Channel 26

Channel 26 refers to several television stations:

Canada

The following television stations operate on virtual channel 26 in Canada:

Mexico

The following television stations operate on virtual channel 26 in Mexico:

See also

For UHF frequencies covering 543.25-547.75 MHz

WCIU-TV

WCIU-TV, virtual channel 26 (UHF digital channel 27), is an independent television station located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is the flagship television station of Weigel Broadcasting, and is a sister station to Me-TV owned-and-operated station WWME-CD (channel 23) and fellow independent outlet WMEU-CD (channel 48), both fellow Weigel properties that are respectively relayed on the station's second and third digital subchannels. All three stations share studio facilities located on Halsted Street (between Washington Boulevard and Madison Street) in the Greektown neighborhood; WCIU's transmitter is located atop the Sears Tower on South Wacker Drive in the Chicago Loop.

History

Early history

Founded by John J. Weigel, the station first signed on the air on February 6, 1964, and has been owned by Weigel Broadcasting since its inception. WCIU has spent much of its history carrying multi-ethnic entertainment programming. At its sign-on, channel 26 operated as an independent station. Local businessman Howard Shapiro, who founded appliance store chain C.E.T. (Chicago Engineers for Television) and held a minority interest in the station, took over Weigel Broadcasting and WCIU in 1966.

The U (film)

The U is a 2009 documentary film about the University of Miami football program. It was produced by Miami-based media studio Rakontur and directed by Billy Corben.

The film premiered December 12, 2009 after the Heisman Trophy presentation on ESPN as a part of their 30 for 30 documentary series. The U's premiere drew 2.3 million viewers, the most ever for a documentary on the sports cable network until the debut of Pony Excess, another college football documentary about the Southern Methodist University football scandal in the 1980s.

DVD release

This film was released on DVD in 2010, both separately and as part of the 30 for 30 box set. The DVD cover, depicting Michael Irvin, originally had the "U" logo on his helmet, but it was airbrushed from the cover after the University of Miami objected to the logo's appearance. Excerpts from Florida State University's "Seminole Rap" video that initially appeared in the documentary were also cut from the DVD release.

Sequel

In December 2014, ESPN released a second 30 for 30, titled The U Part 2. The film documents the second rise to glory of the Miami Hurricanes football team in the late 1990s and early 2000s followed by the eventual fall of the program, due largely to a scandal in which multiple top players accepted cash rewards from booster, Nevin Shapiro.

Station identification

Station identification (ident, network ID or channel ID) is the practice of radio or television stations or networks identifying themselves on-air, typically by means of a call sign or brand name (sometimes known, particularly in the United States, as a "sounder" or "stinger", more generally as a station or network ID). This may be to satisfy requirements of licensing authorities, a form of branding or a combination of both. As such, it is closely related to production logos used in television and cinema, alike.

Station identification used to be done regularly by an announcer at the halfway point during the presentation of a television program, or in between programs.

Asia

Idents are known as a montage in Thailand, and as an interlude in Cambodia and Vietnam.

Station IDs in the Philippines differ from the original concept. Instead of a way to identify television networks, these are presented in the form of music videos that represent the season in which the ident is aired during, which consist of tag-init (summer season), tag-ulan (rainy season), and Pasko (Christmas season). Station IDs in the Philippines runs for three to six minutes depending on the television station. The longest station ID is "Thank You Ang Babait Ninyo", which was used by ABS-CBN as a Christmas ID in 2014, lasting for ten minutes and 36 seconds. However, ABS-CBN, alongside some networks (i.e. UNTV, RPN, IBC, and PTV), also releases CGI-animated station IDs, not yearly but sporadically.

Chicago

Chicago (ⁱ/ʃᵻˈkɑːɡoʊ/ or /ʃᵻˈkɔːɡoʊ/) is the third most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois and the Midwest. The Chicago metropolitan area, often referred to as Chicagoland, has nearly 10 million people and is the third-largest in the U.S. Chicago is the seat of Cook County.

Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837, near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed, and grew rapidly in the mid-nineteenth century. The city is an international hub for finance, commerce, industry, technology, telecommunications, and transportation: O'Hare International Airport is the busiest airport in the world when measured by aircraft traffic; it also has the largest number of U.S. highways and rail road freight. In 2012, Chicago was listed as an alpha global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, and ranked seventh in the world in the 2014 Global Cities Index.As of 2014, Chicago had the third largest gross metropolitan product in the United States at US$610.5 billion.