Our last Same Day Sunday will be December 27, 2026. Starting in 2027, WPAA-TV ends its extraordinary commitment to cablecast services on the same day faith communities hold them. As always, we’ll support the extra holiday services over the coming weeks.
This is not necessarily the end of faith-based content on WPAA-TV. Each faith community will decide whether to continue being Content Producers for community TV. In December we’ll confirm each community’s 2027 plan and play schedule (if applicable). Per state regulation and our policy, WPAA-TV is obligated to distribute properly submitted content. For communities of faith this is typically 6 plays per week. Continuation will require an updated organization media release with contact information and program plan. As producers, faith communities are obligated to tell their communities the TV schedule in the program plan. WPAA will commit to a predictable schedule.
Viewers
If you watch on Comcast channel 18 or 1070 HD, or at wpaa.tv/watch, the schedule is changing in 2027. Sunday content will not match the liturgical calendar. The year of COVID is shown below.
New Life Church is currently at 9 p.m.
Catholic Mass from St. Benedict of Nursia is at 7 and 10 p.m.
UCC First Congregational and St. Paul’s Episcopal have the same Sunday times they had in the 1990s: 3:30 and 5 p.m., respectively.
Christadelphians ceased production.
We have a few evergreen programs from the Muslim Community like ‘Jesus in India’.
Christ Presbyterian Church came and went with the planting Pastor.
1000 Sundays: Tea and stories to faceless file transfers.
Same Day Sunday started with Sharon Kesilewski of St. Paul’s Episcopal, who joined our board to have Sunday access to the building. When she could no longer continue, our Executive Director began her 1,000 Sundays. Church volunteers record and transfer video; WPAA staff and volunteers retrieve and prepare files for plays starting at 3:30 p.m. We’ve moved from VHS to S-VHS, DVDs, flash drives, and now the cloud. Tea and stories have become faceless file transfers.
Every week, WPAA-TV has worked collaboratively with several teams. The process begins with on-site recording and completes with TV scheduling. Church volunteers record and transfer video files. WPAA staff handles file retrieval and prepares content for multiple plays starting at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday.
For many years, the teams exchanged physical media at the station. Our shared history courses through VHS, S-VHS, DVD, and flash drives. Currently, all content is transmitted via the cloud. What was once sharing tea and stories is now faceless transactions with strangers who may have little awareness of the expectations of this file exchange or who the audience may be.
Another Extra
Did you know having a predictable cablecast time is also unusual in community media? Sometimes, what may appear logical, or just common sense, requires taking extra steps. For regulatory compliance, in 2018, our policies were innovatively aligned with practice to maintain the established recurring play schedule. Concurrent with this pivot, we ended our Bulletin Board. Among the announcements, were pictures of every local church with key contact information.
Why Discontinue? There are other convenient viewer options!
All our faith partners use social media, and all offer on-demand viewing. During extraordinary times, COVID, these partners turned to us to reach you. Soon thereafter, they implemented social media alternatives. Some stream ‘as it happens’ and all provide ‘on demand’ access.
Many shut-in viewers are gone, and young people aren’t connecting to cable. The feed to SNET (now Verizon) hasn’t been supported for more than two years by those companies including AT&T.
We don’t know if anyone is watching, and the schedule has been missing from producer community bulletins for some time. If our faith communities decide they are reaching their community well enough on new platforms, we understand and agree with any decisions to cease content submission.
However, this does not mean we are no longer relevant; it is just a pivot to provide different meaningful service: in studioW content makers.
We remain committed to all voices from within our community. We are the place & space to uplift voices from the commons.
It all adds up to discontinuing the “extra”
Community Media in Wallingford began in 1975 as a library bulletin board. Church volunteers brought video services to WPAA-TV when the nonprofit was formed in 1993. Back then, we even provided the tripods and cameras to the churches. St. Paul’s still has a WPAA-TV Tripod. In 2005, there were a few same-day cablecasts.
In 2010, Same Day Sunday, we elevated this ‘extraordinary’ service to priority status. The WPAA-TV team committed five hours every Sunday. For a brief period and paid staff. 35% of our staff budget went to scheduling communities of faith (30% of channel hours). Per regulation, 13 plays in a week left little room for other voices. In 2016, we modified policy to align with predictable view times. In 2018, policy reduced the number of plays by defining a program as 30 minutes. By 2018, the public notice of play time was solidly a producer responsibility.
Technology has cut processing time to as little as 2 hours a week, but asking a non-faith organization to commit a volunteer every Sunday no longer seems essential. We are grateful to the church video teams who provided content every Sunday for TV, some of them for decades. That step can continue, but timely processing will not be within hours; it will be later in the week.
If you have questions or want to tell us whether you are a WPAATV viewer, please call (203) 294-9722 or email wpaatv@gmail.com. You can influence when we schedule content in the future.
It was difficult to write this. There was so much camaraderie when it all began. I especially miss Bob Berlepsch, who was on this faithful journey for many years. When he left this earth, it was like a sign. Realign to be a better servant. He was a servant in faith. April 19, 1946 – September 22, 2026.
Written by Susan Adele Huizenga
