WVCY-TV, virtual channel 30 (UHF digital channel 33), is a religious independent television station licensed to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. The station is owned by VCY America, Inc. WVCY-TV's studios are located on West Vliet Street in Milwaukee, and it shares transmitter facilities with Fox affiliate WITI (channel 6) on East Capitol Drive (just north of WIS 190) in Shorewood. WVCY is also carried on cable television throughout southeastern Wisconsin and invokes must-carry statuses for mandatory carriage.
History[]
The station first signed on the air on January 11, 1983; it has operated as a religious station since its sign-on.
=Attempted purchase by CBS Corporation[]
On May 23, 1994, Fox signed an affiliation deal with New World Communications to shift the network affiliations of the company's stations in 12 markets to Fox starting in the fall of 1994. Locally, the deal included WITI, which would switch from CBS to Fox in December 1994. With only months to find an affiliate, CBS Corporation approached WVCY's owners to purchase the station and make it an owned-and-operated station of that network. Offers to affiliate with the network had already been turned down by NBC affiliate WTMJ-TV (channel 4), ABC affiliate WISN-TV (channel 12, which had been affiliated with CBS from 1961 to 1977), WVTV (channel 18; which had earlier been a CBS owned-and-operated station in the 1950s), WCGV-TV (channel 24) and WJJA (channel 49, now WMLW-TV). The board of VCY America, along with station founder and VCY America chairman Vic Eliason, decided to reject the offer and retain ownership of the station, resulting in CBS then aligning itself with then low-profile independent WDJT-TV (channel 58), which had also initially declined an offer to affiliate with CBS, just days before WITI switched to Fox.
| TV stations in Wisconsin | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3ABN | AMGTV | Azteca | COZI | Daystar | Ion Life | MeTV | Quest | TBN | Telemundo | Independent |
| W23BW-D, Madison | KQEG-CD, La Crosse | WTSJ-LP, Milwaukee | WZCK-LD, Madison-Middleton | WMWD, Madison | WIFS, Janesville | WBME-CD, Milwaukee | WMKE-CD, Milwaukee | WWRS, Mayville | WYTU-LD, Milwaukee | WVCY, Milwaukee |
| W30BU, Green Bay | WIWN, Fond du Lac | WGBD-LD, Green Bay | WMLW, Racine | |||||||
| TV stations in Southeastern Wisconsin, including Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha |
|---|
| WTMJ 4 (NBC) WITI 6 (Fox) WMVS 10 (PBS) WISN 12 (ABC) WVTV 18 (CW) WMKE-CD 21 (Quest) WVTV-DT2 24 (MNTV) WVCY 30 (Rel) WMVT 36 (PBS) WTSJ-LP 38 (AZA) WBME-CD 41 (MeTV) WMLW 49 (Ind.) WWRS 52 (TBN) WPXE 55 (Ion) WDJT 58 (CBS) WYTU-LD 63 (TLM) WIWN 68 (COZI) |