WAST-LP
Television station in Wisconsin, 1997–2006 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
WAST-LP (channel 25) was a low-power television station in Ashland, Wisconsin, United States. The station was a semi-satellite of the UPN-affiliated second digital subchannel of KBJR-TV in Duluth, Minnesota, then-called Northland UPN and Northland 9, but was owned by a separate entity, Martinsen Investments. WAST-LP sold local advertising specifically for the Ashland area, preempting KBJR-DT2's advertising breaks.
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| Channels | |
| Branding | True North TV-25 |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| History | |
| Founded | January 12, 1995 |
First air date | May 14, 1997 |
Last air date |
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Former call signs | W25CA (1995–2000) |
Call sign meaning | Wisconsin Ashland Television |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 8612 |
| Class | TX |
| ERP | 52 kW |
| HAAT | 163 m (535 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 46°41′16.98″N 90°54′23.05″W |
| Links | |
Public license information | LMS |
Since 1997, WAST-LP had been owned by Superior Water Logged Lumber. It struggled financially. A 2001 attempt to sell the station to ESI Broadcasting Corporation of Montana failed; ESI hoped to combine the station with KDUL-LP, a UPN affiliate.[2] The station then went off the air.[3]
In December 2005, Hank Martinsen and Julie Nuutinen put WAST-LP back on the air. The station featured two daily newscasts focusing on Wisconsin-area news. It had news sharing agreements with KBJR-TV and KUWS radio in Superior.[3] The effort was short-lived. On May 2, news director Julie Moravchik was fired; she claimed she was dismissed for not making ownership-ordered staffing cuts. Newsroom employees refused to work for anyone else; 10 of them were fired the following day. To fill the void, newscast replays from KDLH-TV, commonly operated with KBJR, were added to the station's programming.[4] Moravchik was then hired to set up the newsroom at KQDS-TV in Duluth.[5]
On August 1, 2006, the station ended operations and went off the air, a month short of KBJR-DT2's conversion to MyNetworkTV. Despite being off the air for eight years, long after most stations licenses are canceled for not broadcasting, WAST-LP's license remained active until January 3, 2014, when its previous license to broadcast was fully exhausted.[6]
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External links
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