About WPHL17

Channel 17 first went on the air on June 17, 1960 as WPCA-TV, with the call letters standing for "People's Church of the Air." The station was founded by Percy Crawford and initially featured religious programming. WPCA was Philadelphia's first commercial UHF station, but it struggled to gain a following due to the fact that UHF tuners were not yet required on most television sets (the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) did not make UHF tuning capability a requirement until 1964 with the passage of the All-Channel Act). As a result, WPCA was only on the air for two years before it ceased operations on August 1, 1962.

Despite its brief lifespan, WPCA-TV made an important contribution to the development of television in Philadelphia and played a role in the expansion of UHF broadcasting in the region.