WTXL - History

History

WTXL-TV debuted on September 16, 1976 as WECA-TV owned by local businessman Evans Craig Allen. In the early years, its slogan was "We Can Do It!" which was a play on the call letters. The station was the third to sign-on in the area after WFSU-TV and WCTV. By its fourth year of broadcasting, the station used the slogan "Up & Coming". Its original studios were on Thomasville Road (U.S. 319/FL 61) in Tallahassee and aired an analog signal on UHF channel 27 from a transmitter northeast of the facilities. In 1984, Allen sold the station to Tallahassee 27 Limited Partnership led by former Senator Joseph Tydings and former Representative Louis Frey, Jr. The call letters were changed to the current WTXL-TV. The station's history page claims the new owners took over in 1985, but according to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) files, the call letters were changed in 1984.

In 1998, WTXL began to manage and promote a cable-only affiliate of The WB. Known as "WBXT" and originally on-air as "WB 28", it was part of The WB 100+ service. Except for the same call letters being used in a fictional manner, the channel had no relation to Class A MTV2 affiliate WBXT-CA that broadcasts over-the-air. On April 1, 2005, UPN affiliates WFXU/WTLF switched to The WB. UPN promptly signed with WCTV which launched a new second digital subchannel to carry the network. As a result, the "WBXT" operation was shut down.

In 2001, Media Ventures Management (then owner of WTXL) entered into an outsourcing agreement with the Sinclair Broadcast Group who owns NBC affiliate WTWC-TV. Sinclair began to operate this station that merged virtually all of its operations from the original studios to WTWC's facilities on Deer Lake South on March 17, 2002. The arrangement was the first of its kind in the United States. The Southern Broadcast Corporation (now Calkins Media) acquired WTXL's license on November 30, 2005 while the arrangement continued. On February 20, 2006, the partnership between the two stations was dissolved when the Southern Broadcast Corporation gave notice to terminate the agreement with Sinclair. As a result, WTXL moved out of the WTWC building.

After leaving WTWC's facilities, WTXL rented studio space from Florida State University's PBS affiliate WFSU. On June 20, 2006, this station broke ground on new studios in a commercial park in nearby Midway. WTXL fully moved into the new facility in August 2007. Until January 1, 2011, it served as the default ABC affiliate for Albany, Georgia as that area did not have an affiliate of its own. On that date, WALB added ABC to its second digital subchannel.