WXXV-TV

Construction and early years

In July 1982, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) received three applications for channel 25 on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, all seeking to build the area's second local station (after ABC affiliate WLOX). The firms were Payvision Communications of Knoxville, Tennessee; Hightower Communications, owner of WPMI-TV in Mobile, Alabama; and Four-O Inc. of Brandon, Mississippi.[1] Four-O won the permit and selected the call sign WXXV, but it had yet to choose by September 1983 whether channel 25 would be a network affiliate or an independent station.[2] It elected to run the station as an independent outlet, and construction was under way on the station's studios in Lyman by March 1986.[3] Work on the tower at McHenry was considerably delayed, and station officials repeatedly pushed back WXXV's projected sign-on.[4]

WXXV-TV made its first broadcast on February 8, 1987; owing to technical difficulties on start-up, it then left the air and began full-time broadcasting on February 14.[5][6] Its programs included brief local news updates, live sports, and other syndicated shows,[7] which were broadcast as far north as Hattiesburg.[8] In April, channel 25 joined the Fox network, picking up its weekend prime time and late-night programming.[9]

Financial difficulties and Prime Cities ownership

Within months of signing on, the station encountered financial difficulties. In the construction process, Four-O had become the managing general partner in the station's licensee, Gulf Coast Television. The station sought new limited partners, only to put the round on hold; it owed money to several large creditors, most notably AmSouth Bank of Birmingham, Alabama.[10] During this time, in January 1988, WXXV debuted a call-in public affairs program, 25 Live.[11]

AmSouth moved to put WXXV-TV up for public auction in September 1988, with the station having fallen several months behind on its loan repayments.[12] Days before the auction was to take place, Gulf Coast Television preempted the action by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.[13] A year later, the bankruptcy case was resolved in a settlement that transferred the station to AmSouth.[14] The new management grappled with WXXV's prior reputation as a station that did not pay its bills; to earn the trust of syndicators and other vendors, the station paid them early.[15]

The bank, through its realty division, put channel 25 on the market a year later;[16] it was acquired by Prime Cities Broadcasting, a partnership of Dick Shively and Jim Tupper. Shively had been serving as consultant to WXXV since AmSouth took control.[17] Under Prime Cities ownership, WXXV-TV began airing the ABC drama series NYPD Blue; WLOX, along with all other ABC affiliates in Mississippi, refused to air it when it debuted in 1993, and channel 25 picked it up beginning with the second season.[18]

Morris ownership and digital expansion

By 1996, Prime Cities was shopping WXXV to potential buyers,[19] including the owners of WWTV and WWUP in northern Michigan.[20] Prime Cities announced the sale of WXXV to Morris Network for $17.5 million in February 1997, with the new owners taking over in June.[21][22] In the 2000s, WXXV switched from analog to digital broadcasting, launching its digital signal before going digital-only on February 17, 2009.[23]

Morris announced in March 2012 that it would add NBC to a subchannel of WXXV, displacing MyNetworkTV, that July; in addition, it would expand the studios in Lyman and start a news operation to support the Fox and NBC channels.[24] The move coincided with WLOX, its competitor with an 80 percent share of market revenue, adding a CBS subchannel, giving the four major networks in-market affiliates on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.[25] On January 1, 2015, WXXV added a subchannel for The CW, replacing MyNetworkTV, which began running during late nights on WXXV–Fox.[26]