WOGX

WOGX (channel 51) is a television station licensed to Ocala, Florida, United States, serving the Gainesville area as a Fox network outlet. Owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division, the station maintains an advertising sales office on Northwest 53rd Avenue in Gainesville and a transmitter in Marion County, between Williston and Fairfield. It is considered a semi-satellite of WOFL (channel 35) in Orlando, which handles management and technical services and whose newscasts it simulcasts. Although Ocala is part of the Orlando television market, WOGX is assigned by Nielsen to the Gainesville market.

Efforts to build channel 51 in Ocala dated to the late 1960s, and for most of the 1970s, there was a serious effort to construct a station to be known as "WOCA". When that attempt fizzled after the Federal Communications Commission ruled they had spent too much time building the station, two interested parties formed Big Sun Television, which won the permit and put WBSP-TV on the air in October 1983. It operated as a conventional independent station with a range of movies and syndicated programs. Big Sun sold the station in 1986 to Indiana-based Wabash Valley Broadcasting, which changed the call sign to WOGX the next year and upgraded programming. Channel 51 joined the Fox network in May 1991, bringing the network to Gainesville for the first time.

The Meredith Corporation

Channel 51 in Ocala: Prehistory

The first group to express interest in building channel 51 in Ocala was Hubbard Broadcasting, owner of the to-be-built WTOG in St. Petersburg, who applied in March 1967 to construct the station.[1] Hubbard intended for the Ocala station to join one on channel 20 in Fort Myers as a rebroadcaster.[2]

Six years later, Marion Communications began preparing plans for channel 51. The station, dubbed WOCL in the planning stages, would be located in nearby Orange Lake, broadcasting from a 932 ft tower.[3] The tower location was contested; the advisory board for the Gainesville Airport lodged a protest in December 1973, stating it was on a direct air route from Ocala to Gainesville,[4] but the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved the proposed tower in September 1974.[5] Because of the months-long delay in approval of the tower, activity on the station languished as the backers ran into a poor economy and struggled to gain financing amid high interest rates. However, the firm now had a construction permit and the call sign WOCA, as the group made a typo on an FCC form.[6] Another issue arose: while the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved a taller tower, the FAA delayed approval six months while it sought to determine that the higher mast would not conflict with naval bomber runs to and from Lake George and the nearby Interstate 75. This delay caused Marion Communications to lose its funding, forcing it to sell the WOCA-TV construction permit to Gator Broadcasting Corporation. Gator ran into another issue: the CBS and NBC networks refused to give the group an affiliation for the Gainesville area.[7]

By 1979, WOCA-TV still only existed on paper, and factions were forming as Gator Broadcasting continued to apply for extensions. In mid-1979, congressman Bill Chappell sided with other investors—organized as WOCA Inc.—and called on the FCC to reconsider granting another extension to Gator, telling the commission, "Should the Commission continue to grant extensions to Gator Broadcasting, without any movement toward construction on their part, this would only serve to deny my constituents in Marion County a UHF-TV outlet."[8] Facing pressure to get on with construction, Gator Broadcasting announced that it was pouring the foundation for the tower at the Orange Lake site.[9] The company's plans continued to wither as a network affiliation was not forthcoming. The station opted to switch from the tall tower at Orange Lake to a 199 ft site in central Ocala in 1980, applying for a modification of the construction permit.[10] The modification was denied; the FCC canceled the permit held by Gator Broadcasting in August 1980 because the facility was not built in a timely manner.[11] Gator appealed, but the FCC upheld the dismissal on a 5–2 vote the next month.[12] The commission's staff reported that, despite two years of extensions, "the most prominent facility completed within the studio building appears to be a toilet".

Standalone history

WBSP-TV: Big Sun TV

Two investors who had been involved with the 1979 WOCA Inc. company, Randolph Tucker and Randall Schrader, formed a new firm in October 1980 with the intention of seeking a new channel 51 permit.[13] Their firm, Big Sun Television, formally filed with the FCC on November 11.[14] This application was granted on October 26, 1981.[15] Officials of Big Sun Television slated to run WBSP-TV as an independent station with family-oriented programs.[16] Meanwhile, the principals—seeking to avoid the money shortages that had doomed WOCA-TV—offered stock in Big Sun Television to the public. Among them was actor Patrick O'Neal, an Ocala native.[17] The stock sale turned out to be unsuccessful, leaving the investors to start the station with mostly their own money. The original studio site on Fort King Street was later found to be unsuitable, and as it was being sold, Big Sun TV vacated it in June 1983.[18]

WBSP-TV began broadcasting from studios on SW 37th Avenue on October 31, 1983, with its first full day on the air being the next day, November 1.[19] The new station cost the investors in Big Sun Television $2.7 million to construct.[20] It had unsuccessfully sought CBS affiliation before launch, but CBS was satisfied with its existing area coverage from WJXT in Jacksonville.[21]

WOGX: Wabash Valley Broadcasting ownership

Wabash Valley Broadcasting of Terre Haute, Indiana, agreed to acquire WBSP-TV from Big Sun Television in May 1986. The purchase and that of WFTX-TV in Cape Coral, Florida, serving Fort Myers, marked the expansion of the Hulman family's broadcasting interests into Florida.[22] In April 1987, coinciding with upgrades in studio equipment and programming, Wabash Valley changed the call sign to WOGX; the new designation conformed with other stations ending in X owned by the firm.[23] With the upgrades, WOGX became just one of three independent stations to air the popular syndicated game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!.[24] At one time, George Steinbrenner, the owner of the New York Yankees as well as the local Kinsman Stud Farm, considered buying the station from Wabash Valley but opted not to do so.[25]

callsign	WOGX
above	Semi-satellite of WOFL, Orlando, Florida
city	Ocala, Florida
branding	Fox 51 WOGX; Fox 51 News
digital	31 (UHF)
virtual	51
affiliations	51.1: Fox for others, see
owner	Fox Television Stations, LLC
location	Ocala–Gainesville, Florida
country	United States
airdate	November 1, 1983
callsign meaning	"Ocala–Gainesville" plus an X to conform to other call signs of 1980s owner Wabash Valley Broadcasting
sister stations	WOFL, WRBW, WTVT
former callsigns	WBSP-TV (1983–1987)
former affiliations	Independent (1983–1991)
former channel numbers	Analog: 51 (UHF, 1983–2009)
erp	500 kW
haat	259 m
facility id	70651
coordinates	29.35922°N, -82.3285°W
licensing authority	FCC
website	https://www.wogx.com/

Channel 51 in Ocala: Prehistory

Standalone history

WBSP-TV: Big Sun TV

WOGX: Wabash Valley Broadcasting ownership

Ownership with WOFL

Technical information

Subchannels

Analog-to-digital conversion

External links

References