WAOE (channel 59) is a television station licensed to Oswego, Illinois, United States, serving the Chicago television market and primarily airing paid programming from Corner Store TV. Owned by Venture Technologies Group, it is a sister station to WRME-LD (channel 33). WAOE's transmitter is located in Deer Park Township near Starved Rock State Park (in LaSalle County). Due to WAOE's VHF signal and transmitter location, the station only provides rimshot coverage of Chicago's western and southwestern suburbs, but its broadcast range extends into parts of the Peoria–Bloomington, Rockford and Quad Cities markets. To address the shortfall in coverage in Chicago, WAOE is simulcast on translator WCHU-LD in Oakwood Hills. The station also operates a digital replacement translator on UHF channel 18, licensed to Pekin (with transmitter on High Point Lane near East Peoria). History Originally licensed to Peoria, the station signed on the air on July 5, 1999 as a UPN affiliate and aired an analog signal on UHF channel 59. Its studios were located on Fulton Street in downtown Peoria. In its early months, the station broadcast at a low power; WAOE's signal would be upgraded in early 2000, allowing AT&T Cable to add the station to its lineup on February 22. Before WAOE's launch, then-ABC affiliate WHOI (channel 19) had a secondary affiliation with UPN. On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced the two networks would end broadcasting and merge to form The CW. On February 22, News Corporation announced it would start up another new network called MyNetworkTV. It was made public on March 15 that WAOE would become the market's MyNetworkTV outlet. Meanwhile, cable-only WB affiliate "WBPE" (operated by WHOI) became the area's CW station. In order to offer non-cable viewers access to The CW, WHOI added a new second digital subchannel to simulcast the new network. WAOE would officially join MyNetworkTV on September 5 while WHOI-DT2 started offering The CW 13 days later on the 18th. On December 1, 2008, the station shut down its analog signal on UHF channel 59 and became digital-exclusive. Until the end of 2014, WAOE was operated through a joint sales agreement by Granite Broadcasting, then-owner of NBC affiliate WEEK-TV (channel 25). It shared facilities with that station and WHOI (which was operated by WEEK-TV through a separate joint sales and shared services agreement). The Springfield Road studios of WEEK-TV and WHOI once handled some internal operations (such