WCPX-TV (channel 38) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, broadcasting the Ion Television network. The station is owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company, and maintains offices on Des Plaines and Van Buren streets in the Chicago Loop; its transmitter is located atop the Willis Tower. History A construction permit On October 10, 1964, the Chicago Federation of Labor, owner of WCFL (1000 AM, now WMVP), filed for a construction permit to build a new television station on channel 38 in Chicago. Approval was not granted until June 5, 1968. In the four years between application and construction, Field Communications changed its application for channel 38 to channel 32, while competing applicants included a group known as Chicagoland TV and the Warner Bros. film studio. Warner Bros. had dropped out by the time comparative hearings were held in mid-1966. Early progress was made when the antenna was placed atop the John Hancock Center in 1969, and plans for a general-entertainment independent station and studios were broadly laid out in 1970. In late 1970, however, the Chicago Federation of Labor opted to sell the WCFL-TV construction permit to another Chicago company: Zenith Radio Corporation. Zenith had one reason for pursuing a TV station in Chicago: it had developed a system for subscription television over-the-air. It was not until 1971 that the transaction was filed with the Federal Communications Commission. The action had one vocal opponent: Chicagoland TV, which had lost in comparative hearing two years prior. When the deal was filed, Chicagoland TV petitioned to deny the transaction and asked for hearings to put its programming proposal against that of Zenith; they argued that subscription television would exclude poorer viewers, important to a group whose own programming plans were for a station targeted at Chicago's minority communities. The transaction lingered so long that Zenith opted out in 1973; it was the second such purchase where Zenith had backed out, after the company had also contracted to buy KWHY-TV in Los Angeles. With Zenith out of the picture, Chicagoland TV continued to oppose extensions of the WCFL-TV construction permit. On November 18, 1974, the FCC dismissed the Chicago Federation of Labor's request for a time extension; the federation requested the application be reinstated in February 1975. WCFC-TV, "Shining on Chicago" Meanwhile, in 1971, Christian Communications of Chicagoland had been founded, when Pastor