WLOO
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WLOO (channel 35) 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 earth's s ...
licensed to
Vicksburg, Mississippi Vicksburg is a historic city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the county seat. The population was 21,573 at the 2020 census. Located on a high bluff on the east bank of the Mississippi River across from Louisiana, Vicksburg ...
, United States, serving the Jackson area as an affiliate of
MyNetworkTV MyNetworkTV (stylized as mynetworkTV; unofficially abbreviated MNT or MNTV) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its Fox Television Stations ...
. Owned by
Tougaloo College Tougaloo College is a private historically black college in the Tougaloo area of Jackson, Mississippi, United States. It is affiliated with the United Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). It was established in 1869 by ...
, it has a joint sales agreement (JSA) with Fox affiliate WDBD (channel 40, owned by American Spirit Media). Both stations, in turn, are controlled under 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 the ...
agreement (SSA) by
Gray Media Gray Media, Inc., doing business as Gray Television, is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 statio ...
, owner of
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
affiliate WLBT, channel 3 (with Gray providing limited engineering support to WLOO). The three stations share studios on South Jefferson Street in downtown Jackson; WLOO's transmitter is located on Thigpen Road southeast of
Raymond, Mississippi Raymond is a city in Hinds County, Mississippi, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 1,933; in 2020, its population was 1,960. Raymond is one of two county seats of Hinds County (along with Jackson) and is the home ...
.


History

The station signed on September 29, 2003, as WUFX, airing an analog signal on UHF channel 35. The station was Jackson's second Fox affiliate; until its launch, there was no over-the-air affiliate in the area because WDBD had dropped the network in favor of
The WB The WB Television Network (shortened to The WB, stylized as "THE WB", and nicknamed the "Frog Network" and/or "The Frog" for its former mascot Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network that ran from 1995 to 2006. It launched on ter ...
almost two years earlier in October 2001. During the previous 23 months, Fox programming was made available on cable in Jackson via Foxnet, although cable providers in the Natchez area carried WNTZ-TV from
Alexandria, Louisiana Alexandria is the ninth-largest city in the state of Louisiana and is the parish seat and largest city of Rapides Parish, Louisiana, Rapides Parish, Louisiana, United States. It lies on the south bank of the Red River of the South, Red River ...
, instead. Throughout its Fox affiliation, WUFX carried the branding "Fox 35" and used the slogan "Fox For You". Channel 35 would have officially begun broadcasting at 11 a.m. on September 7 in time for the start of the
2003 NFL season The 2003 NFL season was the 84th regular season of the National Football League (NFL). Regular-season play was held from September 4, 2003, to December 28, 2003. Due to damage caused by the Cedar Fire, Qualcomm Stadium was used as an emergen ...
. However, two members of the tower construction crew had shots fired at them at the station's analog transmitter site in Edwards on August 31. As a result, all work was halted for 22 days while the Hinds County
Sheriff's Department Sheriffs in the United States are the chief of law enforcement officers of a county. A sheriff is usually either elected by the populace or appointed by an elected body. Sheriffs' offices are typically tasked with operating jails, security at ...
conducted an investigation. Deputies eventually decided it was safe for the construction crew to resume work on WUFX's transmitter and even provided on-site security until its completion. In early 2006, it was announced The WB and UPN would merge to form
The CW The CW Network, LLC (commonly referred to as The CW or simply CW) is an American commercial broadcast television network which is controlled by Nexstar Media Group through a 75% ownership interest. The network's name is derived from the firs ...
. At the same time,
News Corporation The original incarnation of News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp. and also variously known as News Corporation Limited) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational mass media corporation founded and controlled by media mogul Ru ...
(owner of Fox) made public that another new network called MyNetworkTV would be launching as well. UPN affiliate WRBJ was announced as the new station for The CW while WUFX would join MyNetworkTV. In advance of the switch to MyNetworkTV, WUFX and WDBD swapped affiliations. On July 3, 2006, the station temporarily picked up The WB but began identifying itself on-air as "My 35" in anticipation of joining the new network. After joining MyNetworkTV, it continued carrying WB programming in a secondary nature until that network shut down on September 17. Meanwhile, WDBD rejoined Fox and adopted the branding "Fox 40". WUFX and WDBD were sold by Jackson Television to Roundtable Broadcasting in early 2010. However, the latter's licensee listing with the
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...
(FCC) still said Jackson Television. Vicksburg Broadcasting filed to sell WUFX and WBMS-CA to American Spirit Media in July 2012. As American Spirit also acquired WDBD and WXMS-LP from Roundtable Broadcasting, the WUFX license was then sold for $1 to Tougaloo College, though American Spirit provides sales services to the station under a joint sales agreement. Gray Television, owner of WLBT, provides certain services to the American Spirit stations under a shared services agreement. Tougaloo intends to use WUFX to teach its students about the operation of television stations. On November 13, the transaction was consummated. On April 15, 2013, the call letters were changed to WLOO.


News operation

In April 2010, WDBD began producing a weeknight half-hour newscast on WUFX, called ''Fox 40 News at 10 on My 35'', which competed against long-standing news broadcasts seen on the market's big three affiliates. After American Spirit Media completed its acquisition of WDBD and entered into the shared services agreement with WLBT, the Fox station's news department was shut down. Production of WDBD's newscasts was assumed by WLBT on November 12, 2012, with all of the news programming retained except for the 10 p.m. show on WUFX since it would compete with WLBT.


Technical information


Subchannels

The station's signal is
multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource— ...
:


Analog-to-digital conversion

WLOO (as WUFX) shut down its analog signal, over
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 ...
channel 35, on May 4, 2009.List of Digital Full-Power Stations
/ref> The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 41, using
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 as digits on a receiver's ...
35. WUFX was granted an original
construction permit Planning permission or building permit refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. House building permits, for example, are subject to bu ...
after the FCC finalized the
digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using Digital signal, digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an ...
allotment plan on April 21, 1997. As a result, the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital television station.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wloo 2003 establishments in Mississippi Catchy Comedy affiliates Gray Media Heroes & Icons affiliates MeTV Toons affiliates Movies! affiliates MyNetworkTV affiliates Start TV affiliates Television channels and stations established in 2003 LOO Tougaloo College Vicksburg, Mississippi