WVUE (Delaware)
| Wilmington, Delaware/Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | |
|---|---|
| Channels | Analog: 12 (VHF) |
| Affiliations | defunct (off the air in 1958) |
| Owner | Steinman Stations (1949–1955) Paul F. Harron (1955–1957) Storer Broadcasting (1957–1958) |
| Founded | March 23, 1949 (on channel 7, moved to channel 12 in 1951) |
| Former callsigns | WDEL-TV (1949–1955) WPFH (1955–1957) |
| Former affiliations |
NBC (1949–1955) DuMont (1949–1955, secondary) independent (1955–1958) |
WVUE was a television station in Wilmington, Delaware from 1949 to 1958. For the last part of its history, it attempted to target the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania market. Studios were located in Wilmington.
WVUE first signed in March 1949 as WDEL-TV, owned by the Steinman family of Lancaster, Pennsylvania along with WDEL radio (AM 1150 and FM 93.7, now WSTW). It received a full license on June 30. It shared a studio and tower on Shipley Road in north Wilmington with its radio sisters. It operated on channel 7 as the NBC affiliate for Wilmington, and also carried a secondary affiliation with the DuMont Television Network. At the time, Wilmington was a separate television market.
However, WDEL-TV found the going somewhat difficult. It was forced to operate at only 1,000 watts because it was sandwiched between New York City's WJZ-TV (now WABC-TV) and Washington, D.C.'s WMAL-TV (now WJLA-TV). This resulted in hit-or-miss reception outside of Wilmington itself. In 1951, WDEL-TV moved to channel 12 for two reasons—to allow its sister station in Lancaster, WGAL-TV, to move to channel 8 and to alleviate the aforementioned interference from WJZ-TV and WMAL-TV. The channel switch allowed WDEL-TV to significantly increase its power to cover much of the Philadelphia market. While Philadelphia already had an NBC affiliate, WPTZ-TV (channel 3, later WRCV-TV and now KYW-TV), its transmitter was not strong enough to cover Wilmington at the time. The Steinmans realized that Philadelphia and Wilmington were going to be a single market (Wilmington is only 25 miles southwest of Philadelphia). In hopes of boosting the station's profile, the Steinmans persuaded Joe Pyne, who had been a popular talk show host on WILM radio, to come back to Wilmington and start a talk show there. Pyne stayed at the station for two years before going to Los Angeles.
In early 1955, the Federal Communications Commission officially collapsed Wilmington into the Philadelphia market. By this time, NBC was negotiating to buy channel 3, and informed the Steinmans that in the event negotiations were successful, it would pull its affiliation from channel 12. With that in mind, the Steinmans opted to sell channel 12 to Paul F. Harron, owner of Philadelphia radio powerhouse WIBG (now WNTP). The sale closed in March 1955, and channel 12 changed its calls to WPFH, after its new owner. Harron turned channel 12 into Philadelphia's first independent station. However, he continued to lease space on WDEL-AM-FM's tower.
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