thumb|Noticentro in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico

WAPA-TV (channel 4) is a Spanish-language independent television station in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is the flagship and namesake station of Guaynabo-based WAPA Media Group.

WAPA-TV maintains studio facilities on Avenida Luis Vigoreaux in Guaynabo; its transmitter is located on the WKAQ-TV (channel 2) transmission tower at Cerro La Santa in Cayey near the Carite State Forest. WAPA-TV is the most watched television station in Puerto Rico.

The station's signal is relayed across Puerto Rico through two full-power satellite stations: WTIN-TV (digital channel 14, virtual channel 4) in Ponce and WNJX-TV (digital channel 31, virtual channel 4) in Mayagüez. WTIN-TV also broadcasts two subchannels simulcast from WKAQ-TV, including its Telemundo programming, using virtual channels 2.11 and 2.21.

History

WAPA-TV began broadcasting on May 1, 1954, as the second television station to be licensed to Puerto Rico. Its callsign is a partial abbreviation of the station's original owners, the now-defunct , or Puerto Rico Sugar Grower's Association. During its earliest years, the station was affiliated with NBC, ABC, DuMont, and the CMQ Television Network. During the late 1960s, WAPA-TV relocated to a larger facility at Garden Hills in Guaynabo. The architectural planning of the new building received a recognition in the "commercial design" category of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (ICP) awards. The sale was completed on March 30, 2007.

On December 17, 2007, the station changed its branding from to , in all lowercase letters. Following the rebrand, the station began developing a new format, changing its jingle and redesigning their website. WAPA-TV signed an agreement with Miss Puerto Rico Universe to produce a reality show titled , which debuted on August 15, 2008, where the public is able to select which five of the participants move directly to the pageant's semifinal via text messaging votes.

On January 23, 2013, InterMedia Partners announced that it would merge WAPA-TV and WAPA America, along with its stake in Cinelatino, with the shell corporation Azteca Acquisition Corporation (which is not associated with the Mexican-based Azteca group or the Azteca América network) to form Hemisphere Media Group. 73% of the new company is owned by InterMedia.

On December 1, 2017, WAPA-TV named Javier Maynulet Montilla as president and general manager, succeeding Ramos, who spent 20 years at the station until his retirement on April 27, 2018.

On November 9, 2020, WAPA-TV named Jorge Hidalgo as president and general manager of the station effective January 1, 2021, after Javier Maynulet left the station after two years. Hidalgo currently serves as a Senior Vice President of Operations for Hemisphere Media Group.

WAPA Orlando

On December 11, 2025, during WAPA Media's upfront presentation, it was announced that WAPA had reached an agreement with Entravision Communications to bring the WAPA brand as a local over-the-air channel in Central Florida named WAPA Orlando. WAPA Orlando officially launched on-air on February 6, 2026, broadcasting through WOTF-TV and featuring all the local programming produced in Puerto Rico while boasting the creation of a local NotiCentro newscast focused on Central Florida which will also be produced from WAPA Headquarters in Puerto Rico. Although the station is now affiliated to WAPA Media Group, Entravision will continue operating the station and will be in charge of its digital strategy (social media, online presence) independent of WAPA Media.

Outages

On December 3, 2015, WAPA-TV along with WIPR-TV went off-air, due to a transmitter outage at Cerro La Santa in Cayey. The station was still watchable on Liberty, Dish Network, DirecTV and Claro TV. The transmitter was repaired and placed back on air on December 10, 2015. Repairs were made by WAPA's engineering department.

On September 20, 2017, the main transmission tower of WAPA-TV was destroyed during Hurricane Maria. This caused the station to be off-air for two days until they began transmitting through Univision-owned stations WSTE-DT (until October 30) and WLII-DT (until November 17; which was owned by Univision at the time) from their transmitter in Aguas Buenas. Since November 18, the station then began transmitting its main programming (virtual channel 4.1) through station WKAQ-TV and WAPA Deportes (4.2) through WIPR-TV.

On October 28, 2018, one year after going dark, WAPA-TV returned to the air from its new transmitter installed at the WKAQ-TV tower location, broadcasting with High Quality Doble Data HD. Repairs caused by the old transmitter equipment were made by the engineering department.

DirecTV-WAPA carriage dispute

On May 4, 2018, Hemisphere Media Group became involved in a retransmission consent dispute with DirecTV, resulting in WAPA-TV's removal from DirecTV's Puerto Rico channel lineup. The station was restored on June 14, 2018, after the two sides came to a new agreement.

Dish-WAPA carriage dispute

On October 24, 2019, at 7 p.m., Hemisphere Media Group became involved in a retransmission consent dispute with Dish Network, resulting in WAPA-TV's removal from Dish's Puerto Rico channel lineup. The station was restored on December 17, 2019, after the two sides came to a new agreement.

Programming

NotiCentro

thumb|250px|The current logo of NotiCentro

(a Spanish translation of NewsCenter) is the name of WAPA-TV's news division; the station presently broadcasts 44 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with eight hours each weekday and two hours each on Saturdays and Sundays). The news operation began in 1967 with Cuban-born Evelio Otero as the sole anchorman for the 6 p.m. newscast. Soon after, Carlos Ruben Ortiz joined the news staff for the 6 p.m. broadcast. Otero remained alone on camera, until his departure from WAPA in 1980 to take the senior editor position at the Voice of America in Washington. Ortiz shared the anchor slot at 6 p.m. with then newcomer Guillermo José Torres, a former radio announcer born in Juana Diaz who has since become the longest standing news anchor on the island, with a career spanning 43 years (Torres retired on August 5, 2013). The format predated the NewsCenter format which became popular on NBC affiliates in the 1970s.

In its beginnings, ran for only fifteen minutes in the afternoon, with a half-hour edition at 10 p.m.; there was also a weekend edition. Eventually, the program's running time was increased to a full hour. After Otero's departure, New York City–born William "Bill" Pérez became WAPA's news director (Torres held the post for a while, but eventually asked to serve only as a news anchor). In the late 1970s, Enrique Cruz, Luz Nereida Vélez, Sylvia Gómez, Luis Rigual, Cyd Marie Fleming, José Ésteves, Luis Francisco Ojeda and others joined the news department.

In 1980, inaugurated a new studio. In 1981, Pedro Rosa Nales joined the team. In 1982, Enrique Cruz, also known as "Kike Cruz", replaced Torres as show director. In 1983, Rigual died, and was replaced as main sports anchor by Rafael Bracero. Bobby Angleró joined the team of reporters as Bracero's main helper in 1983, the same year that the was inaugurated by the station. helped the station deliver breaking news quicker, and helped deliver the news on occasions such as the Challenger explosion, when Torres interrupted Ángela Meyer on her "" comedy segment to break the news to the public only minutes after it had happened.

In the early 2000s, WAPA-TV began using a helicopter for newsgathering called ("SuperChopper"). The had mostly been used to report on traffic conditions in the metropolitan area on the 4 and 5 p.m. newscasts. WAPA-TV was the only local station to have a helicopter, but regular use of the was soon discontinued due to budget cuts; WAPA now only uses the helicopter for special events such as elections and breaking news coverage.

ran a local cable channel, WAPA Tiempo, which featured weather forecasts for Puerto Rico 24 hours a day. Originally named (its name changed to avoid confusion with The Weather Channel cable network), it could be seen on all three cable companies then serving Puerto Rico at the time (OneLink Communications, Choice Cable TV, and Liberty Puerto Rico; all of them now merged as the latter); it was also broadcast on WAPA-TV digital subchannel 4.3. WAPA Tiempo was discontinued on September 1, 2012, due to WAPA Deportes (subchannel 4.2) upgrading to Full HD resolution to broadcast MLB postseason games; the channel was also dropped from Liberty cable.

WAPA-TV uses the same logo for (formerly ), only changing the word WAPA to . The music package previously used for the newscast was "News Authority" by 615 Music and has been used since 2004. In the past, the station used "WNDU 1986 News Theme", "Turn to News", "Newswatch 24", "News One" and "Impact" among others. now uses the same music for all its segments and bumpers except for its news résumé ("In One Week"), which used the NotiCentro 4 graphics and music package from 1999 but now uses the current graphics and music package. Since 2012, WAPA-TV uses the "Truth" music package by 615 Music with "Truth V1" from 2012 to 2017, and "Truth V2" since 2017 for all newscasts.

On May 20, 2019, expanded to hours beginning at 4 p.m., renaming itself as , with Normando Valentín serving as an anchor for the early evening newscast. Valentín has been with the station since 2003, and was morning anchor from 2008 to 2019. On February 3, 2020, Katiria Soto returns to WAPA-TV after five years working at WXTV-DT in New York, this time as a co-anchor of the 4 p.m. newscast.

Notable current on-air news staff

  • Juan Dalmau – political analyst
  • Jay Fonseca – general assignment reporter/analyst
  • Luz Nereida Vélez – health reporter

Local program hosts

  • Junior Abrams –
  • Angelique Burgos –
  • Melwin Cedeño –
  • Sunshine Logroño – (producer)
  • Jaime Mayol –
  • José Vega Santana Remi – Collaborator at

Notable former on-air staff

  • Raymond Arrieta - comedian & host
  • Efren Arroyo – investigative reporter and historian
  • Rafael Bracero – sports anchor
  • Josue Carrion
  • Jailene Cintrón – host
  • Gredmarie Colón
  • Sonya Cortes
  • Alba Nydia Díaz – actress
  • Carlos Díaz Olivo – political analyst
  • Cyd Marie Fleming – anchor/reporter
  • Roque Gallart
  • Juan Manuel García Passalacqua – investigative reporter
  • Sylvia Gómez – anchor/reporter
  • Keylla Hernández – anchor and reporter
  • Rafael José – host and singer
  • Carmen Jovet – reporter
  • Zoe Laboy – political analyst
  • Alexandra Lugaro - political analyst
  • Topy Mamery
  • Hector Marcano – producer and host at
  • Pedro Rosa Nales – anchor and reporter
  • Luis Francisco Ojeda – investigative reporter
  • Ivonne Orsini
  • Marian Pabón – comedian
  • Tommy Ramos
  • Gary Rodríguez
  • Johnny Ray Rodriguez – comedian
  • Ángel Rosa – political analyst
  • Rubén Sánchez
  • Kobbo Santarrosa
  • Guillermo José Torres – anchorman
  • Hector Travieso
  • Jennifer Wolff – anchor/reporter

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

{| class="wikitable"

|+Subchannels of WAPA-TV

! scope = "col" | Channel

! scope = "col" | Res.

! scope = "col" | Short name

! scope = "col" | Programming

|-

! scope = "row" | 4.1

| |1080i || WAPA-HD || Main WAPA-TV programming

|-

! scope = "row" | 4.2

| rowspan="2"|720p || WAPA2HD || WAPA Deportes

|-

! scope = "row" | 4.3

| WAPA3 || WAPA 4.3

|-

|}

{| class="wikitable"

|+Subchannels of WTIN-TV

! scope = "col" | Channel

! scope = "col" | Res.

! scope = "col" | Short name

! scope = "col" | Programming

|- style="background-color: #E6FFF7;"

! scope = "row" | 2.11

| 720p || WKAQ-DT || Telemundo West (WKAQ-TV)

|- style="background-color: #E6FFF7;"

! scope = "row" | 2.21

| 480i || WKAQ.2 || Punto 2 (WKAQ-DT2)

|-

! scope = "row" | 4.1

| rowspan=2| 720p || WTIN-DT || Main WTIN-TV programming / WAPA-TV

|-

! scope = "row" | 4.2

| WTIN-D2 || WAPA Deportes

|-

! scope = "row" | 4.3

| 480i || WTIN-D3 || WAPA 4.3

|}

Analog-to-digital conversion

WAPA-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 4, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 27, using virtual channel 4.

References

Citations

Bibliography

  • The Museum of Broadcasting – Puerto Rico TV Profile