WUVG-TV

WUVG-TV is a television station in the greater Atlanta area, on analog TV channel 34, and DTV channel 48. The all-Spanish station is the owned and operated television station of Univisión. The only other Spanish-language channel in the area is WUVM-LP, an LPTV station which carries Azteca America on analog channel 4 only.

History

The station went on air on April 18, 1989 as WNGM-TV with the callsign standing for North Georgia Mountains. Initially the station ran a general entertainment format with cartoons, classic and recent sitcoms,Country music blocks of programming, old movies and syndicated first-run shows.

The station's transmitter was located 60 miles (nearly 100km) away from Atlanta, reaching Athens with a grade A signal while sending a very weak signal into eastern metro Atlanta. As a result, many syndicators sold the rights for shows that were already on the Atlanta stations to WNGM. The station provided an alternative to viewers in areas which had moderate VHF reception and poor UHF reception from Atlanta. However, the station floundered in the ratings. By late 1988, the station was running a blend of infomercials, low-rated syndicated shows and movies, and shop-at-home programming.

In 1989, after the Home Shopping Network failed to buy WVEU (now WUPA 69), it arranged for Whitehead Media to buy WNGM. The station started to air HSN's programming 24 hours a day.

In 1993, it moved its transmitter closer to Atlanta, covering the city with a grade A signal strength. This was the same tower as WFOX/97.1 and Y-106(channel 34 was actually planned for this tower went it went up in 1984!)

In 1996, it switched to an all music videos format as an affiliate of The Box.

The station was bought by USA Broadcasting (which was under the same ownership as HSN, under Barry Diller) in 1997. It became WHOT-TV in October 1999 (for Hotlanta, one of the city's nicknames) and added syndicated cartoons, off-network sitcoms, dramas, old movies and syndicated talk/reality shows to its lineup, along with Fox Kids which it picked up from WATL TV 36. (Currently, the successor to Fox Kids, 4Kids TV, does not air at all in the Atlanta area.) The station didn't receive spectacular ratings, but was still performing decently.

In 2000, WHOT obtained the rights to the Atlanta Hawks basketball games.

USA then planned to sell its stations to ABC-Disney, but Univision outbid its competition in a close race. In markets which already had Univision affiliates, the newly acquired stations became affiliates of Telefutura, a new network started by Univision. However, WHOT was Univision's only station in Atlanta (which had a relatively low, but growing, Spanish-speaking population). As such, the station changed its call sign to WUVG (for Univision Georgia) in November 2001 and became Atlanta's Univision affiliate on January 14, 2002.

Digital television

The station's over the air digital channel is multiplexed: Digital channels

Channel	Programming
34.1 / 48.1	Main WUVG programming / Univisión network
34.2 / 48.2	WUVG-DT2 / TeleFutura network

Analog-to-digtial conversion

After the analog television shutdown scheduled for February 17, 2009 , WUVG-DT will remain on channel 48 using PSIP to display WUVG-TV's virtual channel as 34 on digital television receivers.

Despite still being licensed to Athens, Georgia, the station's digital TV transmitter and antenna is located within the city of Atlanta. This is also very unusual because the FCC normally requires analog and digital coverage to be nearly identical, which this station will not have.