WFAA

Early history

The initial application for the television station was filed on October 23, 1944, when local businessman Karl Hoblitzelle, owner of movie theater chain Interstate Circuit Theatres, applied with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to obtain a construction permit and license to operate a television station on VHF channel 8; it was the first such license application for a television station in the Southern United States. Hoblitzelle planned to operate the station out of the Republic Bank building in downtown Dallas, and even conducted a closed-circuit television broadcast of the opening of one of his properties, the Wilshire Theatre. Texas oil magnate Tom Potter filed a separate application for the Channel 8 license and was ultimately awarded the permit over Hoblitzelle.

The station first signed on the air at 8 p.m. on September 17, 1949, as KBTV, with a fifteen-minute ceremony inaugurating the launch of Channel 8 as its first broadcast; KBTV broadcast for one hour that evening, with the remainder of its initial schedule consisting of its first locally produced program, the variety series Dallas in Wonderland. Vice President Alben W. Barkley cut the ribbon to officially launch the station in front of a crowd of 5,000.[3] Potter founded and operated the station through the Lacy-Potter TV Broadcasting Company, which he partially controlled. It was the third television station to sign on in Texas (behind WBAP-TV (channel 5, now KXAS-TV

WFAA (AM)

WFAA, which would eventually serve as the sister radio station to WFAA television, first signed on the air on June 26, 1922.[38] The station had long participated in a time-sharing arrangement with Fort Worth radio station WBAP, which was maintained as the latter operated at various frequencies; it originally began in 1922, when WBAP (which first went on the air on May 2 of that year, nine weeks before WFAA began operations) transmitted at 630 kHz and continued until 1927, before resuming when that station moved to 800 kHz in 1929 and settling when WBAP moved its current frequency at 820 kHz in 1941. In 1947, WFAA and WBAP began time-sharing on a second frequency, 570 kHz, which was formerly occupied by KGKO. Until WFAA (AM) began to transmit full-time on 570 kHz in 1970, WBAP and WFAA were engaged in the somewhat bizarre situation of having to switch back and forth between the 570 and 820 frequencies at various times of the day: WBAP broadcast on 820 AM from midnight to 6 a.m., with WFAA taking over the frequency space until noon; WBAP returned to the 820 signal for a few hours, before WFAA once again took over the frequency. WFAA had control over 820 during prime evening hours, when the 50,000-watt clear channel signal could often be heard as far west as California and as far east as New York (at the time, there were significantly fewer radio stations that were operating at night, reducing the likelihood of interference).[39]

WFAA was the first radio station in Texas to join a national network (becoming an affiliate of the

WFAA-DT2

WFAA-DT2 is the second digital subchannel of WFAA, broadcasting in-house weather and local programming in widescreen standard definition on channel 8.2.

WFAA launched a digital subchannel on virtual channel 8.2 in 2004, as a locally programmed format under the name "Xpress 8.2". The service, which was later renamed "News 8 Now" (which the station also used as the branding for promotional content and as an alternative program-specific title for the station's newscasts starting in 1996), featured weather radar imagery, regular news updates and occasional live programming (including content from ABC News Now), as well as a ticker that displayed local and national headlines.[41] The subchannel was also used to air special programming; in particular, WFAA-DT2 was used to relay wall-to-wall coverage from its sister stations during hurricane season from New Orleans sister station WWL-TV for Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 and Hurricane Gustav in 2008; and Houston sister station KHOU for Hurricane Ike in 2008 and Hurricane Harvey in 2017. In addition to the weather radar feed, it also carried an audio simulcast of local NOAA Weather Radio station KEC56, with fellow NOAA stations KEC55 in Fort Worth and KXI87 in Corsicana used as alternate feeds.

Local programming

WFAA produces the talk, entertainment and lifestyle program Good Morning Texas, which airs weekdays at 9 a.m. and is produced independently of WFAA's news department; the hour-long program, which debuted on September 12, 1994, under original hosts Scott Sams and Deborah Duncan (as of, it is currently co-hosted by Erin Hunter and former KXAS-TV anchor Jane McGarry), served as the basis for other similarly formatted local late-morning talk shows that debuted on its sister stations under Belo ownership in subsequent years. Some of the topics that were shown on Good Morning Texas were also used during its morning newscasts known as News 8 Daybreak. In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, an extension version of Good Morning Texas was added to the 2 p.m. schedule called Good Morning Texas Extra which contains the same content as their morning show, which replaced the Tegna-produced Sister Circle.[44]

Channel 8 held the local syndication rights to the game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune for several years starting in 1987. After spending eighteen years in the 6:30 p.m. slot, WFAA dropped Wheel, as well as Jeopardy! in the 3 p.m. slot, from its schedule in the fall of 2005. Both series moved to KTVT, with the former being replaced by Entertainment Tonight, which prior to the change, Channel 8 had aired following Nightline since it acquired the rights to ET from KDFW in September 1984.

WFAA carries the majority of the ABC network schedule; however, as an affiliate that is not owned by the network itself, WFAA may occasionally preempt some of the network's prime time shows to run locally produced specials.

Jimmy Kimmel monologue cut-off

WFAA came under scrutiny in May 2022 when the station extended its newscast past 10:35 p.m. to cover the Uvalde school shooting. A monologue by Jimmy Kimmel which addressed the shooting and gun control was partially blocked out by commercials. A statement from the station claimed that computer automation which preset the commercial breaks and triggered them as if the coverage did not take place caused that night's episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! to be partially preempted. The monologue was made available on WFAA's website and on Kimmel's social media channel.[70] The episode was already available on Hulu and other services by the next day.

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

WFAA became the first television station in the United States to broadcast their digital television signal on a VHF channel on February 27, 1998, at 2:17 p.m., when it began test broadcasts on VHF channel 9;[73] the following day on February 28, it became the nation's first television station to broadcast a local news program in high definition. When the transmission tests began, the digital feed's Channel 9 assignment was already in use by Dallas area hospitals; this would result in Baylor University Medical Center and Methodist Dallas Medical Center having to reconfigure their telemetry systems to different frequencies before WFAA began full-time digital transmissions on March 16 (when it became the country's first commercial station to begin regular digital broadcasts on the VHF band) as the station's assigned digital channel corresponded to a portion of the broadcast spectrum used by the hospitals for their wireless medical equipment, creating RF interference issues that notably disrupted several wireless heart monitors at both facilities.[73]