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WFXW

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For the Terre Haute, Indiana television station that held the call sign WFXW on channel 38 from 2005 to 2011, see WAWV-TV.

WFXW
CityGreenville, Mississippi
Channels
Programming
Affiliations
Ownership
Owner
History
First air date
November 7, 1980 (43 years ago) (1980-11-07)
Former call signs
WXVT (1980–2017)
Former channel number(s)
  • Analog: 15 (UHF, 1980–2009)
  • Digital: 17 (UHF, until 2009)
  • CBS (1980–2016)
  • UPN (secondary, 1995–2006)
  • Silent (2016–2019)
  • Ion Television (2019–2020)
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID25236
ERP190 kW
HAAT269 m (883 ft)
Transmitter coordinates33°39′27″N 90°42′17.2″W / 33.65750°N 90.704778°W / 33.65750; -90.704778
Links
Public license information
Websitewww.tct.tv

WFXW (channel 15) is a religious television station in Greenville, Mississippi, United States, owned and operated by Tri-State Christian Television (TCT). The station's transmitter is located northeast of Shaw, Mississippi.

History

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Its first broadcast was on November 7, 1980,[2] under the call sign WXVT. It had been a CBS affiliate for its entire existence. Before this, WJTV in Jackson had served as the default affiliate. The station was originally owned by Big River Broadcasting. Future sister station WABG-TV (channel 6, now a dual ABC/Fox affiliate) was actually the Delta's original CBS affiliate when it launched back in October 1959. However, a few months later, WJTV complained that WABG was encroaching on its service area. This is because WABG's signal reaches the far northern fringes of the Jackson market. Big River Broadcasting sold the station to Lamco Communications in 1984. Lamco then sold WXVT to a local ownership group in 1991. Saga Communications purchased WXVT in 1999.

On May 4, 2012, an application was filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to transfer ownership of WXVT from Saga Communications to H3 Communications. H3 Communications is owned by the adult children of Charles Harker, president of Commonwealth Broadcasting Group, which owns WABG and NBC affiliate WNBD-LD (channel 33). On January 28, 2013, the FCC granted the sale of WXVT, and it was completed two days later.[3][4] Commonwealth then took over WXVT's operations, effectively bringing all of the Delta's Big Three network stations under the control of one company.

H3 Communications agreed to sell WXVT to Cala Broadcast Partners for $3.7 million on October 30, 2015;[5] concurrently, Cala would purchase WABG-TV, WNBD-LD, and WFXW-LD from Commonwealth Broadcasting Group.[6] Cala is jointly owned by Brian Brady (who owns several other television stations, mostly under the Northwest Broadcasting name) and Jason Wolff (who owns radio and television stations through Frontier Radio Management).[6] On November 30, 2015, Cala assigned its right to purchase WXVT to John Wagner for $100,000.[5] The sale was completed on August 1, 2016;[7] on that date, the station went off the air, with Wagner stating in a filing with the FCC that it was looking for new programming.[8]

The licenses were separated into two on June 26, 2017, with a low-powered CBS affiliate carrying WXVT's former intellectual unit, and a station on channel 15 that was still dark. The latter license changed its call letters to WFXW on July 25. On July 29, 2019, WFXW returned to the air and returned programming from Ion Television to the Greenville–Greenwood market for the first time since 2011 after former affiliate WHCQ-LD (channel 8) dropped the affiliation for MyNetworkTV.

In February 2019, Reuters reported that Apollo Global Management had agreed to acquire the entirety of Brian Brady's television portfolio, which it intends to merge with Cox Television (which Apollo is acquiring at the same time) and stations spun off from Nexstar Media Group's purchase of Tribune Broadcasting, once the purchases are approved by the FCC.[9] In March 2019 filings with the FCC, Apollo confirmed that its newly-formed broadcasting group, Terrier Media, would acquire Northwest Broadcasting, with Brian Brady holding an unspecified minority interest in Terrier.[10] In June 2019, it was announced that Terrier Media would instead operate as Cox Media Group, as Apollo had reached a deal to also acquire Cox's radio and advertising businesses.[11] The transaction was completed on December 17.[12]

Donation to Tri-State Christian Television

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On March 9, 2020, it was announced that John Wagner would donate WFXW to Radiant Life Ministries, an affiliate company of Tri-State Christian Television.[13] The transaction was completed on June 12, making WFXW an owned-and-operated station of the TCT network and the first full-power religious station in the Delta area.[14]

On June 26, 2020, WFXW began airing TCT programming on 15.1. As a result, the Ion affiliation was moved to a subchannel of WFXW on 15.2.

Technical information

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Subchannels

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The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of WFXW[15]
Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
15.1 1080i 16:9 WFXW HD TCT
15.2 480i ION Ion Television
15.3 SBN Sonlife
15.4 DEFY Defy TV
15.5 INFO CH Infomercials

Analog-to-digital conversion

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WFXW (as WXVT) shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 15, on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television stations were to transition from analog to digital television under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12). The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 17 to UHF channel 15.

References

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  1. ^ "Facility Technical Data for WFXW". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. ^ Television & Cable Factbook 1988 Edition (PDF). 1988. p. A-587. Retrieved July 20, 2017.
  3. ^ https://licensing.fcc.gov/prod/cdbs/pubacc/Auth_Files/1538748.pdf[permanent dead link]
  4. ^ "CDBS Print".
  5. ^ a b "Application For Consent To Assignment Of Broadcast Station Construction Permit Or License (WXVT)". CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. December 3, 2015. Retrieved December 9, 2015.
  6. ^ a b "Application For Consent To Assignment Of Broadcast Station Construction Permit Or License (WABG-TV)". CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. December 3, 2015. Retrieved December 9, 2015.
  7. ^ Consummation Notice, CDBS Public Access, Federal Communications Commission, August 1, 2016, Retrieved August 10, 2016.
  8. ^ Wagner, John (August 12, 2016). "Suspension of Operations and Silent Authority of a DTV Station Application". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission. Retrieved July 16, 2017.
  9. ^ "EXCLUSIVE-Apollo nears $3 billion deal to buy Cox TV stations -sources" Archived February 20, 2019, at the Wayback Machine from CNBC (February 10, 2019)
  10. ^ Jessell, Harry A. (March 6, 2019). "Cox TV Valued At $3.1 Billion In Apollo Acquisition". TV News Check. Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  11. ^ Jacobson, Adam (June 26, 2019). "It's Official: Cox Radio, Gamut, CoxReps Going To Apollo". Radio & Television Business Report. Retrieved June 26, 2019.
  12. ^ "Cox Enterprises Announces Close of Cox Media Group Sale to Affiliates of Apollo Global Management", prnewswire.com, December 17, 2019, Retrieved December 17, 2019.
  13. ^ WFXW Donation Agreement
  14. ^ "Consummation Notice". CDBS Public Access, Federal Communications Commission, June 15, 2020, Retrieved June 15, 2020.
  15. ^ Digital TV Market Listing for WFXW
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