WNTU-LD and WNPX-LD are low-power Daystar-owned-and-operated television stations licensed to Nashville, Tennessee, United States. The stations are owned by the Daystar Television Network.
History
WNTU-LD
The Station was built and signed on by the Evansville, Indiana-based company South Central Communications, and signed on briefly under the call sign W68CG and broadcast on channel 68 before changing its call sign to W26BW in 1999 and moving to channel 26 to get better coverage at a better frequency. The station signed on as an affiliate of The Box, showing music videos 24 hours a day. The station would change its call sign again a year later on April 16, 1999, to WGAP-LP. A month later in May 1999, The Box was acquired by MTV Networks. (A division of Viacom) The Box ceased operations just over 2 and a half years later on January 1, 2001 and was replaced by MTV2, which featured a mix of set rotation and viewer request music video blocks at the time on its affiliates including WGAP-LP.
On June 11, 2006, South Central Communications announced that they would sell WGAP to Little Rock, Arkansas-based Equity Broadcasting. Equity also announced that when they purchased the station, they would make it a Univision affiliate. It would also be the third Spanish language station in Nashville (behind then Telemundo Affiliate, which was seen at the time on WSMV-TV's second digital sub-channel of 4.2 and WLLC-LP, channel 42 (which was first Telefutura, as that Network rebranded to UniMás, WLLC would regain the Univision affiliation on its main channel and move the UniMás affiliation to its second sub-channel.)) The sale was finalized on November 13, 2006, as the station changed to the New Univision affiliation the next day. A year later, the callsign was also changed to the current calls of WNTU-LP on March 20, 2007.
Due to the 2008 bankruptcy of Equity Broadcasting, WNTU was sold at auction to the Daystar Television Network on April 16, 2009, and the sale closed on July 30, 2009. Immediately after on July 31, the station switched to carrying all Daystar Programming 24 hours a day. This left Nashville without a Univision Affiliate (Univision was still seen on cable and satellite providers in the Nashville area) and with two Spanish-language outlets (Telemundo affiliate on WSMV-TV's second digital sub-channel of 4.2 and Telefutura (Now UniMás) affiliate WLLC-LP. However, WSMV-TV discontinued the Telemundo affiliation on December 31, 2010, as that would leave only WLLC-LP as the only Spanish language outlet in Nashville.) Univision made its return to the Nashville Airwaves, as WLLC-LP retained the Univision affiliation on its main sub-channel of 42.1 and moved UniMás to 42.2 and Bounce TV to 42.3.
WNTU's digital signal began broadcasting on digital UHF channel 47 in 2011. The station's digital counterpart (WNTU-LD) is operated on a construction permit in preparation of the digital television transition for low-power television stations that have not shut down their analog signals. Low-power stations who still broadcast in analog, including WNTU-LP, were obligated to shut down their analog signal and replace it with a digital signal by September 1, 2015. However, the cutoff date for standard LPTVs and translators still broadcasting in analog had been suspended until further notice, therefore, WNTU continued to broadcast in analog until the shutoff of analog television stations, which occurred on July 13, 2021. As a result of the FCC Spectrum Auction, WNTU-LP has applied for a Construction Permit to relocate Digital Operations from Channel 47 to Channel 26 by Flash Cut. WNTU returned to the air, retaining its Daystar programming on January 6, 2022, and the station's callsign was changed to WNTU-LD on February 7, 2022.
WNTU-LD once again went off the air temporarily on May 11, 2022, to make adjustments to their transmitter site and antenna adjustments, the station returned to the air on December 4, 2022, after the adjustments were compleated. WNTU-LD also followed sister station, WNPX-LD and also added the same two subchannels which is also seen on WNPX-LD. (See article below)