(Updated, 3:30 p.m.)

PROVIDENCE – WNAC-TV (Fox 64) has launched a new digital television station that airs MyNetworkTV programming, including “WWE SmackDown,” in prime time.

The country’s switch from analog to digital broadcast signals earlier this year freed up bandwidth space for TV stations, allowing them to air additional programming streams, or subchannels, over their existing signals.

WNAC’s new subchannel – dubbed “MyRITV” – is aired on WNAC-DT2. It will air MyNetworkTV shows from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., as well as syndicated content, local programs such as “The Rhode Show,” and eventually local sports, according to Broadcasting & Cable, a trade publication.

WNAC-DT2 is available over the air, and Pam Brennan, the two stations’ program manager, said the station also joined the channel lineups of cable providers Cox Communications Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., Comcast Corp., Full Channel TV Inc. and Charter Communications Inc. on Thursday.

The station’s parent company, WNAC LLC, is a subsidiary of Super Towers Inc., a Naples, Fla.-based company owned by Timothy G. Sheehan of Wenham, Mass. The station is operated day-to-day by Providence-based LIN TV Corp. under a local marketing agreement.

Jay Howell, president and general manager of WNAC and its sister station, LIN’s WPRI-TV (CBS 12), told the magazine the broadcaster is aiming to create a unique identity for MyRITV. “It doesn’t look like other subchannels,” he said. “It looks like a real channel.”

News Corp. created MyNetworkTV in 2006 to fill the programming gap some of its stations ended up with when their network, UPN, merged with the WB to create a new network, the CW. (Although News Corp. owns the Fox television network, some of the stations it owns are not Fox affiliates.) News Corp. also offered the new network’s programming to stations owned by other companies.

This fall, however, weak ratings and high costs led News Corp. to overhaul MyNet, changing it from a traditional network to a syndication-like “program service” that airs more repeats and less original programming. The change also gave local stations more advertising time to sell.

WNAC had been airing MyNet’s two hours of nightly content from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m., but it will now be moved to the prime time slot on WNAC-DT2.

Howell said the Providence-New Bedford television market, the country’s 53rd-largest in Nielsen Media Research’s rankings, is ripe for additional broadcast stations. “The market only has five major stations, whereas markets our size usually have seven or eight,” he told Broadcasting & Cable. “We feel this market can certainly handle six.”

Howell also said state management hopes MyRITV will attract advertisers who cannot afford to buy commercial time on the market’s major stations like WJAR-TV (NBC 10) and WPRI.