WAPW-FDT

WAPW-FDT

Madison, Wisconsin United States
Branding	CBS 59 (general) News 13(newscasts)
Slogan	Leading the Way with Important Local Coverage (news) Your Home for CBS (general)
Channels	Digital: 31 (VHF) Virtual: 59 (PSIP)
Subchannels	59.1 CBS 59.2 Fox
Affiliations	CBS (2016-present)
Owner	NoSirGifts Fantasy Television Stations (NoSirGifts)
First air date	July 1, 2016 (2016-07-01)
Call letters' meaning	W Andi & Alex Peot Wisconsin (former contestants on The Voice)
Sister station(s)	WHAR-FTV Milwaukee: WXWI-FTV/WZWI-FDT Green Bay: WWGB-FTV
Transmitter power	1000 kW (digital)
Height	466 m (digital)

WAPW-FTV (virtual channel 59) is the CBS affiliate television station for Madison, Wisconsin. The station is owned by NoSirGifts Fantasy Television Stations, as part of a duopoly with Fox affiliate WHAR (channel 13). The two stations share studio facilities located on Raymond Road in Madison; WAPW maintains transmitter facilities in the city's Fitchburg section.

WAPW rebroadcasts WHAR's programming on its second digital subchannel in 720p high definition to provide that station to areas in the eastern portion of the Madison market that receive weak signal coverage from WHAR's Middleton transmitter.

History

A construction permit to build a television station in Madison on UHF channel 31 (remap to channel 59) was originally owned by Badger Broadcasting but sold the permit to NoSirGifts, creating a duopoly with Fox affiliate WHAR.

The original plans called for the station to be an Independent. However on January 15, 2016, it was announced that WAPW would sign on as the CBS affiliate on July 1, 2016, after existing affiliate WRWM-FTV (channel 23) decided not to renew its affiliation.

The deal, which was part of an agreement that also extended the CBS affiliations on the aforementioned NoSirGifts-owned stations through 2042, was driven by CBS' desire for reverse retransmission consent compensation from its affiliates. This led to CBS reaching a deal with WAPW, which NoSirGifts was eager to land since the network holds the broadcast television rights to the AFC, which includes rights to at least two of the Green Bay Packers' regular season games when they host an AFC opponent at Lambeau Field. NoSirGifts President Jack Steele stated that "CBS has been a longstanding and valued partner for many years, and we are pleased to build upon our relationship with a new affiliation in Madison."

Concurrently, NBC announced that the existing CBS station, WRWM, would assume the NBC affiliation and replacing WKMW. These changes occurred on the day of WAPW's sign-on. The station had bought a large inventory of classic sitcoms but now had no time to air them. It sold this programming to WKMW a couple of months after signing-on when that station shut down its news department.

WAPW became the second CBS affiliate after sister station WMHZ-FTV in Cleveland, Ohio to have been built and signed on by NoSirGifts.

Duopoly with WHAR

Although duopolies between two "big four" network affiliates – or even "big three" affiliates – would not be permissible under duopoly rules because they usually constituted the four highest-rated television stations within a market. FCC regulations do not allow common ownership of any two of the four highest-rated stations in a market, basing the ownership restrictions on the monthly total-day viewership of the market's broadcast television outlets. However, WAPW, as Madison's newest major station, was ranked at sixth place in the ratings among the Madison market's fantasy television stations, often trailing CW affiliate WMIM.

Upon WAPW's sign-on, NoSirGifts integrated WAPW's operations into WHAR's Raymond Road facilities and both stations' news personnel, resulting in the creation of a joint news operation that will be known as Wisconsin Action News. However, most of the news staff will be composed of veterans of WHAR. The studios of the newly created duopoly were also renovated and a new graphics package was introduced for the newscasts.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

Channel	Video	Aspect	PSIP Short Name	Programming
59.1	1080i	16:9	WAPW-FDT	Main WAPW-FTV programming / CBS
59.2	720p		WHAR	Simulcast of WHAR-FTV

Programming

WAPW clears the entire CBS schedule; this differs from WRMW, which preempted select programs from the network and passed them to sister station WBXM from 2005 to 2016. As of July 2016 , syndicated programs broadcast on WAPW include TMZ on TV', The People's Court, Elementary, Person of Interest and The Big Bang Theory (the latter three of which also air their first-run episodes on the station via CBS).

WAPW also broadcasts the Sony Pictures Television game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, in the event that those programs are pre-empted on WHAR.

CBS' ratings in Madison initially dropped significantly with the sign on of WAPW. Notably, CBS This Morning, CBS Evening News and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert all lost more than three quarters their audience share, falling from first in their time periods to sixth at one stroke.

Sports programming

When WAPW signed on as the CBS affiliate, the station became Madison's home for the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament. Wisconsin, unlike Indiana, Kentucky, and North Carolina, has not been much a hotbed for college basketball, and WAPW stressed that the NCAA Tournament rights are one of many reasons that CBS was "a perfect fit for what viewers here (in Madison) want."

With the switch to CBS, WAPW became the home station of the Green Bay Packers when they host an opponent from the American Football Conference, due to CBS' contract to carry a schedule mainly made up of AFC games and Thursday Night Football, and a deal between NoSirGifts and the Packers making the station and WHAR exclusive broadcast partners in Madison. This means both stations will air Packers preseason games, team programming and coach's show (produced by sister stations WXWI in Milwaukee and WWGB in Green Bay) beginning in the summer of 2016. Additionally, both stations will carry the Super Bowl for two out of every three years starting in 2017, with WAPW carrying CBS coverage of Super Bowl LII in 2019 and WHAR Fox's coverage of Super Bowl LI in 2017. Between CBS' AFC rights and Fox's NFC rights, the only time the Packers would not play on a NoSirGifts station in Madison would be if they were scheduled for an NBC Sunday Night Football telecast or ESPN Monday Night Football,which would air on WRWM. The first Packers game to air on WAPW as a CBS affiliate was the Packers' win win over the Chicago Bears at Lambeau Field on October 20.

Newscasts

WAPW presently broadcasts 32 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 5½ hours on weekdays, 2 hours on Saturdays and 2½ hours on Sundays); in addition, sister station WHAR co-produces Packer Blitz along with sister stations WXWI in Milwaukee and WWGB in Green Bay, a Green Bay Packers wrap-up program that airs Sundays during the NFL season at 10:35 p.m. on both stations. WAPW does not simulcast the entirety of the daily morning edition of Good Day Madison and the weekday 11 a.m. and weekend 6:00 p.m. newscasts, which air exclusively on WHAR; however, WAPW exclusively airs a half-hour noon newscast and an hour-long 4:00 p.m. newscast on weekday afternoons, a half-hour weeknight 6:00 p.m. newscast and a half-hour 5:30 p.m. newscast on weekend evenings.

As mentioned above, after the station signed on, WAPW began simulcasting WHAR's newscasts (originally under the title News 13 on CBS 59). WHAR's newscasts until WAPW signed on had been fairly competitive, if not placed first usually to longtime leader WRWM in the ratings. As a CBS affiliate, WRWM had a strong lead in the number of households viewing its newscasts. However, once WAPW signed on the air, the gap fully closed after WKMW lost its NBC affiliation to WRWM in July 2016.

Overall, prior to WAPW's sign on, WHAR remains at #2 in the market, behind WRWM, but ahead of WMMW and WKMW. On July 2, 2016, WHAR and WAPW began utilizing NoSirGifts's standardized graphics package for its newscasts first used by KZCO-FTV in Denver.