WLWC
Ion Life television station in New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States
WLWC (channel 28) is a television station licensed to New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States, serving the Providence, Rhode Island, area as an affiliate of Bounce TV. Owned by Inyo Broadcast Holdings, the station shares transmitter facilities with former sister WPXQ-TV (channel 69) on Champlin Hill in Ashaway, Rhode Island.
WLWC is one of two major stations (along with WLNE-TV, channel 6) that serve Providence despite being licensed to the Massachusetts side of the market.
History
WLWC began broadcasting April 14, 1997, as an affiliate of The WB. It was owned by Fant Broadcasting and operated by NBC-owned WJAR (channel 10) under a local marketing agreement (LMA). For the first 27 months of The WB's existence, residents in the Providence–New Bedford market received programming from the network primarily via Boston's WLVI-TV, which had been carried on cable in Rhode Island for decades, while WJAR had a secondary affiliation with the network. The station launched with various syndicated shows as well as a WJAR-produced 10 p.m. newscast, known as TV 28 News at 10, which began airing a few months after the WPRI-TV (channel 12)-produced effort on Fox affiliate WNAC-TV (channel 64).
Fant had signed an LMA with WJAR's previous owner, Outlet Communications, on December 14, 1994, prior to Outlet's 1996 merger with NBC. Earlier in 1994, on March 18, Fant's station in Columbus, Ohio, WWHO, became the junior partner in an LMA with Outlet-owned NBC affiliate WCMH-TV. The LMA arrangement allowed channel 28 to come to the air; the station's original construction permit was granted to Metrovision Inc., a company controlled by Franklin D. Graham, on November 8, 1982. Although a site was selected in East Freetown, Massachusetts, and construction begun on a studio and transmitter, financial problems prevented channel 28 (which was assigned the call letters WFDG, referring to Graham, on December 22, 1982; it became WLWC on August 1, 1995) from signing on. After several ownership changes, Fant purchased the permit on January 3, 1995.
Although both of Fant's LMAs with Outlet were intended to expire after ten years, by the time channel 28 signed on, NBC had let it be known that it did not want to run stations outside its core owned-and-operated (O&O) group, and pushed Fant to sell WLWC and WWHO. On July 31, 1997, NBC announced a three-way swap in which Fant exchanged WLWC and WWHO to Viacom's Paramount Stations Group subsidiary, while Paramount/Viacom-owned NBC affiliate WVIT in Hartford, Connecticut, became an NBC O&O.
With the ownership change, WLWC added a secondary affiliation with UPN, and became a sister station to Boston's UPN affiliate, WSBK-TV, which until then had doubled as the UPN affiliate for Providence–New Bedford and (as with WLVI) had long been carried on Rhode Island cable systems, while WNAC-TV had a secondary affiliation with the network.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “WLWC” as ion Life television station in New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as ion Life television station in New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q14715954. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1997, 1994, 1996 and 1982.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “WLWC”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow WLWC primary sources, WLWC archive and WLWC research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “WLWC”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “WLWC” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.