WGWG

Key takeaways

WGWG belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect WGWG to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of WGWG from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

WGWG (channel 4) is a television station in Charleston, South Carolina, United States, affiliated with the digital multicast network MeTV. The station is owned by Howard Stirk Holdings. WGWG's transmitter is located near Awendaw, South Carolina. From 1962 through 2014, what is now WGWG was the original home of WCIV, and had been Charleston's ABC affiliate since 1996; however, in August 2014, WCIV owner Allbritton Communications was acquired by Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of MyNetworkTV affiliate WMMP (channel 36) and operator of Fox affiliate WTAT-TV (channel 24, owned by Cunningham Broadcasting). Due to ownership conflicts with WMMP and WTAT, and a recent crackdown on joint sales agreements by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Sinclair elected to sell the WCIV channel 4 license to Howard Stirk Holdings, and moved WCIV's ABC programming and news operation to a subchannel of WMMP's channel 36 signal. At the same time, the two stations also switched call signs, with WCIV moving to channel 36 and channel 4 becoming the new WMMP, though the MyNetworkTV affiliation remains on channel 36.1 and did not move to channel 4. The FCC approved HSH Charleston's purchase of channel 4 on December 4, 2014; the call letters became WGWG on March 11, 2015. Howard Stirk Holdings operates WGWG independently of WCIV and WTAT, and has not entered into a local marketing agreement with Sinclair.

History WGWG began operations on October 23, 1962, as WCIV, the third commercial outlet in Charleston. The original license was granted to WTMA-TV but the call letters were later changed to WCIV before it signed on. It took the NBC affiliation from WCBD-TV (known as WUSN-TV at the time), leaving that station to become a full-time ABC affiliate. The station was originally owned by First Charleston Corporation, led by Harold E. Anderson, who also owned WCCA-TV in Columbia and WCCB-TV in Montgomery, it was later sold in 1966 to the Washington Star Company. In 1976, businessman Joe Allbritton bought the Star and sold off the non-television assets in 1978 to form Allbritton Communications. In May 1994, Birmingham ABC affiliate WBRC was sold to New World Communications, which signed an affiliation agreement with eleven other stations which would become Fox affiliates. WBRC, along with Piedmont Triad ABC affiliate WGHP, were placed in a blind trust in the fall of 1994, as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) prohibited a company from owning more than twelve television stations at the time. Both stations were sold to Fox directly in July 1995, but Fox was forced to run WBRC as an ABC affiliate for over a year after the sale, as WBRC's affiliation contract with ABC did not expire until August 1996. Before WBRC became a Fox owned-and-operated station, Allbritton purchased WCFT-TV and WJSU-TV, and made them full power satellites of WBMA-LP; this prompted Allbritton to sign a groupwide affiliation deal with ABC which caused WCIV and Brunswick sister station WBSG-TV (now Ion Television O&O WPXC-TV) to become ABC affiliates. The latter had joined ABC as a semi-satellite of WJXX, which replaced WJKS as Jacksonville's ABC affiliate upon its 1997 sign-on). WCIV became an ABC affiliate on August 19, 1996; the NBC affiliation subsequently returned to WCBD on that day.

Sale to Howard Stirk Holdings; ABC and MeTV move to channel 36 On July 29, 2013, Allbritton Communications announced that it would sell its entire television group, including WCIV, to Sinclair. As part of the deal, Sinclair was planning to sell the license assets of WMMP to Howard Stirk Holdings (owned by conservative talk show host Armstrong Williams), but would still operate the station through shared services and joint sales agreements. However, in December 2013, FCC Video Division Chief Barbara Kreisman ruled that "the proposed transactions would result in the elimination of the grandfathered status of certain local marketing agreements and thus cause the transactions to violate our local TV ownership rules." While Sinclair attempted to sell WMMP and planned to terminate an SSA with the Cunningham-owned Fox affiliate WTAT, as well as foregoing any operational or financial agreements with the buyers of the stations being sold to other parties, on May 29, 2014, Sinclair informed the FCC that it had not found a buyer for WMMP and proposed surrendering the WCIV broadcast license; through the use of multicasting, WMMP would both carry its existing programming and inherit WCIV's ABC affiliation, syndicated programming, and news operation. Sinclair opted to retain WMMP because its facilities are superior to those of WCIV. However, following the closure of the Allbritton deal, Sinclair reached a deal to sell WCIV's license to Howard Stirk Holdings, and offer it studio space at WMMP's existing facilities. The transition process began on September 25, 2014, as a simulcast of WCIV was added to WMMP's second subchannel, along with MeTV on 36.3 (replacing ZUUS Country on that channel), and MyTV Charleston remaining on 36.1. The two stations then swapped licenses four days later; WCIV's call sign was moved to the WMMP license and virtual channel 36, while WMMP's call sign was moved to the WCIV license which would be sold to Howard Stirk Holdings. The original WCIV signal went silent on September 30, 2014, making ABC exclusive to WCIV-DT2. As of October 8, channel 4 had returned to the air with programming from the ZUUS Country network, which had been displaced on 36.3 by WCIV's former DT2 affiliation, MeTV. On March 11, 2015, WMMP changed its call letters to WGWG. On August 1, 2015, the station switched its primary affiliation to Heroes & Icons. On August 2, 2016, the station launched its 4.2 subchannel, affiliated with Decades. On September 12, 2022, the station switched its primary affiliation to MeTV, with Heroes & Icons moving to the fifth subchannel. This marked the first time MeTV aired on WGWG since 2014, when the network moved to WCIV-DT3. That subchannel switched to Stadium.

Technical information

Subchannels The station's ATSC 1.0 channels are carried on the multiplexed signals of other Charleston television stations:

In exchange, the market's main commercial stations are broadcast in ATSC 3.0 on this multiplex:

On October 1, 2011, WCIV added MeTV on digital subchannel 4.2, replacing The Local AccuWeather Channel. With the transition to WMMP, 4.2's signal moved to 36.3.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with WGWG

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what WGWG claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to WGWG before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about WGWG ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of WGWG

In research: WGWG appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses WGWG in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: WGWG is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1962 establishments in South Carolina, ATSC 3.0 television stations, Antenna TV affiliates, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for WGWG outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study WGWG in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what WGWG means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain WGWG out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is WGWG in simple terms?

WGWG (channel 4) is a television station in Charleston, South Carolina, United States, affiliated with the digital multicast network MeTV. The station is owned by Howard Stirk Holdings.

Why does WGWG matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study WGWG?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on WGWG.