WUCW (channel 23) is a television station licensed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, serving the Twin Cities area as an affiliate of The CW. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, the station maintains studios in the Pence Building on 8th Street and Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis, and its transmitter is located at the Telefarm site in Shoreview. Channel 23 was established as KTMA in 1982, airing a mix of commercial and subscription television programming; three years later, it became a full-time independent station. During this period, it became famous for originating the cult cable television series Mystery Science Theater 3000, which began as a locally produced program. After going into bankruptcy in 1989, channel 23 was bought and repositioned as a family-oriented station, KLGT, which affiliated with The WB upon its 1995 launch. Sinclair purchased channel 23 in 1998 and changed the call letters to KMWB; it became WUCW upon the merger of The WB and UPN in 2006. History The subscription television years On April 16, 1966, Viking Television, Inc., a company organized by South St. Paul attorney and judge Irving W. Beaudoin, filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to build a new television station on channel 23 in Minneapolis. It was designated for hearing alongside a competing application from the Calvary Temple Evangelistic Association in late 1968; the church pulled out of the proceedings, and the Viking application was granted on November 24, 1969. Little progress was made toward the construction of the station, which took the call letters KTMA-TV. In 1972, Viking presented a proposal for a studio and transmitter complex in Shoreview. However, residents feared the erection of a fourth mast in town after the collapse of a tower under construction killed seven workers the year before, and Ramsey County acquired the land for a park and nature center, creating a potential conflict of land uses. The loss of the site would further set back construction. The prospect of subscription television had been thought of as early as the 1969 grant, when Viking held the local franchise to use the Phonevision system. However, a new generation of STV interests emerged in the mid-1970s. Viking signed a contract with American Subscription Television (SelecTV) and filed for subscription television authorization in October 1975. Viking was still mired in tower site problems in 1976, when a second group filed to propose a subscription television station in