WSFX-TV
kW | |
HAAT | 592.2 m (1,943 ft) |
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Transmitter coordinates | 34°7′54″N 78°11′16″W / 34.13167°N 78.18778°W |
Links | |
Public license information | |
Website | foxwilmington |
WSFX-TV (channel 26) is a television station in Wilmington, North Carolina, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by American Spirit Media, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with Gray Television, owner of NBC affiliate WECT (channel 6), for the provision of certain services. Both stations share studios on Shipyard Boulevard in Wilmington, while WSFX-TV's transmitter is located near Winnabow, North Carolina.
History
The station signed on September 24, 1984, as WJKA, a
Prior to WJKA's start-up, Wilmington was one of the few
Channel 26's tenure as a CBS affiliate was far from successful. The station operated on a shoestring budget. It mostly served as a "pass-through" for automated CBS programming, and produced almost no local content. The fact that WNCT and WBTW provided at least Grade B coverage to some parts of the market did not help matters either. Further complicating matters, Raleigh's
In 1994, WJKA along with sister station
Before the switch, Wilmington was the only portion of North Carolina (and one of the few in the Eastern Time Zone) without an over-the-air Fox affiliate of its own. Until this point in time, the area's cable systems piped in the national
On paper, the loss of CBS should have put channel 26 in serious jeopardy. Fox had just begun airing a full week's worth of programming just a season earlier, but then as now, does not produce any daytime programming. WSFX thus now faced having to buy an additional 10 hours of programming per day. However, the move to Fox rejuvenated the station. Its main competition was now WLFL. Within a few years, it was one of the strongest small-market Fox affiliates in the country. Until 1996, WSFX also doubled as the Fox affiliate for the Florence–Myrtle Beach, South Carolina market which did not have its own affiliate (some cable systems in the Myrtle Beach area imported WACH from Columbia, South Carolina prior to WSFX's switch to Fox). In fact, the current call letters stand for "SuperFox", referring to its on-air name at the time and relatively wide coverage area. Since the station's over-the-air signal does not reach Florence, the Pee Dee area had to rely on cable for Fox programming until WGSE-TV (now WFXB) in Myrtle Beach took the affiliation.
In 2003, Everett sold the station to Southeastern Media Holdings.
On May 8, 2008, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced five stations in Wilmington (including WSFX) had agreed to voluntarily cease analog broadcasting on September 8. The Wilmington market was billed as the first in the nation to convert to all-digital transmissions due to its role as the FCC's digital transition test market. Hawaii shut down analog broadcasting in January 2009 followed by more but not all full-power television broadcasters on February 17, 2009.
News operation
As WJKA, the station had virtually no news department for most of its tenure as a CBS affiliate. In the mid-1980s, it did air a weekday noon show called Midday offering local news headlines and entertainment reports. In the early-1990s, WJKA actually operated a short-lived news department branded as WJKA Action News 26. It attempted to create another source for newscasts besides longtime dominant WECT and runner up WWAY. Despite the efforts of WJKA and WWAY, WECT maintained a strong lead in the market ratings and viewership counts by consistently holding the top spot in Nielsen marks.
On September 22, 2003, through a new share agreement, WECT began producing a nightly half-hour prime time newscast on WSFX called Fox 26 News at 10 (now Fox Wilmington News at 10). This was eventually joined by a sixty-minute extension of WECT's weekday morning show on September 13, 2006, called Carolina in the Morning on Fox 26 (now Carolina in the Morning on Fox Wilmington), currently airing from 7 to 8 on WSFX offering an alternative to the national morning shows seen on the market's
At some point in time, WECT added a third newscast to WSFX called Fox 26 News at 6:30 (later became Fox Wilmington News at 6:30), which only aired on weeknights and attempted to compete against the national evening newscasts seen on the big three networks. It would be canceled by the end of 2013 in preparation to expand the weeknight edition of the 10 p.m. show to an hour (which occurred on January 15, 2014). On September 6, 2016, WSFX premiered a 7 p.m. newscast. After WWAY stopped producing weekend evening newscasts on August 1, 2009, WECT and WSFX became the only outlets in Wilmington to offer evening broadcasts seen seven nights a week. Although WWAY eventually reintroduced a local newscast airing Sunday nights at 11, WECT and WSFX remain the only channels in the market to air newscasts throughout the weekend.
WSFX currently airs 13+1⁄2 hours of news produced by sister station WECT. All newscasts on WSFX air from WECT's primary set.
Subchannels
The station's signal is
Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
---|---|---|---|---|
26.1 | 720p | 16:9
|
WSFX-DT | Fox |
26.2 | 480i | Court TV | Court TV | |
26.3 | Grit | Grit | ||
26.4 | Ion | Ion Television | ||
26.5 | Dabl | Dabl | ||
26.6 | Defy | Defy TV |
Defunct translator
WSFX formerly operated an analog
References
- ^ "Facility Technical Data for WSFX-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
- ^ Flint, Joe (April 15, 1994). "CBS loses trio of affils to Fox". Variety. Retrieved January 16, 2013.
- ^ "RabbitEars TV Query for WSFX". RabbitEars.info.