WJBF - History

History

Augusta's first television station, WJBF-TV began operations on November 23, 1953. The station was founded by local entrepreneur J.B. Fuqua, who also owned NBC Radio Network affiliate WJBF (1230 AM). WJBF-TV was a primary NBC affiliate, but picked up programs from ABC and DuMont on a secondary basis. Sister station WJBF radio was sold by Fuqua in 1954 (it is now WEZO).

Channel 6 began sharing ABC programming with CBS affiliate WRDW-TV (channel 12) around 1959, but on September 1, 1967 WJBF became a primary ABC affiliate. The move relegated NBC to a shared secondary affiliation with WRDW-TV. This was an unusual situation for a then two-station market, especially one as small as Augusta. But in 1966 Fuqua had purchased two primary ABC affiliates, WTVW in Evansville, Indiana and KTHI-TV (now KVLY-TV) in Fargo, North Dakota, and apparently wanted to get his other stations—WJBF and KTVE in El Dorado, Arkansas—in line with the new acquisitions. Additionally, no full-time ABC affiliate provided even a grade B signal to the Augusta area at the time. By contrast, fellow NBC affiliate WIS-TV in Columbia provided at least grade B coverage to the South Carolina side of the market. Fuqua reasoned that if channel 6 took a primary ABC affiliation, it wouldn't have significant out-of-market competition. In 1969, Fuqua branched out into the movie theater business when he purchased Martin Theaters of Georgia, also the owner of WTVM in Columbus, Georgia, and WTVC in Chattanooga, Tennessee, also ABC affiliates.

When WATU (channel 26, now WAGT) began operations in December 1968, conventional wisdom suggested that it would become a full NBC affiliate. However, since many Augusta viewers still didn't have UHF-capable sets, NBC allowed WJBF and WRDW-TV to continue to cherry-pick most of its programs (WJBF kept airing both the Today Show and The Tonight Show, among others). The failure of WATU to secure a full-time network affiliation caused that station to go dark in 1970. Channel 6 became a full-time ABC affiliate when WATU returned to the air in 1974, this time with a primary NBC affiliation.

J.B. Fuqua sold off his stations in 1980, with WJBF and WTVM going to Missoula, Montana-based Western Broadcasting Company. In 1984 all of Western's broadcast holdings were bought by SFN Companies Inc., then-parent of educational publisher Scott, Foresman and Company. SFN was acquired two years later by Commacq Inc., a new firm formed by members of SFN's management. Spartan Radiocasting of Spartanburg, South Carolina purchased the station in 1992. Spartan was renamed Spartan Communications in 1995, and merged into Media General in 2000.