 | This article needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(April 2024) |
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| City | Clarksburg, West Virginia |
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| Ownership | |
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| WDTV | |
| History | |
First air date | February 8, 1981 (44 years ago) (1981-02-08) |
Former call signs | WLYJ (1981–1998) |
Former channel numbers |
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| ReligiousInd. (1981–1998) | |
Call sign meaning | West Virginia's Fox |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 10976 |
| ERP | 110 kW |
| HAAT | 212.2 m (696 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 39°18′2″N80°20′36″W / 39.30056°N 80.34333°W /39.30056; -80.34333 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
WVFX (channel 10) is atelevision station licensed toClarksburg, West Virginia, United States, servingNorth-Central West Virginia as a dual affiliate ofFox andThe CW Plus. It is owned byGray Media alongsideWeston-licensedCBS affiliateWDTV (channel 5). The two stations share studios on Television Drive inBridgeport (alongI-79/Jennings Randolph Expressway); WVFX's transmitter is located in an unincorporated area between Clarksburg andArlington.
The station signed on February 8, 1981, and aired ananalog signal onUHF channel 46. It was areligiousindependent station using the calls WLYJ (standing for "We Love YouJesus"). Much of the programming consisted of national religiousevangelicals and local fund-raising appeals to continue operation of the station. In 1998, WLYJ was sold to Davis Television and converted to a full commercial operation, also becoming the area's first Fox affiliate and changing their call letters to WVFX to match. Prior to WVFX's affiliation with Fox, the network's programming was only available on cable viaPittsburgh affiliateWPGH-TV; as the market's primaryNFL team, thePittsburgh Steelers, only featured two home games on Fox as part of the network'sNFC-specific package, the network's priority of affiliating with a station in the market had been low before Withers picked up the affiliation.
Davis Television sold WVFX toWithers Broadcasting in 2007. Since the Clarksburg–Weston–Fairmont market has only five full-power stations, this amount is too few to allow a duopoly under normalFederal Communications Commission (FCC) guidelines, but Withers was able to acquire WVFX under a failed station waiver issued by the FCC, as it was able to demonstrate that due to the market's conditions and channel 46's struggles to remain on the air as WLYJ and under Davis's ownership, that independent ownership was unlikely to turn WVFX around as a going concern. Withers initially maintained WVFX's on West Pike Street/SR 20 in downtown Clarksburg, merging its full operations into the WDTV facility over time. Before the digital transition and the relocation of its transmitter to WDTV's site north of Clarksburg, WVFX struggled with reception over-the-air across the market, since much of the region is a ruggeddissected plateau. Most stations in the market depend primarily onmultichannel video programming distributors for most of their viewership. After moving to the WDTV transmitter site with the digital transition, it began to use its newVHF channel 10 for its on-air branding, and withdrew all mention of channel 46.
Fairmont is technically themarket's largest city becauseMorgantown (though only 20 miles (32 km) north) has the largest population of any city in the geographic area but it is part of the Pittsburgh market. Locations around Morgantown are within reach of over-the-air signals from Pittsburgh stations. Over time, availability of WPGH-TV has been withdrawn in the market in preference to WVFX due to Fox's 'one to a market' carriage policies inretransmission consent negotiations.
On May 13, 2016, Withers sold WVFX and WDTV to Gray Television for $26.5 million to complete its withdrawal from the television industry.[2] Gray was approved to continue owning WVFX with WDTV under the 2007 failing station waiver originally sought by Withers, and assumed operational control of the stations through alocal marketing agreement on June 1.[3] The sale was completed on May 1, 2017.[4]
WDTV has carried a 10 p.m. primetime newscast on WVFX-DT1 since late 2010.
The station's digital signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
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| 10.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | WVFX-DT | Fox |
| 10.2 | CW | The CW Plus | ||
| 10.3 | 480i | StartTV | Start TV | |
| 10.4 | WVFXCBS | CBS (WDTV) inSD | ||
| 10.5 | Grit | Grit | ||
| 10.6 | Oxygen | Oxygen |
WVFX shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 46, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television in the United Statestransitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal broadcasts on its pre-transition VHF channel 10, and also converted theirvirtual channel to 10 on the same date to take advantage of that channel number's better branding potential.[6] The station shifted to transmitting on channel 13 in 2020 as a part of the FCC's spectrum reallocation, and continues to use channel 10 as its virtual channel.
Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the state ofWest Virginia | ||
|---|---|---|
Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of West Virginia | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent | ||
| PBS | ||
| Religious | ||
| Spanish | ||
| Other | ||
| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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