WUVP-DT, virtual channel 65, is the Univisión owned and operated station licensed to Vineland, New Jersey. WUVP-DT offers a Spanish programming format featuring news, talk shows, dramas, movies and other first-rate Spanish programming.
The station signed on June 22, 1981 as WRBV. The station was owned by a local group called Renaissance Broadcasting of Vineland (not to be confused with the Renaissance Broadcasting Company, which was later sold to Tribune). Renaissance had hoped to operate the station as an ABC network affiliate; however, ABC decided not to add the station to its lineup, and when WRBV took to the air it was running syndicated shows by day, a half-hour local newscast at 7 p.m., and Wometco Home Theater subscription television evenings and late nights.
The station's signal, broadcast from a tower 25 miles southeast of Philadelphia, put it at a disadvantage. The signal covered the city of Philadelphia, but only a few of the densely populated and affluent suburbs west of the city, leaving it with a smaller potential audience than its competitors. WRBV also ran into difficulty obtaining carriage by the cable television stations within its large coverage area. In defiance of FCC regulations of the time, NYT Cable, Sammons, Tri-County and other large systems refused to add the station to their offerings. Thus, the station ran into financial difficulties within months, unable to get a network affiliation, unable to garner audience, and unable to sell advertising to support its purchased programming and its extensive evening newscast (which would be discontinued after several weeks).