WKBS-TV

For the independent station in Philadelphia that operated on channel 48 from 1965 to 1983, see WKBS-TV (Philadelphia).

Not to be confused with the Korean Broadcasting System.

WKBS-TV (channel 47) is a religious television station in Altoona, Pennsylvania, United States, owned and operated by Cornerstone Television. The station's transmitter is located in Logan Township.

WKBS-TV

Satellite of WPCB-TV, Greensburg–Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Altoona–Johnstown– State College, Pennsylvania United States
City	Altoona, Pennsylvania
Channels	Digital: 6 (VHF) Virtual: 47
Branding	Cornerstone Network
Programming
Affiliations	47.1: Cornerstone TV for others, see § Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	Cornerstone Television, Inc.
History
Founded	October 9, 1984
First air date	November 2, 1985 (39 years ago) (1985-11-02)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 47 (UHF, 1985–2009) Digital: 46 (UHF, 2002–2019) Virtual: 46 (January–February 2021)[citation needed]
Call sign meaning	Kaiser Broadcasting System (original call letters of the former Philadelphia station that went dark in 1983)
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	13929
ERP	3.1 kW[2]
HAAT	305 m (1,001 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	40°34′3.7″N 78°26′25.2″W
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	www.ctvn.org

WKBS-TV operates as a full-time satellite of Cornerstone's flagship station, Greensburg-licensed WPCB-TV (channel 40), whose studios are located in Wall, Pennsylvania. WKBS-TV covers areas of West-Central Pennsylvania that receive a marginal to non-existent over-the-air signal from WPCB-TV, although there is significant overlap between the two stations' contours otherwise. WKBS-TV is a straight simulcast of WPCB-TV; on-air references to WKBS-TV are limited to Federal Communications Commission (FCC)-mandated hourly station identifications during programming. Besides the transmitter, WKBS-TV does not maintain any physical presence in Altoona, and unlike its parent station, it does not broadcast in high definition and has a different subchannel lineup encompassing the Ion Media networks carried in Pittsburgh by Ion owned-and-operated station WINP-TV (channel 16).

History

In 1983, Cornerstone Television was granted a construction permit for channel 47 in Altoona, Pennsylvania, to serve the Johnstown–Altoona market. It bought the transmitter used by the original WKBS-TV (channel 48) in Philadelphia when that station went dark in 1983, and used this transmitter to put channel 47 on the air November 2, 1985, reusing the WKBS-TV call sign.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of WKBS-TV^[3]

Channel	Res.	Aspect	Short name	Programming
47.1	480i	4:3	WKBS	Cornerstone
47.2		16:9	CourtTV	Court TV
47.3			Bounce	Bounce TV
47.4		4:3	Ion	Ion Television
47.5			DABL	Dabl
47.6		16:9	Defy	Ion Plus
47.7			TruReal	Blank (formerly TrueReal)
47.8				Scripps News
47.9		4:3	PFFC	Pittsburgh Faith & Family Channel

Analog-to-digital conversion

WKBS-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 47, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 46, using virtual channel 47.^[4][5]