WAOW - History

History

WAOW is Wausau's second television station having signed-on June 12, 1965 owned by the Shockley Communications Corporation. It served as a satellite station of Madison's WKOW as part of the Wisconsin Television Network which would later include WXOW in La Crosse and WQOW in Eau Claire. This station gradually increased its local programming and content finally severing the electronic umbilical cord with WKOW in the 1980s.

WAOW previously aired Fox's NFL package from 1994 until 1999 after the National Football Conference contract and rights for most Green Bay Packers games moved from CBS (locally WSAW-TV) due to the lack of a local Fox affiliate. When Wittenberg-licensed WFXS-DT came on-the-air in December 1999, it became the area's Fox affiliate.

WYOW's first broadcast to viewers in Northern Wisconsin and the Western Upper Peninsula of Michigan was on January 4, 1997 under the ownership of Northwoods Educational Television. Shockley operated the station through a local marketing agreement (LMA) until Shockley successfully purchased it outright in December 1998. WYOW airs WAOW's entire schedule beyond differing promos identifying the station under the "Northwoods 34" branding. On June 25, 2002, WAOW became the first commercial television station in the market to broadcast in high definition and was joined by WYOW on October 24. WAOW/WYOW converted fully to digital on February 17, 2009 without a nightlight period for WAOW while WYOW converted after a nightlight period.

The two stations carried the Retro Television Network (RTV) on a third digital subchannel until March 2009. In the beginning of that month, it was replaced with This TV. In February and March, WAOW aired WFXS's digital signal temporarily on DT3 while that station ironed out problems with activation of its digital transmitter. In early-September 2009, WFXS added RTV to its third digital subchannel. In mid-February 2009, Quincy announced the purchase of Crandon-based WBIJ, a FamilyNet affiliate, which was sold to Quincy by the widow of the station's founder.

Plans called for the conversion of the station to a second satellite of WAOW to serve the northeastern portion of the market near the Michigan border after completing the station's digital VHF channel 12 transmitter facilities. Quincy has since renamed the station WMOW to conform with the call letters of WAOW and the remainder of Quincy's network of ABC affiliates throughout the state which all carry a "OW" suffix. Quincy put the WMOW on-the-air June 4, 2010. Despite being a WAOW satellite, it carries "North Central Wisconsin CW" on its primary channel and WAOW's ABC HD programming on a second subchannel. This TV is seen on WMOW-DT3.