WGHP — BrandWiki

WGHP

callsign	WGHP
city	High Point, North Carolina
branding	Fox 8 WGHP
digital	31 (UHF)
virtual	8
affiliations	8.1: Fox for others, see
owner	Nexstar Media Group
licensee	Tribune Broadcasting Company II, LLC
location	High Point–Greensboro– Winston-Salem, North Carolina
country	United States
airdate	October 14, 1963
callsign meaning	Winston-Salem Greensboro High Point‡R1R‡
sister stations	WFMY-TV
former callsigns	WGHP-TV (1963–1998)
former channel numbers	Analog: 8 (VHF, 1963–2009) Digital: 8 (VHF, 2009–2010), 35 (UHF, 2000–2009 and 2010–2020)
former affiliations	ABC (1963–1995)
erp	1,000 kW
haat	397 m
facility id	72106
coordinates	35.81292°N, -79.84114°W
licensing authority	FCC
website	https://myfox8.com/

WGHP (channel 8) is a television station licensed to High Point, North Carolina, United States, serving the Piedmont Triad region as an affiliate of the Fox network. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside CBS affiliate WFMY-TV (channel 2). WGHP's studios on Francis Street just outside downtown High Point, and its transmitter is located in Sophia, North Carolina.

History

As an ABC affiliate

In 1958, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) assigned a third VHF channel frequency to the Piedmont Triad area. The channel 8 allocation was freed up by the move of Florence, South Carolina's WBTW to channel 13, and was short-spaced to WCHS-TV in Charleston, West Virginia, and WXEX-TV (now WRIC-TV) in

As a Fox O&O

In the winter of 1993, New World Communications (which acquired stations from SCI in a similar type of business reorganization to the one Citicasters had come out of) agreed to buy WGHP and three other Citicasters-owned stations: WBRC in Birmingham, WDAF-TV in Kansas City and KSAZ-TV in Phoenix. Around the same time, New World had also agreed to buy Argyle Television's four television stations, including WVTM-TV in Birmingham (the transfer applications of the Argyle stations to New World were not submitted to the FCC until after New World closed on the Citicasters purchase). The two purchases combined, along with New World's existing seven stations, left the company with 15 stations—three more than the FCC had permitted a single station owner to operate at the time—and left New World with an ownership conflict in Birmingham.

On May 23, 1994, Fox agreed to affiliate with 12 of New World's stations,[6] with WVTM, NBC affiliate KNSD in San Diego, and independent WSBK-TV in Boston left out of the agreement (the two NBC affiliates were bought by the network and became O&Os while WSBK was sold to the Paramount Stations Group and joined UPN).

New World later determined that due to the ownership conflicts and the fact it would go over the FCC's ownership limit, it would sell WGHP and WBRC to Fox directly. Since Fox was not able to immediately acquire WGHP and WBRC due to questions over the American citizenship of then-parent company News Corporation's Australian-born CEO Rupert Murdoch, New World decided to acquire WGHP but place it in an outside trust on September 9, 1994; WBRC was also put in this trust the following month on October 12.[7] While WDAF switched to Fox and KSAZ became an independent station (a temporary move in preparation for its December switch to Fox) on September 12, three days after New World's purchase of those stations was consummated, ABC still had one year left on its affiliation contract with WGHP (likewise, the network's affiliation contract with WBRC would not run out for two years, which would give ABC time to find a replacement affiliate in Birmingham, which would turn out to be WBMA-LP). These factors also led to New World's decision to sell the two stations to Fox almost immediately.

Fox's owned stations division took over the operations of both stations under local marketing agreements in September 1995; WGHP subsequently switched to Fox on September 3. Fox completed its purchases of WGHP and WBRC on January 17, 1996, with WGHP becoming a Fox owned-and-operated station, and the first commercial station in the Piedmont Triad area to be owned by a major network (WBRC had to wait another 7 1/2 months, until September 1996, to switch from ABC to Fox). The move gave WGHP its fifth owner in a little over a decade. The market's original Fox affiliate, WNRW (channel 45), assumed the ABC affiliation and changed its call letters to WXLV-TV.

On September 10, 2007, WGHP debuted a new logo and graphics package as part of a standardized on-air look that was rolled out all of Fox's owned-and-operated stations.

Programming

As an ABC affiliate, the station occasionally delayed or declined some network programs; for example, it carried the paranormal-themed soap opera Dark Shadows during its network run on ABC, but in the mornings on a day-behind basis, choosing to run classic movies in the afternoons. On the other hand, it did not carry The Edge of Night during its 1975 to 1984 run. In its last years as an ABC affiliate, WGHP aired Nightline on a 30-minute delay in favor of running syndicated programs, most notably M*A*S*H.

When WGHP became a Fox affiliate in 1995, it carried all of the network's programs, including Fox Kids (whose weekday afternoon block ran from 1 to 4 p.m., replacing ABC's soap operas, as well as on Saturday mornings where a local newscast previously ran). WGHP added a few more talk and reality shows, as well as some off-network sitcoms such as I Love Lucy and Seinfeld.

Upon gaining new affiliates through New World, Fox executives at the time decided to change the carriage policies for Fox Kids, to allow a station to choose to keep airing it or be granted the right to pass the block to another station in the market. In February 1996, Pappas Telecasting Companies approached WGHP about acquiring Fox Kids programming for its newly acquired WB affiliate WBFX (channel 20; now CW affiliate WCWG). WGHP accepted the offer, and permitted the Fox Kids block to move to WBFX beginning in March 1996, becoming the first Fox-owned station to no longer run the block, and only one of two (along with WBRC) to do so, before New World merged with Fox in 1997. WGHP added more talk and court shows in the afternoon. WTWB dropped Fox's children's programming in late 2001, when Fox canceled the weekday block nationwide; WGHP chose not to pick up Fox's new Saturday morning cartoon block, Fox Box (later 4Kids TV), which replaced Fox Kids in 2002. As a result, the block did not air at all in the Piedmont Triad. Fox discontinued children's programming on December 28, 2008, replacing it with a two-hour Saturday morning infomercial block called Weekend Marketplace, which WGHP also declined to air; it airs instead on MyNetworkTV affiliate WMYV.

News operation

WGHP presently broadcasts 55 3/4 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 10 1/2 hours on Monday–Thursday, 10 1/4 hours on Fridays and 1 3/4 hours each on Saturdays and Sundays); in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the highest local newscast output of any television station in the Piedmont Triad. Now, WGHP also opens a 15-minute sports show following the 10 p.m. newscasts from Friday to Sunday only.

Local news has been a stable product on WGHP since it went on the air in 1963. During the 1960s and 1970s, the station aired newscasts at noon, 6 and 11 p.m., and occasionally at 7 p.m. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, WGHP sporadically maintained a 24-hour broadcast schedule so 11 p.m. newscast rebroadcasts during the early morning hours were only scheduled when ABC network programming was extended long enough to warrant its scheduling; in 1994, the station began broadcasting 24 hours a day.

During the 1980s, channel 8 ran various long-form morning news programs, eventually settling towards five-minute updates during ABC's Good Morning America, along with a noon newscast (that was dropped in the late 1980s). In the early 1990s, the current morning newscast began as an hour-long program at 6 a.m.; it was joined by a half-hour 5 p.m. newscast that expanded to a full hour in 1994. When WGHP affiliated with Fox in 1995, the station began placing more emphasis on its local newscasts: the station's newscasts expanded to just under 40 hours each week. Around this time, WGHP aired three hours of daily newscasts with news on weekday mornings expanding to 2 hours to occupy GMA's former 7–9: a.m. timeslot on the station (the 8 a.m. hour was occupied with syndicated programming), along with the addition of a 5:30 p.m. newscast; the station's late evening newscast was also moved from 11 p.m. to 10 p.m. and was expanded to one hour.

Daily newscasts expanded to 4 1/2 hours—with a half-hour expansion of its morning newscast and the return of a noon newscast—immediately after it became a Fox owned-and-operated station in 1996. The morning newscast would eventually expand over time to five hours by 2011.