WALA-TV (channel 10) 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 ...

licensed to

Mobile, Alabama Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 187,041 at the 2020 census, down from 195,111 at the 2010 census. It is the fourth-most-populous city in Alabama ...

, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for southwest Alabama and northwest Florida. Owned by

Gray Television Gray Television, Inc. is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 stations across the United St ...

, the station maintains studios on

Satchel Paige Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige (July 7, 1906 – June 8, 1982) was an American professional baseball pitcher who played in Negro league baseball and Major League Baseball (MLB). His career spanned five decades and culminated with his induction in ...

Drive in Mobile, with an additional studio and

news bureau A news bureau is an office for gathering or distributing news. Similar terms are used for specialized bureaus, often to indicate a geographic location or scope of coverage: a ‘Tokyo bureau’ refers to a given news operation's office in Tokyo; ' ...

on Executive Plaza Drive in

Pensacola, Florida Pensacola () is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle, and the county seat and only incorporated city of Escambia County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 54,312. Pensacola is the principal c ...

; its transmitter is located in Spanish Fort, Alabama. WALA-TV operates a 24-hour local weather channel called "Weather Now" which is available on

Cox Communications Cox Communications, Inc. (also known as Cox Cable and formerly Cox Broadcasting Corporation, Dimension Cable Services and Times-Mirror Cable) is an American digital cable television provider, telecommunications and home automation services. It i ...

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Technology and computing Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals ** Digital camera, which captures and stores digital ...

channel 698 in Pensacola; it is not carried on

Comcast Xfinity Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, doing business as Xfinity, is an American telecommunications company and division of Comcast Corporation used to market consumer cable television, internet, telephone, and wireless services provided by the com ...

on the Alabama side of the market.

History

Early history

WALA signed on the air for the first time on January 14, 1953; it is Mobile's oldest existing television station (the first, WKAB-TV channel 48, had beaten WALA-TV to air by two weeks but closed on August 2, 1954). It was initially locally owned by W.O. Pape, along with WALA radio (1410 AM, now WNGL). It aired programs from all four major television networks of the time– NBC, ABC, CBS, and DuMont–but was a primary NBC affiliate, as WALA radio had been a longtime affiliate of the network's direct predecessor, the

NBC Red Network The NBC, National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network (known as the NBC Red Network prior to 1942) was an American commercial radio network which was in operation from 1926 through 2004. Along with the Blue Network, NBC Blue Network it was ...

. WALA lost CBS and ABC programming to WKRG-TV (channel 5) when it signed on, and to WEAR-TV (channel 3) relinquished CBS programming and became a full-time ABC affiliate for the newly enlarged Mobile/Pensacola market in 1955. During the late 1950s, WALA was also briefly affiliated with the

NTA Film Network The NTA Film Network was an early American television network founded by Ely Landau in 1956. The network was not a full-time television network like CBS, NBC, or ABC. Rather, it operated on a part-time basis, broadcasting films and several f ...

. Pape sold WALA in 1964 to the Roywood Corporation. In 1969, Roywood sold WALA to the Universal Communications Corporation, the television arm of the '' Detroit News''. For most its first four decades on the air, WALA was the market's ratings leader. As the more established outlet, WALA got the strongest syndicated programming and it had the top-rated local newscasts. Even today, WALA continues to dominate in local news viewership, even after the affiliation switch from NBC to Fox. The

Gannett Company Gannett Co., Inc. () is an American mass media holding company headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.Pensacola News Journal'', and

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

(FCC) regulations barring common ownership of television stations and newspapers in the same market, Gannett was forced to put channel 10 on the market only a month after the merger closed. Gannett sold WALA-TV to

Knight Ridder Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by McClatchy on June 27, 2006, it was the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspaper bra ...

Broadcasting on February 19, 1986 (similarly as Gannett owned television stations in both markets, two other stations involved in the Universal Communications sale—KTVY (now

KFOR-TV KFOR-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside independent station KAUT-TV (channel 43). Both stations share studios in Oklahoma C ...

) in

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, and ...

and KOLD-TV in

Tucson, Arizona , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

—were also sold to Knight Ridder as FCC rules of the time prohibited newspaper cross-ownership (in both the WALA-TV and KOLD-TV cases) and television duopolies in KTVY's case; Knight Ridder, in turn, sold WALA to Burnham Broadcasting in 1989.

Fox affiliation

After it acquired the

television rights Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began wi ...

to broadcast games from the NFL's

National Football Conference The National Football Conference (NFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest professional level of American football in the United States. The NFC and its counterpart, the American Football Conference ( ...

in December 1993, Fox wanted to upgrade its affiliates in many markets, approaching owners of

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 ...

television stations (broadcasting on channels 2 to 13) that had more value with advertisers than those within Fox's predominately

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 portfolio for affiliation deals. In May 1994, the network announced an extensive affiliation and programming agreement with

New World Communications New World Pictures (also known as New World Entertainment and New World Communications Group, Inc.) was an American independent production, distribution, and (in its final years as an autonomous entity) multimedia company. It was founded in 197 ...

– which owned, and was in the process of acquiring, stations in several large and mid-sized markets—in which most of the group's stations would switch their affiliations from one of the "Big Three" networks (CBS, ABC and NBC) to Fox beginning in the fall of 1994 and continuing over the next two years as affiliation contracts lapsed. More stations would switch to the network in 1995, when New World merged with Argyle Television and bought several stations from

Citicasters The Taft Broadcasting Company (also known as Taft Television and Radio Company, Incorporated) was an American media conglomerate based in Cincinnati, Ohio. The company was rooted in the family of William Howard Taft, the 27th President of t ...

. In turn,

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 ...

purchased New World in September 1996, and merged it into its

Fox Television Stations Fox Television Stations, LLC (FTS; alternately Fox Television Stations Group, LLC), is a group of television stations located within the United States, which are owned-and-operated by the Fox Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of the Fox Co ...

subsidiary in January 1997. As a result of Fox's influence in striking affiliations with additional VHF stations to help establish itself as the fourth major network, it sought to upgrade its affiliates—this time in smaller markets. In March 1994, Fox's then-parent News Corporation entered into a partnership with minority-owned film and television

production company A production company, production house, production studio, or a production team is a studio that creates works in the fields of performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, comics, interactive arts, video games, websites, music, and v ...

Savoy Pictures to form a television station ownership group called SF Broadcasting. On August 25, 1994, the company bought WALA, WVUE-TV in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

, and

KHON-TV KHON-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, serving the Hawaiian Islands as an affiliate of Fox and The CW. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate KHII-TV (channel 9). Both s ...

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the isla ...

for $229 million; fellow sister station WLUK-TV in

Green Bay, Wisconsin Green Bay is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The county seat of Brown County, it is at the head of Green Bay (known locally as "the bay of Green Bay"), a sub-basin of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Fox River. It is above sea le ...

was sold to the company one month earlier in a separate $38 million deal, which for a time, was challenged by an FCC petition filed by NBC alleging that the deal violated foreign investment limits for U.S. broadcasters (a fifth Burnham station,

KBAK-TV KBAK-TV (channel 29) is a television station in Bakersfield, California, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside low-power, Class A Fox affiliate KBFX-CD (channel 58). Both stations share studio ...

Bakersfield, California Bakersfield is a city in Kern County, California, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Kern County. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Valley region. Bakersfield's populat ...

, was excluded from the SF deal and was instead spun off to Westwind Communications, a new company formed by several former Burnham executives). As part of the deal, all four stations—which were then mostly NBC affiliates, aside from WVUE, then an ABC affiliate—would drop their Big Three affiliations and become Fox affiliates. Fox was slated to control the voting stock in the venture, but prior to the sale's closure in 1995, it was determined that Fox would still hold an interest in SF although it opted not to have voting stock in the company. Savoy Pictures controlled the day-to-day operations of the four stations. Almost by default, NBC was then left to go with WPMI. The final NBC program to air on WALA-TV was an ''NBC Sunday Night Movie'' presentation of '' Final Analysis'' at 8:00 p.m. Central Time on December 31, 1995, the day that channel 10 ended its 42-year affiliation with the network and became a Fox affiliate with WVUE and KHON also switched to that network on that same date, while WLUK had joined Fox in August 1995. The NBC affiliation moved to former Fox affiliate WPMI-TV (channel 15). Unlike the New World Communications-owned Fox affiliates that joined the network during the previous 18-month span, WALA ran

Fox Kids Fox Kids (originally known as Fox Children's Network and later as the Fox Kids Network; stylized as FOX KIDS) was an American children's programming block and branding for a slate of international children's television channels. Originally a jo ...

programming on weekdays and Saturday mornings; until Fox discontinued the weekday block in December 2001, Fox Kids ran Monday through Fridays from 1 to 4 p.m. (an hour earlier than most of its fellow Fox stations), replacing NBC's daytime soap opera lineup upon the switch; Fox Kids' Saturday morning block, meanwhile, aired in pattern. WALA, now rebranded as "Fox 10" upon the switch, also expanded its local news programming to around 25 hours each week, with expansions to its morning and evening newscasts.

Silver King Broadcasting and Emmis Communications ownership

On November 28, 1995, Silver King Communications (operated by former Fox executive Barry Diller) announced that it would acquire Savoy Pictures; as a result, Savoy Pictures and Fox ended their partnership and sold the SF Broadcasting stations, including WALA-TV, to the USA Networks division Silver King Broadcasting. Silver King, which later became known as

USA Broadcasting USA Broadcasting was an American television broadcasting company owned by the veteran entertainment industry executive Barry Diller. This company was the over-the-air broadcasting arm of USA Networks. Before founding USA Broadcasting, Diller wa ...

, owned several stations in large and mid-sized U.S. markets that were affiliated with the

Home Shopping Network HSN, an initialism of its former name Home Shopping Network, is an American free-to-air television network owned by the Qurate Retail Group, which also owns catalog company Cornerstone Brands. Based in the Gateway area of St. Petersburg, Flo ...

, which USA Networks also owned at the time. The sale of WALA and the other SF Broadcasting stations was approved and finalized in March 1996, with its other assets being merged into the company that November. On April 1, 1998, USA sold all four of its Fox stations to Emmis Communications for $307 million in cash and stock, as part of a sale of its major network affiliates in order to concentrate on its formerly HSN-affiliated independent stations. Fox discontinued its weekday afternoon children's programming block, then running for only two hours in December 2001, but retained its Saturday morning lineup. In 2002, the children's block was revamped as the Fox Box and then began to be programmed by

4Kids Entertainment 4Kids Entertainment, Inc. (formerly known as Leisure Concepts, Inc. and later known as 4Licensing Corporation) was an American licensing company. The company was previously also a film and television production company that produced English- dub ...

in 2003, after which it was eventually renamed

4Kids TV 4Kids TV (often stylized as 4K!DSTV and formerly known as FoxBox from September 14, 2002 to January 15, 2005) was an American television programming block and Internet-based video on demand children's network operated by 4Kids Entertainment. I ...

(4Kids Entertainment ceased programming Fox's children's block in December 2008, with the network discontinuing its children's programming altogether). At this point WALA, like most Fox affiliates, would purchase more talk and reality-based shows to fill its daytime timeslots. Emmis bought WB affiliate WBPG (channel 55, now WFNA) in 2003, creating a duopoly with channel 10; WBPG's operations were subsequently merged with WALA at the latter station's facility on Satchel Paige Drive.

LIN Media ownership

On May 15, 2005, Emmis Communications announced that it would sell its 16 television stations, including WALA and WBPG, in order to concentrate on its radio properties. WALA and WBPG were then sold to LIN TV Corporation on August 22, as part of a $260 million deal that included WLUK-TV, and CBS affiliates WTHI-TV in

Terre Haute, Indiana Terre Haute ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Vigo County, Indiana, United States, about 5 miles east of the state's western border with Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 60,785 and its metropolitan area had a ...

and

KRQE KRQE (channel 13) is a television station in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States, affiliated with CBS and Fox. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, it is sister to Santa Fe–licensed ''de facto'' CW owned-and-operated station KWBQ (channel 19) a ...

Albuquerque, New Mexico Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vakêêke; zun, Alo:ke:k'ya; apj, Gołgéeki'yé. abbreviated ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Its nicknames, The Duke City and Burque, both reference its founding i ...

; the sale of WALA closed on November 30, 2005, at which time LIN also began to operate WBPG under 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 ...

. LIN TV would purchase WBPG outright on July 7, 2006, reforming a legal duopoly between the stations. Until March 2007, WALA carried a simulcast of WBPG (now a CW affiliate) on a 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 ...

as that station did not have a digital signal of its own. WBPG eventually launched a low-power digital signal in late 2008 and boosted to full power in 2009, when WXXV-TV in neighboring Biloxi,

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

abandoned its analog signal on UHF channel 25, which shared the digital frequency that WBPG was assigned. On May 18, 2007, LIN TV announced that it was exploring strategic alternatives that would have resulted in the sale of the company. In mid-June 2007, following the lead of most of the other LIN-owned Fox affiliates, WALA launched a new website using Fox Interactive's myFox interface. In October 2008, WALA and CBS sister station WPRI-TV in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...

relaunched their websites through Fox Interactive as a result of a new partnership between LIN TV and News Corporation (since spun off as the independent company now known as EndPlay). The new sites were similar in format to the myFox sites (which WALA and the other LIN TV-owned Fox affiliates previously used) but without the flashy myFox

owned-and-operated station In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...

-style look. Over the next few weeks, the other LIN-owned stations (irrespective of their network affiliation) followed suit.

Media General/LIN merger and spinoff to Meredith

On March 21, 2014, LIN Media entered into an agreement to merge with Media General in a $1.6 billion deal. Because Media General already owns CBS affiliate WKRG-TV (channel 5), and the two stations rank among the four highest-rated stations in the Mobile/Pensacola market in total day viewership, the companies were required to sell WALA or WKRG to comply with FCC ownership rules as well as planned changes to those rules regarding same-market television stations which would prohibit sharing agreements. To settle the ownership conflict, Media General announced on August 20, 2014 that it would keep WKRG, choosing to sell WALA to the

Meredith Corporation Meredith Corporation was an American media conglomerate based in Des Moines, Iowa, that owned magazines, television stations, websites, and radio stations. Its publications had a readership of more than 120 million and paid circulation of more ...

for $86 million; the deal also resulted in the breakup of the duopoly between WALA and WFNA as Media General opted to acquire the latter station and operate it alongside WKRG. The sale was completed on December 19, 2014. However, nearly nine months later on September 8, 2015, Media General announced that it would acquire Meredith for $2.4 billion, with the combined group to be renamed Meredith Media General upon the sale's expected closure by June 2016. Due to the same ownership conflicts with the LIN-Media General merger that resulted in WALA's sale to Meredith, the two companies would have been required to sell either WALA or WKRG to comply with FCC ownership rules; WFNA is the only station that can legally be acquired by Meredith Media General as it is not among the Mobile/Pensacola market's four highest-rated television stations, and can either be maintained in its new duopoly with WKRG, or reunited in a duopoly with WALA. On January 27, 2016, Media General announced that it was terminating its agreement to acquire Meredith and instead agreed to be acquired by Nexstar Broadcasting Group.

Sale to Gray Television

On May 3, 2021,

announced its intent to purchase the Meredith Local Media division for $2.7 billion. The sale was completed on December 1. As a result, WALA-TV became a

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

to numerous other stations in nearby markets, including fellow Fox affiliates WBRC in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

and WVUE-DT in New Orleans (reuniting with the latter after being separated for 16 years); NBC affiliates WAFF in

Huntsville Huntsville is a city in Madison County, Limestone County, and Morgan County, Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Madison County. Located in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama, Huntsville is the most populous city in th ...

WSFA WSFA (channel 12) is a television station in Montgomery, Alabama, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Gray Television alongside low-power, Class A Telemundo affiliate WBXM-CD (channel 15). The two stations share studios on ...

in Montgomery and WJHG-TV in

Panama City Panama City ( es, Ciudad de Panamá, links=no; ), also known as Panama (or Panamá in Spanish), is the capital and largest city of Panama. It has an urban population of 880,691, with over 1.5 million in its metropolitan area. The city is loca ...

; CBS affiliate WTVY in Dothan and ABC affiliates

WLOX WLOX (channel 13) is a television station licensed to Biloxi, Mississippi, United States, serving the Mississippi Gulf Coast as an affiliate of ABC and CBS. Owned by Gray Television, the station maintains studios on DeBuys Road in Biloxi, an ...

in Biloxi, WTVM in

Columbus, Georgia Columbus is a consolidated city-county located on the west-central border of the U.S. state of Georgia. Columbus lies on the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county seat of Muscogee County, with which it o ...

and WTOK-TV in Meridian. WALA-TV represented nearly the last piece of station coverage in Alabama (home of the former

Raycom Media Raycom Media, Inc. was an American television broadcasting company based in Montgomery, Alabama. Raycom owned and/or provided services for 65 television stations and two radio stations across 44 markets in 20 states. Raycom, through its Communi ...

which Gray acquired in 2019), with only the small part of Alabama in the

Columbus, Mississippi Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Lowndes County, on the eastern border of Mississippi, United States, located primarily east, but also north and northeast of the Tombigbee River, which is also part of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Water ...

market not covered by a Gray station.

Programming

In addition to the Fox network schedule, syndicated programming on WALA includes ''

Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given genera ...

'', ''

Wheel of Fortune The Wheel of Fortune or '' Rota Fortunae'' has been a concept and metaphor since ancient times referring to the capricious nature of Fate. Wheel of Fortune may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Art * ''The Wheel of Fortune'' (Burne-J ...

'', '' The Doctors'' and ''

Dr. Phil Phillip Calvin McGraw (born September 1, 1950), better known as Dr. Phil, is an American television personality and author best known for hosting the talk show '' Dr. Phil''. He holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, though he ceased rene ...

''. Outside of network programming, the station offers a news-intensive general entertainment format. As a Fox affiliate, WALA has the "rare" distinction of broadcasting some of the strongest syndicated programming from

CBS Media Ventures CBS Media Ventures, Inc. (formerly CBS Television Distribution, Inc. and CBS Paramount Domestic Television, Inc.) is an American television distribution company owned by CBS Studios, part of CBS Entertainment Group, a division of Paramount Glob ...

, which the "Big Three" network affiliates in other

markets Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: *Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand *Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, an ...

would normally air. WALA is also among the ten Fox stations to air ''Jeopardy!'' and ''Wheel''; the others being WBFF in

Baltimore 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 was ...

;

WSYT WSYT (channel 68) is a television station in Syracuse, New York, United States, affiliated with the Fox network and owned by Imagicomm Communications. The station's studios are located on James Street/ NY 290 in Syracuse's Near Northeast secti ...

Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, Yonkers, and Rochester. At the 2020 census, the city' ...

; WVUE-DT in New Orleans; WLUK-TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin; KDVR in

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

; KVHP in

Lake Charles, Louisiana Lake Charles (French: ''Lac Charles'') is the fifth-largest incorporated city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, and the parish seat of Calcasieu Parish, located on Lake Charles, Prien Lake, and the Calcasieu River. Founded in 1861 in Calcas ...

;

WXIX-TV WXIX-TV (channel 19) is a television station licensed to Newport, Kentucky, United States, serving the Cincinnati metro as the market's Fox affiliate. It is owned by Gray Television alongside low-power Cozi TV affiliate WBQC-LD (channel 25 ...

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 ...

;

WLUC-DT2 WLUC-TV (channel 6) is a television station licensed to Marquette, Michigan, United States, serving the Central and Western Upper Peninsula of Michigan as an affiliate of NBC and Fox. Owned by Gray Television, the station has studios on US 41/ M- ...

Marquette, Michigan Marquette ( ) is a city in Marquette County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 20,629 at the 2020 United States Census, which makes it the largest city in the Upper Peninsula. Marquette serves as the seat of government of Marque ...

; and

WDAF-TV WDAF-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. The station is owned by Nexstar Media Group, and maintains studios and transmitter facilities on Summit Street in the Signal H ...

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more th ...

. WALA also broadcasts a local program called ''Studio 10'', which features entertainment and local segments, which are usually paid for by the guests who appear on the show. The hour-long program, which airs at 9:00 a.m. weekday mornings, is hosted by Joe Emer and Chelsey Sayasane, and features weather forecasts from morning meteorologist Michael White.

News operation

Channel 10 has led the news ratings in the Mobile–Pensacola market for most of the time since records have been kept, dating to its time as an NBC affiliate. After joining Fox, it maintained a news schedule very similar to what it had in its waning days as an NBC affiliate. It retained all of its existing newscasts, while adding several new newscasts to make up for the loss of network news programming. On April 21, 2012, WALA-TV became the third television station in the Mobile–Pensacola market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition (WPMI-TV would soon follow one day later), with the introduction of a brand new set and graphics. On August 27, 2012, WALA became the first station in the market to debut a 4:30 a.m. newscast. However, due to Hurricane Isaac, other stations were doing expanded coverage as well due to the impending storm, which would eventually affect the New Orleans area and spare Mobile from the brunt of the storm. On January 27, 2014, WALA expanded its weekday morning newscast to 4½ hours, running from 4:30 to 9:00 a.m.; as a result, the morning talk and lifestyle program ''Studio 10'' was moved one hour later to 9:00 a.m. On August 8, 2015, WALA debuted two-hour morning newscasts from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, becoming the third weekend morning local news program in the Mobile–Pensacola market (WEAR-TV has had a weekend morning newscast since 2009, while WKRG debuted its own newscast in that daypart two months before WALA debuted theirs). Subsequently, on August 24, 2015, the station restored a 10:00 p.m. newscast – which airs only on Monday through Fridays – to its schedule after 14 years.

Notable former on-air staff

Bill Evans William John Evans (August 16, 1929 – September 15, 1980) was an American jazz pianist and composer who worked primarily as the leader of his trio. His use of impressionist harmony, interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, block ch ...

* John Oldshue *

John Edd Thompson John Edd Thompson is a former chief meteorologist for WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama. Thompson reported the weather for people on the central Gulf Coast since 1969. Thompson retired on June 5, 2009 to spend more time with family. Life and career Thom ...

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed: On August 7, 2009, WALA began offering a Mobile TV feed using

BlackBerry The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus ''Rubus'' in the family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus ''Rubus'', and hybrids between the subgenera ''Rubus'' and ''Idaeobatus''. The taxonomy ...

Analog-to-digital conversion

WALA-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 10, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition VHF channel 9. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers 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 VHF analog channel 10.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wala-Tv ALA-TV Fox network affiliates Cozi TV affiliates Laff (TV network) affiliates Ion Mystery affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1953 Gray Television 1953 establishments in Alabama Former Meredith Corporation subsidiaries