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| History | |
First air date | September 9, 1984 (41 years ago) (1984-09-09) |
Former call signs |
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Former channel numbers | Analog: 32 (UHF, 1984–2009) |
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Call sign meaning | Greenville to Atlanta |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 63329 |
| ERP | 240kW |
| HAAT | 235.1 m (771.3 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 34°36′35.7″N83°22′14.3″W / 34.609917°N 83.370639°W /34.609917; -83.370639 |
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Public license information | |
| Website | www |
WGTA (channel 32) is atelevision station licensed toToccoa, Georgia, United States, serving much of thenortheastern portion of the state. The station is owned byMarquee Broadcasting, and has studios on Big A Road in Toccoa; its transmitter is located northwest of Black Rock Mountain outside of Toccoa in unincorporatedStephens County.
WGTA broadcasts programming from theMeTV,Heroes & Icons,Catchy Comedy,Movies! andStory Television multicast services (all owned and operated byWeigel Broadcasting). It primarily serves four counties in northeast Georgia that are part of theGreenville–Spartanburg–Ashevillemarket. The station provides at least secondary coverage to the extreme east-northeastern portions of theAtlanta market, includingAthens,Gainesville andBraselton. Four of the five networks (Movies!, Catchy Comedy, MeTV, and Heroes & Icons) aresimulcast on the second and fifthdigital subchannels ofWAGA-TV (5.2 and 5.5) and the fourth and seventh subchannels ofWUPA (69.4 and 69.7) in the Atlanta area.
The station first signed on the air on September 9, 1984, as WNEG-TV (the call letters representing Northeast Georgia); operating as a commercialindependent station at the time, the station was originally owned by Toccoa businessman Roy Gaines and his Stephens County Broadcasting Company along with longtime local radio stationWNEG (630 AM). Gaines felt that northeast Georgia received very little local news coverage from stations in the adjacent Atlanta,Augusta, and Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville markets, and launched WNEG in order to fill this void.[2] However, the station struggled to make money, as there were barely enough viewers or advertisers in its primarily rural area for it to be viable. Virtually the only program that generated ratings on the station was the popularBilly Dilworth Show; it and WNEG radio's ratings were all that kept channel 32 afloat. Gaines campaigned tirelessly to have WNEG added to area cable systems, often buying antennas and offering technical assistance in exchange for adding WNEG to their channel line-ups.
Gaines ultimately gave up on trying to make the station viable in 1990, and decided to put channel 32 up for sale.[3] However, he was unable to find any buyers until August 1995, when it entered into atime brokerage agreement withSpartan Communications, making WNEG asister station to Spartan's televisionflagship,WSPA-TV (channel 7) in Spartanburg. Spartan bought the station outright two years later[3] (WNEG radio still exists, but operates separately from and maintains different ownership than the former WNEG-TV).
Through the deal with Spartan, WNEG was able to gain an affiliation withCBS, restoring that network to areas of northeast Georgia that had lost access to CBS programmingone year earlier, when longtime Atlanta affiliateWAGA-TV switched toFox as a result of then-ownerNew World Communications' groupwide affiliation agreement with Fox. The new Atlanta CBS affiliate, WGNX (channel 46, nowWANF), was located on UHF, and did not have nearly thesignal coverage that WAGA had in northeast Georgia.[3] Many areas of northeast Georgia were among the few areas where cable still did not have much penetration. Spartan also beefed up WNEG's news department,[3] and changed the station's (and by extension, its newscasts) branding toNewsChannel 32, using a logo similar to the one that WSPA used from 1994 to 2001 (which was also used by another sister station,WJBF in Augusta, around the same time period). WNEG and the rest of Spartan's properties were acquired byMedia General in 2000. When WSPA and WJBF switched to Media General's standardized logo design, WNEG retained its Spartan-era logo.
On October 29, 2007, Media General announced that it was exploring the sale of WNEG.[4] This was followed on June 25, 2008, with an announcement that the station would be sold to theUniversity of Georgia Research Foundation, with plans to use channel 32 as a training facility for students in the university'sHenry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.[5] The university took control on October 15; at that time, CBS programming was dropped[6] and replaced with programming from theAmerica One andThis TV networks.[7] UGA moved the operations of WNEG-TV from its studios in Toccoa to the university campus in Athens in the fall of 2009, and also added more locally produced programming.[8] As a result of WNEG dropping CBS, WSPA now serves as northeast Georgia's default CBS affiliate, while WGCL-TV (the former WGNX) became the exclusive CBS affiliate for the Atlanta market.
Among the syndicated programs acquired by the station after the University of Georgia took over operations included reruns ofDegrassi: The Next Generation andFamily Feud (the latter of which had aired onMyNetworkTV affiliateWMYA-TV (channel 40, now aDabl affiliate) for seven years at the time of its move).
On December 23, 2010, UGA announced it would enter into a programming partnership with the Georgia Public Telecommunications Commission, which would provide programming fromGeorgia Public Broadcasting to WNEG, with most of the content coming from its GPB Knowledge subchannel.[9] The university subsequently filed an application to theFederal Communications Commission (FCC) to convert the station'slicense to non-commercial status;[10] UGA cited a reduction of advertising revenue, resulting from theeconomic downturn and the loss of the station's CBS affiliation.[11] The station also announced its intention to change its call letters to WUGA-TV.[12] On January 6, 2011, WNEG announced that it would undergo a staff reorganization, with twelve permanent staff members and five temporary staffers beinglaid off in the restructuring;[13] the station also eliminated its news operation, with a student-produced newscast,UGA Newssource, replacing it on January 31[14] (in the interim, the only news programming on WNEG was an America One-provided national newscast produced byIndependent News Network). In addition, WNEG's This TV affiliation ended on January 1, 2011, with the movie-focused network moving to a subchannel ofNBC affiliateWYFF (channel 4). WUGA-TV was operated in conjunction withWUGA radio (91.7 FM), whose license is owned by the Georgia Public Telecommunications Commission, but is operated by the University of Georgia.[15]
At 5:30 a.m. on May 1, 2011, the station began broadcasting programming fromWorld through GPB's "GPB Knowledge" network. The station's call letters were officially changed to WUGA-TV the following day on May 2.[16][17]
On March 25, 2015, the University of Georgia agreed to sell WUGA-TV to Marquee Broadcasting, owner ofWMDT inSalisbury, Maryland, for $2.5 million. Under the terms of the deal, Marquee returned channel 32 to commercial operation and changed the station's call letters to WGTA (in reference to its "Greenville to Atlanta" coverage area).[18][19] UGA had considered selling the station as early as November 2013,[20] and on March 27, 2014, announced that it would eliminate WUGA-TV's local programming (which comprised only one percent of channel 32's schedule) effective July 1; this resulted in six staffers being laid off.[21] At the time of the cutback, the university stated that it was not actively attempting to sell the station.[21] The change to WGTA took place on July 1, 2015,[22] when the sale to Marquee was completed; at the same time, the station dropped all GPB Knowledge and World programming and began broadcastingHeroes & Icons on 32.1,Decades on 32.2, andMovies! on 32.3. Marquee also moved WGTA's studios back to Toccoa.[23]
Effective March 25, 2017, WGTA's primary channel became the Atlanta affiliate for theMeTV network, replacingWSB-TV, with Heroes & Icons moving to the station's second subchannel, Decades to third subchannel and Movies! to a new fourth subchannel.[24]
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion with: information on the history of WGTA's news department. You can help byadding to it.(May 2014) |
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 32.1 | 480i | 16:9 | Me-TV | MeTV[24] |
| 32.2 | H&I | Heroes & Icons | ||
| 32.3 | Decades | Catchy Comedy | ||
| 32.4 | Movies! | Movies! | ||
| 32.5 | Story | Story Television |
WGTA (as WNEG-TV) shut down its analog signal, overUHF channel 32, on February 17, 2009, to conclude thefederally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[26] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 24, usingPSIP to display theirvirtual channel as 32 on digital television receivers.
Although the station is licensed to a city within the Greenville–Spartanburg–Asheville market, WUGA-TV'ssatellite coverage in that market was limited toDish Network. Oncable, the station was only available outside of Georgia onNorthland Communications' systems inPickens andOconee counties in South Carolina.
In October 2012,DirecTV, Dish Network andAT&T U-verse began to carry WUGA-TV on channel 32 within the Atlanta market. WUGA-TV was later added toComcast systems on channel 96 inBarrow,Jackson,Hall and northernGwinnett counties.
Following the sale to Marquee Broadcasting and relaunch as WGTA, the station temporarily lost nearly all of its cable and satellite coverage. Marquee entered negotiations with TV service providers in the station's coverage area. Initially, it was only able to sign deals withTruVista in northeast Georgia and[27] Northland Communications in South Carolina.[28] At the start of 2016, it was restored to AT&T U-Verse's Atlanta system.[29] Later in 2016, it was able to reach an agreement with Comcast Xfinity,[30] the largest cable provider in the Atlanta area.
Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the U.S. state ofGeorgia | ||
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Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Georgia | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent | ||
| PBS | ||
| Religious | ||
| Spanish | ||
| Other | ||
| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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