WWTO-TV

TBN TV station in Naperville, Illinois

WWTO TV (channel 35) is a religious television station licensed to Naperville, Illinois, United States, serving as the Chicago area outlet for the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). It is sister to Plano licensed TBN Inspire station WLPD CD (channel 30). Through a channel sharing agreement, the two stations transmit using WLPD CD's spectrum from an antenna atop the John Hancock Center. Although WWTO TV is licensed as a full power station, it shares spectrum with WLPD CD, whose low power signal only covers the immediate Chicago area. Therefore, WWTO TV relies on cable and satellite carriage to reach the entire market.

The first station to broadcast on UHF channel 35 licensed to LaSalle went on the air on November 7, 1957, as WEEQ, a satellite station of WEEK TV in Peoria. WEEK and WEEQ were acquired by a company related to Kerr McGee, but sold off after Senator Robert S. Kerr's death. The sale, approved by the Federal Communications Commission on July 13, 1966, was for $3,088,650 ($ adjusted for inflation) and transferred the stations to Mid America Television Co., owned by Kansas City Southern Industries. The station still appeared in the 1973 Broadcasting Yearbook but not the 1974 edition.

WWTO TV began broadcasting operations in early December 1986 in Ottawa, It and was licensed to All American Broadcasting Company which was owed and operated by Nicky Cruz and Sonny Arguinzoni. The station's first chief engineer and general manager was Glen Dingley, who would oversee the building of its studios and transmitter before returning to Houston in 1990. was located in Deer Park Township, LaSalle County (near Starved Rock State Park) and maintained studios on East Stevenson Road in Ottawa. From Deer Park, the station also served the Peoria and Rockford markets over the air.

+Subchannels of WWTO TV and WLPD CD License Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming WLPD CD 30.1 480i 4:3 Smile Smile 30.2720p 16:9 inspire TBN Inspire WWTO TV 35.1 TBN TBN 35.2 480i 4:3 Merit Merit Street Media 35.3 16:9 Smile Smile 35.4 Positiv Positiv

LaSalle lies at the far western end of its nominal Chicago media market. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) declared many communities served by Chicago area cable systems to be outside of WWTO TV's designated market, and denied must carry status. In 1997 ruling in favor of Time Warner Cable, the FCC noted that "WWTO TV has at best a minimal viewing presence in the Chicago ADI as a whole, and the communities are located approximately 65 to 70 miles from WWTO TV. Furthermore, the station has never been carried on the cable system in question, offers no programming specifically for the relevant communities, and provides no over the air signal coverage of the Communities." The FCC made a similar ruling in 1999 concerning dozens of cable services in McHenry, DuPage, Lake, Cook, Kane and Will counties in Illinois and Lake, Porter, LaPorte and Jasper counties in Indiana. In that order, the FCC noted that "out of the 10 counties herein, the A. C. Nielsen 1997 County/Coverage Survey does not even list WWTO TV and for the one where it is listed, Will County, only minimal viewership is recorded." Even with the move of the station's transmitter to the John Hancock Center, Xfinity continues to source most of TBN's networks via their national feeds within the Chicago market, outside of must carry situations where WWTO DT1's signal must be utilized (the must carry designation disallows TBN from asking for carriage of its subchannels).