripps discontinued the subchannels qubo, Ion Plus, QVC and Ion Shop and started migrating channels from its Katz Broadcasting subsidiary such as Laff (currently on WSB and now on WPXA's subchannel tier), Bounce (WSB), Grit (WGCL) and Court TV (WPCH). The transition started March 1 and will be completed within the next five years as affiliation agreements with the other stations end.

Previous Call Signs

Call	From	To	Notes
WZGA	-	-	Discarded prior to sign-on
WAWA	1988	1991	as independent
WTLK	1991	1998
WPXA	1998	present	Pax, "i", Ion (1998-present)

Digital programming

Virtual	Physical	Name	Programming
14.1	16.3	WPXA-DT	Main WPXA (Ion)
14.2	16.4	WPXA-DT2	Court TV
14.3	16.5	WPXA-DT3	Laff TV
14.4	16.6	WPXA-DT4	Court TV Mystery
14.5	16.7	WPXA-DT5	Defy
14.6	16.8	WPXA-DT6	TrueReal
14.7	16.9	WPXA-DT7	Scripps News
14.8	16.10	WPXA-DT8	HSN2

Mobile DTV programming

Virtual	Physical	Programming
14.82	16.82	Gran Cine
14.85	16.85	NFL Network
14.87	16.87	GolTV
14.88	16.88	NFL Red Zone
14.90	16.90	Starz
14.96	16.96	AirBox

External Sites

• Query the FCC's TV station database for WPXA