WWLP 22News: Springfield's NBC Affiliate for the Pioneer Valley

WWLP, channel 22, is the NBC affiliate for Springfield and Holyoke, Massachusetts, and the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts. Branded as 22 News, with its second subchannel known as The CW Springfield, the station is owned by Nexstar Media Group and found online at wwlp.com. Its studios are at Broadcast Center in the Sandy Hill section of Chicopee, at the northwest corner of the Interstate 391, Route 116, and Chicopee Street interchange, and its transmitter is on Provin Mountain in the Feeding Hills section of Agawam. A full-time low-power repeater, WFXQ-CD channel 28 in Holyoke, extends its signal. WWLP has been affiliated with NBC continuously since it signed on March 17, 1953, as one of the first high-powered UHF stations in the United States and the oldest Massachusetts station outside Boston, and 22 News has long been the Springfield market's leading local news service.

William L. Putnam and the Founding of Springfield Television

WWLP's call letters honor its founder: William L. Putnam, whose initials form the last three letters of the call sign. Putnam and his company, Springfield Television, founded the station at a moment when the FCC had only recently opened the UHF band to television. WWLP began broadcasting March 17, 1953, St. Patrick's Day, as Springfield's and western Massachusetts' first television station, a month before its future rival WHYN-TV, now WGGB. At sign-on it had the distinction of being one of the first UHF stations in the country, a pioneering but risky position when many television sets required converters to receive UHF and advertisers favored VHF. Putnam became a prominent national figure in UHF advocacy, and WWLP's survival and growth demonstrated that a well-run UHF station in a market without entrenched VHF competition could thrive. Springfield was an all-UHF market, which leveled the playing field among its local stations.

From Channel 61 to Channel 22

WWLP did not start on channel 22. It signed on using an analog signal on UHF channel 61, the allotment later famous in Hartford, and switched frequencies to UHF channel 22 on July 2, 1955. Channel 22 became so identified with the station that its news brand, 22 News, and its web identity derive from it, and the station retained virtual channel 22 through the digital transition even though its digital signal moved to VHF channel 11. The station shut down analog channel 22 in 2009 under the federal transition mandate. Its present technical plant operates at 15.8 kilowatts on digital VHF 11 from Provin Mountain, at about 247 meters above average terrain, under FCC Facility ID 6868. Because VHF digital signals can be difficult to receive with indoor antennas in the core market, WWLP maintains WFXQ-CD as a UHF repeater so viewers can use a single UHF antenna for all Springfield stations.

Satellites in Greenfield and Worcester

Putnam expanded WWLP's reach with satellite stations to overcome the Pioneer Valley's rugged terrain. In 1957 WRLP in Greenfield signed on as a full-time satellite of WWLP on channel 32, serving the northern Pioneer Valley where the Springfield signal was marginal. Transmitting from Gunn Mountain in Winchester, New Hampshire, one of the highest points in the region, WRLP could also be seen in Springfield itself, creating substantial overlap. In 1958 a second satellite, WWOR-TV in Worcester, later WJZB-TV on channel 14, extended WWLP's NBC programming eastward. Both satellites eventually succumbed to financial difficulties: WJZB went dark in 1969 and WRLP in 1978. Almost immediately after WRLP left the air, its transmitter was shipped to Salt Lake City, Utah, to help launch KSTU, an independent station that later became a Fox affiliate under different ownership. The satellite era shows how aggressively early UHF operators had to engineer around New England geography.

NBC Affiliation and Network Identity

WWLP has been an NBC affiliate from the day it signed on, one of the longest continuous network affiliations in New England. That stability shaped its program identity across eras: NBC prime time, the Today show in the morning, NBC News, and NBC Sports, framed locally by 22 News. Syndicated programming long associated with the station includes Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, the two most durable syndicated successes in American television, along with talk, court, and entertainment programs in daytime. Because Springfield lies close to Hartford, WWLP also lives with cross-market viewing: its Provin Mountain transmitter near the Connecticut line can be picked up in northern Connecticut, while Hartford's NBC station WVIT is the Connecticut station most widely carried in the southern Pioneer Valley. Cable lineups in the valley therefore often include two NBC affiliates, a legacy of the overlapping Springfield and Hartford-New Haven markets.

22 News: The Market's Leading Newscast

WWLP's news operation, 22 News, Working For You, is the station's defining product and has historically led Springfield ratings, described by Nexstar as Springfield's number one local news. The weekday schedule runs from 4:30 a.m. through the morning, a full hour at noon, editions at 5, 5:30, and 6 p.m., and a late newscast at 11 p.m., totaling more than 38 hours of live local news per week in recent carriage agreements. Weekend mornings and 6 and 11 p.m. weekend editions complete the cycle. In addition, WWLP produces a nightly 10 p.m. newscast for its CW Springfield subchannel, extending 22 News into prime time. The station's Chicopee facility also serves as Nexstar's Northeast master control hub and as a hub for sister operations including WTNH and WCTX in New Haven, so WWLP's importance inside Nexstar exceeds its market size. Its public-affairs program In Focus and lifestyle show Mass Appeal are part of its local lineup alongside news and weather.

Ownership from Springfield Television to Nexstar

After the Putnam era, WWLP passed to LIN TV Corporation, becoming part of the Providence-based group that also owned WPRI and WTNH, and its listed sister stations included WPRI-TV, WNAC-TV, WTNH, and WCTX. LIN's merger into Media General in 2014 and Media General's acquisition by Nexstar, completed in 2017, brought WWLP to Nexstar Media Group, its current owner. Nexstar, the largest local station owner in the United States and majority owner of The CW, operates WWLP's second subchannel as a CW Plus owned-and-operated service. Despite three corporate owners in a decade, the station's local brand, Chicopee studios, and NBC affiliation remained constant, while Nexstar invested the facility with regional hub functions. The continuity of 22 News across ownership changes illustrates how a strong local news franchise becomes the station's principal asset, valued by each successive owner.

The CW Springfield and Digital Subchannels

Digital multicasting gave WWLP a second network home. Channel 22.2 carries The CW via The CW Plus, the network's service for smaller markets, branded as The CW Springfield, with CW prime time, syndicated programs, and the 22 News at 10 p.m. newscast produced by the main station. Channel 22.3 carries Ion Television and 22.4 carries Ion Mystery, giving Springfield viewers the Ion drama and procedural library over the air. The combination of NBC, The CW, and Ion services on one license makes WWLP a three-network outlet for many cord-cutting households in Hampden, Hampshire, and Franklin counties. WFXQ-CD, its channel 28 repeater, mirrors the NBC and CW services from the old Mount Tom Ski Area summit in Holyoke. WFXQ's own history, beginning May 6, 1987, as W11BJ and passing through identities including a period as a repeater of WCTX's predecessor, ended in its present role as WWLP's UHF translator, with a call sign that still refers to an unrealized Fox affiliation.

Berkshire County and the Charter Agreement

WWLP's coverage obligations extend west to Berkshire County, the mountainous western edge of Massachusetts that Nielsen assigns to the Albany, New York, market. Charter Spectrum removed WWLP from Berkshire lineups in 2017, leaving residents with Albany stations for local news despite their Massachusetts civic life. After advocacy by Senators Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren and Representative Richard Neal, Nexstar and Charter announced on March 31, 2020, the launch of a special WWLP news feed for Berkshire subscribers, on channels 14 and 1204 in Pittsfield and North Adams and 16 and 1204 in Lee, in the basic tier. The feed simulcasts and repeats every 22 News broadcast, more than 38 hours weekly, adds a Berkshire-specific weather forecast in every newscast, and dedicates staff to regular Berkshire coverage and Massachusetts State Legislature reporting of particular relevance to the county. The agreement let Berkshire viewers keep Albany stations while regaining Springfield news, a creative solution to a market-boundary problem.

Studios, Transmitters, and Regional Hub Role

WWLP's physical plant reflects its regional weight. The Broadcast Center in Chicopee houses studios, newsroom, and the Nexstar Northeast master control hub, which handles playout for multiple Nexstar stations in the region. The Provin Mountain transmitter in Feeding Hills, Agawam, is part of the Springfield antenna farm shared with other stations and sits close enough to Connecticut to give WWLP a footprint across the state line. WFXQ-CD's Mount Tom site in Holyoke, at about 253 meters above average terrain, fills the valley's core. Together the sites serve the Springfield-Holyoke metropolitan area, the upper Pioneer Valley toward Greenfield, and, via cable agreements, Berkshire County. The station's engineering history, from high-power UHF pioneering to VHF digital plus UHF repeater problem-solving, mirrors the technical evolution of American broadcasting in miniature.

Community, Weather, and Pioneer Valley Identity

The Pioneer Valley's weather, from Connecticut River flooding and nor'easters to tornado risk demonstrated by the 2011 Springfield tornado, makes local meteorology a public-safety function at WWLP. Its coverage area includes Springfield, Holyoke, Chicopee, Northampton, Amherst with the University of Massachusetts, and dozens of smaller towns whose governments, schools, and businesses rarely appear on Boston television. 22 News covers Massachusetts politics from a western Massachusetts perspective, including the State Legislature reporting emphasized in the Berkshire agreement, and UMass and local college and high school sports that bind the valley together. For many residents, WWLP is not merely the NBC affiliate but the valley's television institution, the station their families have watched since 1953. Its website, wwlp.com, streams newscasts, typically available on demand two hours after broadcast, and provides weather, closings, and investigations to a digital audience.

Legacy as a UHF Pioneer

WWLP's significance extends beyond Springfield. As one of the first UHF stations in the United States, founded by a national leader of the UHF cause, it proved that the UHF band the FCC opened in 1952 could support a dominant, full-service network affiliate. Its move from channel 61 to 22, its Greenfield and Worcester satellites, its unbroken NBC affiliation, and its reinvention as a multi-network digital station with a CW subchannel and a regional master-control hub show continuous adaptation without loss of identity. In a directory of American television, WWLP belongs in the first rank of heritage stations still operating under their original call letters and network. WorldNM lists its official website as wwlp.com, where 22 News continues to serve the Pioneer Valley as it has, under the WWLP name, since St. Patrick's Day 1953.