WFTV - History

History

The station signed on-the-air on February 1, 1958 as WLOF-TV (for We Love Orlando, Florida). It has been an ABC affiliate since its launch. For years, the station was owned by a consortium of local investors. It changed its call letters to the current WFTV in 1963. The SFN Companies purchased the station in 1984. SFN in turn sold the station to Cox Communications in 1985. As of July 2006, WFTV is now seen on the co-owned Cox cable system in Ocala (basic on channel 9 and high definition on digital channel 729) in addition to Gainesville's WCJB-TV. Ocala and Marion County are both part of the Orlando market. Prior to this, the Cox system in Ocala only offered WCJB due to contractual obligations even though that city is not in the same television market as Gainesville. To further complicate matters for viewers in the area of Northwest Marion county, WNBW-DT an NBC affiliate located in Gainesville, Florida and in operation since 2008 also identifies itself as channel 9.

As part of the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, WFTV shut down its analog transmitter on June 12, 2009, and continued to broadcast on its pre-transition digital channel 39. However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display WFTV's virtual channel as 9. Since February 25, 2009, it has had an application filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to air a digital auxiliary facility from a transmitter in northeastern Osceola County.