History
The station signed-on in September 1979 as independent station WGNN-TV. It aired an analog signal on UHF channel 45 from a transmitter west of Gap in Stokes County. The station was bought by the TVX Broadcast Group in 1980 and changed its call letters to WJTM-TV. Over the years, the station ran a general entertainment format consisting of cartoons, movies, sitcoms, and dramas. It changed its call letters to WNRW in 1984 in memory of a station employee who was murdered in a shooting at the station that year. It became the market's Fox affiliate when the network premiered on October 9, 1986. By the late 1980s, the station had dropped its longtime moniker of "TV 45" in favor of "Fox 45."
TVX sold-off many of its smaller stations in 1988, including WNRW, which it sold to Act III Broadcasting. Meanwhile, the other major independent in the market, WGGT (channel 48) filed for bankruptcy in the late-1980s and still had not emerged from it by 1991. At that time, Act III bought WGGT's stronger programming and merged it onto WNRW's lineup. WGGT then began to simulcast WNRW, creating a strong combined signal with over 60% overlap. This was known as the "Piedmont Superstation". The two stations took on a secondary UPN affiliation when that network debuted on January 16, 1995.
The simulcast continued after Act III Broadcasting was bought by Abry Broadcast Partners in 1995. That September, when Fox acquired longtime ABC affiliate WGHP, WNRW and WGGT swapped affiliations with WGHP, and all Fox programming (including Fox Kids) went to WGHP. WNRW also changed its calls to the current WXLV-TV.
In 1996, Sinclair acquired WXLV through its merger with Abry. It then had Glencairn purchase WGGT from Guilford Broadcasters. In 1997, WGGT's simulcast of WXLV was discontinued and the two stations entered into a local marketing agreement (LMA) with WXLV as senior partner. As part of the LMA, all UPN programming moved to channel 48, which changed its calls to WUPN-TV. Since the Smith family (founders of Sinclair) owned most of Glencairn's stock, Sinclair effectively had a duopoly in the Triad. A similar situation existed in the Triangle where Sinclair owned WLFL and Glencairn-owned WRDC. Sinclair bought WUPN outright in 2000.
Read more about this topic: WXLV-TV
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“... the history of the race, from infancy through its stages of barbarism, heathenism, civilization, and Christianity, is a process of suffering, as the lower principles of humanity are gradually subjected to the higher.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)
“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
—G.M. (George Macaulay)