WBFF (channel 45) is a

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the ea ...

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore wa ...

, United States, affiliated with Fox and

MyNetworkTV MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as My Network) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its ...

. It is one of two flagship stations of

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, ...

(based in nearby Hunt Valley), alongside ABC affiliate

WJLA-TV WJLA-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Washington, D.C., affiliated with ABC. It is one of two flagship stations of Sinclair Broadcast Group (alongside dual Fox/ MyNetworkTV affiliate WBFF hannel 45in Baltimore), and is also s ...

(channel 7) in Washington, D.C. Sinclair maintains a

local marketing agreement In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or tim ...

(LMA) with

Cunningham Broadcasting Cunningham Broadcasting Corporation is an owner of broadcast television stations in the United States. The company currently owns fifteen stations – eight affiliated with Fox, three affiliated with The CW, two affiliated with ABC, and two affi ...

, owner of CW affiliate WNUV (channel 54), and a

shared services Shared services is the provision of a service by one part of an organization or group, where that service had previously been found, in more than one part of the organization or group. Thus the funding and resourcing of the service is shared and th ...

agreement (SSA) with

Deerfield Media Deerfield Media, Inc. is a broadcasting company and a shell corporation owned and operated by Stephen P. Mumblow. It was established on December 1, 2012 by the acquisition of several television stations connected to the Sinclair Broadcast Group. ...

, owner of TBD affiliate

WUTB WUTB (channel 24) is a television station in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, airing programming from the digital multicast network TBD. It is owned by Deerfield Media, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with Sinclair Broadcast ...

(channel 24). The three stations share studios on 41st Street off the Jones Falls Expressway on "Television Hill" in the Woodberry neighborhood of north Baltimore. Through a channel sharing agreement, WBFF and WUTB transmit using the former station's spectrum from an antenna adjacent to the studios. The tall tower stands near the earlier landmark "candelabra tower" from the late 1950s in use by the city's original three main

VHF Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter. Frequencies immediately below VHF ...

stations (

WMAR-TV WMAR-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, affiliated with American Broadcasting Company, ABC and owned by the E. W. Scripps Company. The station's studios and offices are located on York Road ( ...

WBAL-TV WBAL-TV (channel 11) is a television station in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is the flagship property of Hearst Television, which has owned the station since its inception, and is sister to the company's sole r ...

, and

WJZ-TV WJZ-TV (channel 13) is a television station in Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. It is Owned-and-operated station, owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division, and ma ...

History

WBFF first came on the air on April 11, 1971, founded by what was then called the Chesapeake Television Corporation, which was controlled by Julian Sinclair Smith. It was Baltimore's second commercial

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...

station and second

independent station An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, marke ...

, signing on four years after WMET-TV (channel 24, frequency now occupied by WUTB) began operations. Both stations aired general entertainment programming, but WMET's owners experienced financial problems and were forced to take channel 24 off the air in 1972. Even without direct competition, and operating on a small budget, WBFF still struggled for strong programming during the 1970s as Baltimore's network affiliates—WBAL-TV, WJZ-TV and WMAR-TV—continued to acquire off-network syndicated programs during this period. It did not help matters that Washington's

WTTG WTTG (channel 5) is a television station in Washington, D.C., airing programming from the Fox network. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside MyNetworkTV outlet WDCA (channel 20). WTTG and WDCA sh ...

and

WDCA WDCA (channel 20), branded on-air as Fox 5 Plus, is a television station in Washington, D.C., airing programming from MyNetworkTV. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Fox outlet WTTG (channel 5). WDCA and WTTG shar ...

were readily available both over the air (Washington stations all provided a strong signal into Baltimore) and on cable. Channel 45 did find an advantage in having a decent library of

movies A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmospher ...

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...

s and westerns at its disposal. Like other independent stations of that era, WBFF also ran network programs preempted by the local affiliates, local public affairs programs, and played

cartoons A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images ...

and series

rerun A rerun or repeat is a rebroadcast of an episode of a radio or television program. There are two types of reruns – those that occur during a hiatus, and those that occur when a program is syndicated. Variations In the United Kingdom, the word ...

s in the afternoon for the after-school kids crowd in a show hosted by nostalgic " Captain Chesapeake" (played by George Lewis) along with his side-kick "Mondy" the sea monster played by James Uhrin (who continued to work at WBFF under the alias "Traffic Jam Jimmy") as they cruised through the

Bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a na ...

. "Captain Chesapeake" was a fixture on WBFF from its beginnings until 1990, with his famous cheery greeting: "Ahoyyy Crewmembers!!" Despite its financial troubles, WBFF became profitable enough that Julian Smith decided to expand his broadcast interests. Through a Chesapeake Television subsidiary, Commercial Radio Institute, Smith launched a new independent station in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, WPTT (now

WPNT WPNT (channel 22) is a television station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, affiliated with MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Fox affiliate WPGH-TV (channel 53). Both stations share studios on Ivory Avenue ...

), in 1978. In 1984, Commercial Radio Institute signed on Smith's third station,

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, an ...

independent

WTTE WTTE (channel 28) is a television station in Columbus, Ohio, United States, airing programming from the digital multicast network TBD. It is owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Sinclair Broadc ...

. That same year, WBFF received local competition again when WNUV-TV, then a two-year-old

subscription television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to Subscription business model, subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichan ...

outlet, began to adopt a general entertainment schedule during the daytime and full-time by 1986. In 1985, Julian Smith merged his three stations into the Sinclair Broadcast Group, and around this time one of his sons, David D. Smith, took a prominent role in the operations of the three stations. In 1986, Sinclair agreed to affiliate WBFF and WTTE with the fledgling

Fox Broadcasting Company The Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly known simply as Fox and stylized in all caps as FOX, is an American commercial broadcast television network owned by Fox Corporation and headquartered in New York City, with master control operations ...

, which debuted on October 9 of that year. The growth and rise of Fox coincided with that of Sinclair Broadcast Group, which expanded its reach beyond Baltimore, Columbus and Pittsburgh during the 1990s. In June 1991, Sinclair opened up the station's news department with Baltimore's first 10:00 p.m. newscast co-anchored by Lisa Willis (formerly of

WWOR-TV WWOR-TV (channel 9) is a television station licensed to Secaucus, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area as the flagship of MyNetworkTV. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Fox flagship WNYW ...

Secaucus, New Jersey Secaucus ( ) is a town in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States census, the town's population was 16,264,E. W. Scripps Company, Sinclair argued that an out-of-town corporation could not effectively serve the city's public interest and the valuable channel allocation—a channel 2 analog signal traveled a very long distance under normal conditions—should be granted to an established local broadcaster instead. The gambit did not work, and WMAR-TV remained on channel 2. WBFF nearly lost its Fox affiliation in 1994 when Fox entered talks with WJZ-TV, but it opted to affiliate with CBS instead.

was also considered after the station dropped CBS, but opted to affiliate with

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

instead. In

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone o ...

, Channel 45 began airing

Baltimore Ravens The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Ravens compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The team plays its ...

games via the

NFL on Fox The ''NFL on Fox'' (also known as ''Fox NFL'') is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games produced by Fox Sports and televised on the Fox broadcast network. Game coverage is usually preceded by '' Fox NFL Kick ...

; the station is given at least two games a season to air (usually when the team plays host to an NFC team at

M&T Bank Stadium M&T Bank Stadium is a multi-purpose football stadium located in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the home of the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). The stadium is immediately adjacent to Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the home of the ...

); starting in

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wa ...

, when the NFL instituted its new 'cross-flex' broadcast rules, games can be arbitrarily moved from WJZ-TV to WBFF. Additionally, the station aired all ''

Thursday Night Football ''Thursday Night Football'' (often abbreviated as ''TNF'') is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that broadcast primarily on Thursday nights. Most of the games kick off at 8:15 Eastern Time (8:20 prior to 2 ...

'' games involving the Ravens from 2018 to 2021 through Fox's exclusive contract. Sinclair purchased Abry Communications, owner of WNUV, in 1994. As duopolies were not allowed at the time, channel 54 was spun off to Glencairn Ltd., a company owned by former Sinclair executive Edwin Edwards. However, Glencairn's stock was almost entirely owned by the Smith family. In effect, Sinclair now had a duopoly in Baltimore—and had emasculated its major rival in its hometown. Sinclair further circumvented the rules by taking over WNUV's operations under a

(LMA), with WBFF as senior partner. Sinclair tried to buy Glencairn outright in 2001, but was unable to buy WNUV due to the FCC's rules on duopolies. Despite its relatively large size, the Baltimore market has only seven full-power stations (or six, if two stations licensed in the market that are operated by Maryland Public Television are treated as one)—two fewer than what FCC regulations allow to legally permit a duopoly (the FCC requires a market to have eight unique station owners once a duopoly is formed, effectively limiting duopolies to markets with at least nine full-power stations). Glencairn changed its name to

and retained ownership of WNUV. However, nearly all of Cunningham's stock is held in trusts owned by the Smiths. This ''

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with '' de jure'' ("by l ...

'' duopoly continues to this day, while the close relationship between Sinclair and Glencairn/Cunningham has led to claims that Cunningham is merely a corporate shell that Sinclair uses in order to evade FCC ownership restrictions. While WBFF entered the new century thriving as both locally and as a Fox affiliate, its network partner threatened the station's immediate future. In 2001, Fox's parent company, the

News Corporation News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New ...

, became the new owner of Baltimore's UPN affiliate

(the former WMET-TV) through its purchase of most of

Chris-Craft Industries Chris-Craft Industries, Inc., formerly National Automotive Fibers, Inc., was a publicly held American corporation that was traded on the New York and Pacific Stock Exchanges. In 1962, the company adopted the name of one of its acquisitions, Chri ...

' television holdings. Rumors abounded that Fox was considering moving its programming from WBFF to WUTB. In a move made clearly to protect its home interests, Sinclair persuaded Fox to sign a long-term contract to keep WBFF with the network. The same threat re-emerged in January 2006, when UPN owner

CBS Corporation The second incarnation of CBS Corporation (the first being a short-lived rename of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation) was an American multinational media conglomerate with interests primarily in commercial broadcasting, publishing, an ...

and

Time Warner Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States. It was originally established in 1972 by ...

, owners of

The WB Television Network The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. ...

, announced that those two networks would be shut down and replaced by the new

CW Television Network CW may stand for: Science and technology * centiwatt (cW), one hundredth of a watt * Cω, a programming language * CW complex, a type of topological space * Carrier wave, in radio communications * CodeWarrior, an integrated development environ ...

. However, a month after The CW's formation, News Corporation announced that WUTB and its other UPN affiliates would become the nuclei of its new

service. On May 1, 2006, the station launched its .2 digital channel with retro programming, the first non-weather subchannel in the market. On May 15, 2012, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Fox agreed to a five-year extension to the network's affiliation agreement with Sinclair's 19 Fox stations, including WBFF, that will run through 2017. This included an option (that was exercisable from July 1, 2012, to March 31, 2013) to allow Sinclair to purchase WUTB, resulting in the creation of a virtual triopoly with WBFF and WNUV; while giving Fox the option to buy any combination of six CW and MyNetworkTV affiliates (two of which were standalone stations affiliated with the latter service) owned by Sinclair in three of four markets:

Raleigh Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southeas ...

( WLFL and WRDC),

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Veg ...

( KVCW and KVMY),

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...

( WSTR-TV) and

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nor ...

( WTVZ). Under the agreement and the WUTB purchase option, Sinclair would pay $52.7 million to continue WBFF's affiliation with Fox; however, if Fox exercised the option to buy any of the Sinclair stations that were included in the option, the affiliation payments would decrease to $25 million. On November 29, 2012, Sinclair exercised its option to purchase WUTB through

for $2.7 million. Following the completion of the sale, WUTB began to be operated by Sinclair under a local marketing agreement, as with Deerfield's other stations. In January 2013, Fox announced that it would not exercise its option to buy any of the Sinclair stations included in the earlier purchase option. On May 6, 2013, the FCC granted its approval of WUTB to Deerfield Media. Sinclair officially took over the operations of WUTB eight days later, although the sale was not formally consummated until June 1. With the completion of the WUTB sale, this makes Baltimore the largest market where one company (outside of non-commercial public television station groups) operates a virtual triopoly between full-power stations. WBFF remains the only station in the Baltimore market never to change its primary network affiliate. On the afternoon of April 28, 2016, WBFF's studios were evacuated in response to a threat by a person wearing a hoax bomb; the suspect also allegedly set his vehicle on fire in the station's parking lot. The suspect was later shot and apprehended by

police The police are a Law enforcement organization, constituted body of Law enforcement officer, persons empowered by a State (polity), state, with the aim to law enforcement, enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citize ...

; besides a desire to share eschatological content with the station (a USB drive with videos was confiscated by a security guard), no specific motive for the incident was determined.

WBFF-DT2

On May 1, 2006, WBFF launched a new service on its second

digital subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compres ...

(45.2) originally called WBFF-2, which was later renamed Good TV. This digital-only channel featured classic television programs' (its format predated the existence of several nationally distributed digital multicast networks focused on classic television programming such as

MeTV MeTV, an acronym for Memorable Entertainment Television, is an American broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. Marketed as "The Definitive Destination for Classic TV", the network airs a variety of classic television program ...

Antenna TV Antenna TV is an American digital television network owned by Nexstar Media Group. The network's programming consists of classic television series, primarily sitcoms, from the 1950s to the 1990s. Antenna TV's programming and advertising operati ...

and Retro Television Network). In addition, "Good TV" offered expanded coverage of church services on Sunday mornings, local events, and paid programming. This channel ceased broadcasting on or around September 30, 2008, to make way for

This TV This TV (also known as This TV Network and alternately stylized as thisTV) is an American free-to-air television network owned by Allen Media Broadcast Networks, LLC, part of the Allen Media Group division of Entertainment Studios. Originally f ...

until 2017, when it was replaced with TBD programming. In July 2021, WBFF-DT2 swapped affiliations with WUTB, with those stations becoming MyNetworkTV and TBD affiliates respectively.

News operation

WBFF presently broadcasts 55 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 9 hours each weekday, four hours on Saturdays and 3 hours on Sundays); in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the highest local newscast output among Baltimore's broadcast television stations as well as in the state of Maryland in general. It is also the highest output of Sinclair Broadcast Group's stations (both out of its Fox affiliates and the company's overall television stations); it is also the only Fox station owned or managed by Sinclair prior to its series of station acquisitions that began with the 2011 purchase of

Four Points Media Group Four Points Media Group was a holding company owned by Cerberus Capital Management, established in 2007 to serve as a buyer for 7 television stations formerly owned by CBS Corporation. The company took over the day-to-day operations of the statio ...

that produces early evening and weekend morning newscasts ( two

stations Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

that have been acquired since then or are in the process of being acquired currently run early evening weeknight newscasts). Sinclair decided to invest in developing a news department for WBFF, with the station launching a nightly 10 p.m. newscast on June 3, 1991, co-anchored by Lisa Willis (formerly of WWOR-TV) and Jeff Barnd. The station added a weekday morning newscast in March 2000. In February 2003, it added a weeknight 11 p.m. newscast that was broadcast from Sinclair's now-defunct centralized news service, News Central, located in Hunt Valley. The start time of the weekday morning newscast was moved to 5:30 a.m. and an early evening newscast at 5:30 p.m. was subsequently added to the schedule in January 2005. On June 2, 2008, WBFF became the first Baltimore television station to begin broadcast its local newscasts in high definition. Jeff Barnd, a former WBFF news anchor, also hosted and provided commentary for the Sinclair-distributed syndicated news program ''American Crossroads''. WBFF was featured in an episode during the third season of '' The Simple Life''. On that episode,

Paris Hilton Paris Whitney Hilton (born February 17, 1981) is an American media personality, businesswoman, socialite, model, and entertainer. Born in New York City, and raised there and in Beverly Hills, California, she is a great-granddaughter of Conrad ...

and

Nicole Richie Nicole Camille Richie (; born September 21, 1981) is an American television personality, fashion designer, socialite, and actress. She came to prominence after appearing in the reality television series '' The Simple Life'' (2003–2007), in whi ...

took control of the station's weekday morning newscast. The two read the weather forecast and messed with the teleprompter. Tony Harris, later a CNN anchor, was once WBFF's lead anchor (co-anchoring with Lisa Willis). In 2015 former WJZ-TV co-anchor Kai Jackson was named WBFF's Lead Anchor. On January 24, 2011, WBFF expanded its weekday morning newscast from four to five hours to 5-10 a.m. weekdays, with the 9 a.m. edition called ''Fox 45 Good Day Baltimore''. On April 9, 2012, WBFF expanded its early evening newscast by adding another half-hour at 5 p.m., shifting ''

Judge Judy ''Judge Judy'' is an American arbitration-based reality court show presided over by former Manhattan Family Court Judge Judith Sheindlin. The show featured Sheindlin as she adjudicated real-life small-claims disputes within a simulated courtr ...

'' to a full-hour at 4 p.m.; the 5:30 p.m. newscast remains, but is treated as a separate newscast. In 2015 the station added a 4 p.m. newscast pushing ''Judge Judy'' back to 3 p.m. On January 20, 2013, WBFF debuted weekend morning newscasts, featuring a two-hour Saturday morning newscast and three hours of newscasts on Sunday mornings (with the third hour of the Sunday newscast airing after ''

Fox News Sunday ''Fox News Sunday'' is a Sunday morning talk show that has aired on the broadcast Fox network since 1996, as a presentation of Fox News Channel. It is the only regularly scheduled Fox News program carried on the main Fox broadcast network. Ho ...

'').

Controversy

On December 21, 2014, WBFF's news operation came under criticism for airing a video that some allege had misleading edits. The video was of a protest over

police brutality Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to ...

in the aftermath of the

killing of Eric Garner On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner was killed in the New York City borough of Staten Island after Daniel Pantaleo, a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer, put him in a prohibited chokehold while arresting him. Video footage of the incide ...

, where protesters, led by a Baltimore woman named Tawanda Jones, chanted "We won't stop. We can't stop till killer cops are in cellblocks." The video, as edited and shown on the station's 10:00 p.m. newscast, made it seem like protesters were chanting "kill a cop." A day after the video aired, WBFF issued an apology over the edited video online, saying the report reflected an "honest misunderstanding" of what the protesters were chanting, and that the report has been removed from the station's website. A news anchor for the station later made an in-person apology to Jones, who appeared during the station's 5:30 p.m. newscast. In the aftermath of the incident, reporter Melinda Roeder and photographer Greg McNair were fired from the station in connection with their alleged involvement with the video. The station's news director at the time, Mike Tomko, was suspended for one day.

Notable former on-air staff

Kristen Berset The Miss Florida USA competition is the pageant that selects the representative for the state of Florida in the Miss USA pageant. Up until the 2017 pageant, both Miss and Teen state pageants were held separately in different months. In recent ...

– sports anchor (previously worked at WJHG-TV News Channel 7 and is now at WUSA-TV in Washington, DC) * Tony Harris – later at CNN * Jon Leiberman – now with

Sirius XM Radio Sirius XM Holdings Inc. is an American broadcasting company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City that provides satellite radio and online radio services operating in the United States. It was formed by the 2008 merger of Sirius Sat ...

's ''

The Howard Stern Show ''The Howard Stern Show'' is an American radio show hosted by Howard Stern that gained wide recognition when it was nationally syndicated on terrestrial radio from WXRK in New York City, between 1986 and 2005. The show has aired on Howard 100 a ...

'' *

Lori Stokes Lori Stokes (born September 16, 1962) is an American former journalist and news anchor. She was the evening news anchor for the 5, 6, and 10 O’Clock news at Fox 5 NY WNYW in New York City from 2021 to 2022. She formerly co-hosted ''Good Day Ne ...

– reporter (1991–1992); now at

WNYW-TV WNYW (channel 5) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the Fox network. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside Secaucus, New Jersey–licensed MyNetworkTV flagship WWO ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Amber Theoharis Amber Theoharis (born September 13, 1978) is a co-host for NFL Network on '' NFL Total Access''. Theoharis is a 1996 graduate of Middletown High School and of the University of Maryland. She started her media career in Salisbury, Maryland at W ...

– now with

NFL Network NFL Network (occasionally abbreviated on-air as NFLN) is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League (NFL) and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and NF ...

Lisa Willis Lisa Camille Willis (born June 13, 1984) is an American basketball coach currently working as an assistant coach for the Westchester Knicks of the NBA G League. She played professionally in the WNBA with the Los Angeles Sparks, New York Liberty a ...

– main co-anchor, later worked for WPLG-TV in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

, now retired from television

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

WBFF shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 45, on February 17, 2009, the original target date in which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 46,CDBS Print
/ref> using PSIP to display the station's

virtual channel In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...

as its former UHF analog channel 45. WBFF announced in September 2015 that test broadcasts would begin in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. for ATSC 3.0 (dubbed "Futurecast") via a two-transmitter SFN with one transmitter in each city on UHF 43 delivering 4K UHDTV and mobile feeds to viewers. This station, named WI9XXT, began experimental broadcasts on August 24, 2015, and the

special temporary authority Special Temporary Authority (STA) in U.S. broadcast law is a type of broadcast license which temporarily allows a broadcast station to operate outside of its normal technical or legal parameters. In the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) st ...

ended on February 25, 2016. WI9XXT's broadcasts were from

WRC-TV WRC-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Washington, D.C., airing programming from the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Class A Telemundo outlet WZDC-CD (channel 44 ...

's tower in the northwest section of Washington, and from WBFF's tower in

Woodberry, Baltimore Woodberry is a neighborhood located in the north-central area of Baltimore, Maryland, United States, USA. A largely residential, middle-class area, Woodberry is a historic community bordered on the north by Coldspring Lane-Moravia Road, Cold Spri ...

. As a part of the repacking process following the 2016–2017 FCC incentive auction, WBFF relocated to UHF channel 26 in 2020, using PSIP to display its virtual channel number as 45.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wbff 1971 establishments in Maryland Fox network affiliates MyNetworkTV affiliates Charge! (TV network) affiliates Sinclair Broadcast Group Television channels and stations established in 1971 BFF Woodberry, Baltimore