WBSF

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = WBSF
city =
station_
station_slogan =
station_branding = CW46 Mid Michigan
analog = 46 (UHF) (currently analog only| digital = 46 (future)
other_chs =
affiliations = The CW
network =
founded =
airdate = September 15, 2006
location = Bay City/Saginaw/Flint, Michigan
callsign_meaning = Bay City
Saginaw
Flint
former_callsigns =
former_channel_numbers =
owner = Barrington Broadcasting Company, LLC
licensee = Barrington Bay City License, LLC
sister_stations = WEYI-TV
former_affiliations =
effective_radiated_power = 1600 kW
HAAT = 306.2 m
class =
facility_id = 82627
coordinates = coord|43|28|26.8|N|83|50|44.5|W|type:landmark_scale:2000
homepage = [http://www.cw46online.com/ www.cw46online.com]
: "For the former Home Shopping Network affiliate in Melbourne, Florida, see WOTF-TV."WBSF, (known as the air as CW 46) is the CW affiliate for the Flint-Saginaw-Bay City, Michigan television market. Formerly affiliated with The WB, it is operated by Barrington Broadcasting Company, which also operates WEYI, the NBC affiliate for the same market.

WBSF signed on its analog transmitter on September 13, 2006. However, WBSF has been seen on cable since 2004, and it was on WEYI's digital second digital subchannel until September 5, 2008. The station was also the Detroit Pistons' Mid-Michigan home from the station's inception until 2006; then-fellow WB affiliate WMYD (channel 20) in Detroit, along with WDIV-TV (channel 4), Detroit's NBC affiliate, became the flagship Pistons stations during the fall of 2004. (Until WBSF was formed, Mid-Michigan viewers watched Pistons games through another Detroit station, WKBD.)

Prior to WBSF's opening in 2004, WB programming was seen on WEYI in the early-2000s, mainly in the overnight periods. Before WEYI's involvement began, mid-Michigan had no WB service, other than from Chicago's WGN-TV, when they had WB programming nationwide, prior to 1999.

Like WMYD, WBSF was the last television station in its market to air cartoons on weekday afternoons. Since December 30, 2005, Kids' WB has been shown only on Saturday mornings, replaced by the Daytime WB block.

With the merger of The WB and UPN to become The CW, WBSF became the Flint-Saginaw-Bay City-Midland CW affiliate in the fall of 2006. Because of this, a chance existed that WKBD (which, along with WBKP, are the only other analog over-the-air CW affiliates in Michigan) would be dropped from the market's cable systems, as both WBSF and WKBD would be CW affiliates (however, in the case of Midland, two CBS affiliates do coexist on the same cable system); this occurred on Charter's Tri-Cities systems, which replaced WKBD with WNEM-TV's MyNetworkTV subchannel, which became the new home of Pistons basketball that year.

As a result of the network change, WBSF rebranded from "Mid Michigan's WB" to "CW46 Mid Michigan." However, its call letters were not changed, as the "B" in the call letters also stands for Bay City, the station's city of license. ("S" and "F" stand for Saginaw and Flint, respectively.)

Newscast

WBSF once aired a daily 7 o'clock newscast, titled "The 7 O'Clock News on CW46", which was produced by WEYI. It was canceled in April 2008.

Digital television

Because it was granted an original construction permit after the FCC finalized the DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997 [http://www.transmitter.com/FCC97115/chanplan.html] , the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital television station. Instead, on or before February 17, 2009, which is the end of the digital TV conversion period for full-service stations, WBSF will be required to turn off its analog signal and turn on its digital signal (called a "flash-cut").

For this reason, WBSF used WEYI's second digital subchannel for its digital broadcasts (WEYI-DT2), until September 5, 2008. However, the picture was only standard definition, due to the limited bandwidth available on WEYI's digital signal.

On September 5, 2008, Barrington Broadcasting turned off WBSF's digital channel. Since September 10, 2008, WEYI's second digital subchannel (WEYI-DT2) has been a SD simulcast of their analog channel. Therefore, WBSF is currently analog only, but Barrington Broadcasting plans to install WBSF's digital transmitter and tower during October and November and have it online in time for the federally mandated analog shut off date of February 17, 2009. According to the FCC database, WBSF has a construction permit for digital channel 46.
Barrington Broadcasting plans to use the same protocol for WBSF's digital channels as it does for WEYI's: WBSF-DT1 will show national CW programs in HD, and WBSF-DT2 will show them in SD.

External links

*TVQ|WBSF
*BIA|WBSF|TV|TV