is the television station affiliated with
The WB television network in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania . Its transmitter is located in the
Roxborough section of the city.
The history of channel 17 dates back to
June 17 ,
1960 , when the station signed on the air as , a religious station owned by Percy Crawford. The call letters stood for "People's Christian Association." The station was Philadelphia's first commercial UHF channel, but only lasted two years and went off the air in
1962 .
However, on
September 17 ,
1965 channel 17 signed back on the air as
Independent Station . It was the third UHF independent to sign-on in Philadelphia that year, two and-a-half weeks behind WKBS-TV (channel 48, now
WGTW ) and four months later than WIBF-TV (channel 29, later WTAF and now
WTXF ). WPHL went through a string of owners, most notably as an affiliate station of the short-lived
Overmeyer Network .
The station offered a schedule of off network drama shows, sitcoms, old movies, sports and religious shows. During most of the
1970s , channel 17 also offered Japanese live action shows and cartoons dubbed in English, including ''Ultraman, Marine Boy, Space Giants, Speed Racer, King Kong'' and ''Johnny Sokko''. They also ran
NBC programs that were pre-empted by
KYW-TV until the fall of
1976 and again from the fall of
1977 to the summer of
1983 . The Providence Journal Company bought channel 17 in
1979 .
In
1980 , WPHL positioned itself as an alternative to the cartoons on WTAF and WKBS, as well as an alternative to the
ABC ,
CBS and NBC daytime soap operas and game shows. The station broadcast dramas, movies from the 1940's to the 1970's, sitcoms, sports contests featuring
Major League Baseball 's
Philadelphia Phillies , the
NBA 's
Philadelphia 76ers and the
NHL 's
Philadelphia Flyers and religious shows such as ''
The 700 Club ''.
Throughout the late
1970s and
1980s , WPHL was known on-air as "The Great Entertainer", with voiceovers from Sid Doherty. In
1983 , WPHL picked up the cartoons, sitcoms and movies from WKBS, which ceased broadcasting in late
August of that year. The station moved to a more traditional independent schedule with a lot of cartoons, sitcoms, movies, dramas, music shows and religious shows. In
1985 ,
Jim Crockett Promotions (with
Dusty Rhodes as booker) expanded
Mid Atlantic Wrestling into
Maryland ,
Pennsylvania ,
New Jersey and
New York .
World Wide Wrestling was broadcast using WPHL (at 1 PM and 2 PM on Saturday afternoons) from late
1985 through
1996 .
From
September 1981 to
August 1987 , the WPHL studios hosted a Monday-through-Friday afternoon dance show, ''Dancin' On Air'' as well as a spin-off on the
USA Network called ''
Dance Party USA '' with the latter hosted by Dave Raymond, who was better known as the man in the
Phillie Phanatic costume. Those shows marked the on-air debut of a young girl from nearby
Voorhees, New Jersey named
Kelly Ripa .
In
1987 , a consortium headed by former Taft president Dudley Taft took over the station, bringing many key personnel from WTAF, including general manager Randy Smith. The new Taft Broadcasting - unrelated to the old one (except for Dudley Taft of course), which was selling its independent/Fox stations to TVX, Inc. and network affiliates to Great American - scrapped the "Great Entertainer" slogan and related logo for a new identity as "PHL 17" in an apparent attempt to counter WGBS-TV's (now
WPSG-TV ) branding as "Philly 57." In
1991 , Taft sold the station to
Tribune Company , where it remains today. The religious shows were slowly removed from the schedule between 1987 and 1995.
The station affiliated with
The WB in January
1995 , and in September of that year changed its on-air identity to "WB17".
Throughout the station's first three decades of service, WPHL had a tremendous professional sports presence -- at various points holding the broadcast rights to the Phillies, the Flyers, the 76ers, and pre-season games of the
NFL 's
Philadelphia Eagles -- as well as covering local college basketball and football, with games featuring teams from the
University Of Pennsylvania ,
Villanova University and
Temple University . After the station took on WB programming, it let go of many of its sports contracts in order to concentrate on its network obligations. Currently, the station does air syndicated college
Football and
Basketball games from the syndication arm of
ESPN involving schools from the
Big Ten Conference (football) and
Big East Conference (basketball).
Today WPHL carries a variety of first run syndicated talk shows, court shows, reality shows, cartoons from Kids WB, off network sitcoms, and first run WB prime time shows.
In
1994 , WPHL entered into an unusual agreement with ''
The Philadelphia Inquirer '' to broadcast an ''Inquirer''-branded news program. "Inquirer News Tonight" was a hybrid newscast that integrated normal television news conventions with contributions from the newspaper's personnel. "Inquirer News Tonight" did not last, and in late
1996 the program was rebranded "WB17 News At Ten". On
December 10 ,
2005 , all in-house news operations ceased, and turned over to
WCAU as they produce the rebranded
{Link without Title} .
On
January 24 ,
2006 , the WB and
UPN networks announced that they would merge. The newly combined network would be called , the letters representing the first initial of its corporate parents
CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of
Time Warner . The merger will take effect in September 2006 and at that time current UPN station
WPSG , owned by CBS, will become the CW's Philadelphia affiliate. Though tentatively scheduled to revert to independent status at that time, WPHL's future network affiliation (if any) is unknown.
