WRGX-LD (channel 23) is a
low-power television station in
Dothan, Alabama
Dothan is a city in and the county seat of Houston County, Alabama, Houston County in the U.S. state of Alabama. A slight portion of the city extends into Dale County, Alabama, Dale and Henry County, Alabama, Henry counties. It had a population ...
, United States, affiliated with
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 ...
,
The CW Plus
The CW Plus is a secondary national broadcast television broadcast syndication, syndication service feed of The CW, whose controlling stake of 75% is owned by Nexstar Media Group, with Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery holding their ow ...
, and
Telemundo
Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast. It provides content ...
. It is owned 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 ...
alongside
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
affiliate
WTVY (channel 4). The two stations share studios on North Foster Street in Downtown Dothan; WRGX-LD's transmitter is located in
Bethlehem, Florida (in the
Panama City
Panama City, also known as Panama, is the capital and largest city of Panama. It has a total population of 1,086,990, with over 2,100,000 in its metropolitan area. The city is located at the Pacific Ocean, Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal, i ...
market
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
*Marketing, the act of sat ...
).
In order to increase its
over-the-air reach, the station's NBC and CW+ programming is
simulcast
Simulcast (a portmanteau of "simultaneous broadcast") is the broadcasting of programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultaneously) ...
in
16:9 widescreen
Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratio (image), aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ...
standard definition
Standard-definition television (SDTV; also standard definition or SD) is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high or enhanced definition. ''Standard'' refers to offering a similar resolution to the ...
on WTVY's respective fourth and third
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 compress ...
s. These full-market feeds can be seen on channels 4.4/4.3 from the same Bethlehem tower.
History
The station originally signed on as a
Trinity Broadcasting Network
The Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN; legally Trinity Broadcasting of Texas, Inc.) is an international Christian-based broadcast television network and the world's largest religious television network. TBN solicits donations on its Web site, a ...
-operated
translator
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...
as W29BB on channel 29 in 1990; it was relocated to channel 41 and changed its
call sign
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...
to W41BN in 1992. The station was sold through a donation to the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council on November 30, 2010. On June 28, 2011, New Moon Communications acquired the station from the MMTC in a group deal with three other low-power stations in
Jackson, Tennessee
Jackson is a city in and the county seat of Madison County, Tennessee, United States. Located east of Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis and 130 Miles Southwest of Nashville, it is a regional center of trade for West Tennessee. Its total population wa ...
;
Jonesboro, Arkansas
Jonesboro () is a city located on Crowley's Ridge in the northeastern corner of the U.S. State of Arkansas. Jonesboro is one of two county seats of Craighead County, Arkansas, Craighead County. In 2023, the city had an estimated population of ...
; and
Ottumwa, Iowa
Ottumwa ( ) is a List of cities in Iowa, city in and the county seat of Wapello County, Iowa, United States. The population was 25,529 at the time of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. Census. Located in the state's southeastern section, th ...
, for $12,004.
Concurrent with the purchase, New Moon signed an affiliation agreement with NBC for WDON and the three other stations, all of which were located in
markets where the network was exclusively available through
cable
Cable may refer to:
Mechanical
* Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof
* Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...
and
satellite
A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...
or through rimshot signal coverage from over-the-air affiliates in nearby markets. The call sign of the station was changed to WDON-LP on June 14, 2011.
On January 3, 2013, New Moon Communications announced it was selling WDON-LP to Gray Television for $60,000.
Gray changed the call letters to WRGX-LD on April 13, 2013.
It became the NBC affiliate for the Dothan area when the station signed on-the-air on June 1, 2013.[Dothan getting NBC affiliate](_blank)
'' Dothan Eagle'', May 6, 2013.
It is the first NBC affiliate that is licensed to the immediate Dothan market. The area had been one of the last markets in the United States without full service from the big three networks. Previously, Montgomery's WSFA
WSFA (channel 12) is a television station in Montgomery, Alabama, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Gray Media alongside Selma–licensed low-power, Class A Telemundo affiliate WBXM-CD (channel 15). The two stations sha ...
and Panama City
Panama City, also known as Panama, is the capital and largest city of Panama. It has a total population of 1,086,990, with over 2,100,000 in its metropolitan area. The city is located at the Pacific Ocean, Pacific entrance of the Panama Canal, i ...
's WJHG
WJHG-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Panama City, Florida, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Gray Media alongside low-power broadcasting#Television, low-power dual CBS/MyNetworkTV affiliate WECP-LD (channel 21). The t ...
(both of which are 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 WRGX) provided decent signal coverage to some portion of the market.
WSFA had rimshot coverage and WJHG provided grade B signal service in Dothan proper and both had cable and satellite coverage across much of the market. With the station's relaunch as an NBC affiliate, WRGX took the place of both stations on many cable and satellite providers as the market's main source for NBC programming. Although cable and satellite providers are not normally required to carry low-power stations, Gray has the right to require area providers to carry WRGX as part of the retransmission consent
Retransmission consent is a provision of the 1992 United States Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act that requires cable operators and other multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) to obtain permission from commerc ...
compensation for carrying WTVY.
The station's launch effectively gave Dothan in-market affiliates of all six major commercial broadcast networks for the first time ever; these other affiliations are held by sister station WTVY (which in addition to being the CBS affiliate also holds affiliations with 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 ...
and 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 progra ...
). The area's other two network affiliates are Fox station WDFX-TV and ABC affiliate WDHN.
News operation
On weekdays, WTVY produces two thirty-minute newscasts (at 4 and 5:30 p.m.) that are exclusive to WRGX. As a result, this station airs an alternate live feed of ''NBC Nightly News
''NBC Nightly News'' (titled as ''NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas'' for its weeknight broadcasts ) is the flagship daily evening News broadcasting#Television, television news program for NBC News, the news division of the NBC television network ...
'' at 6 p.m. (rather than 5:30 p.m. as with most NBC outlets in the Central Time Zone
The North American Central Time Zone (CT) is a time zone in parts of Canada, the United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It ...
).
The WRGX news programs broadcast from a secondary set at the North Foster Street facility. Although it features additional reporters from WTVY, this station maintains separate news anchors and a meteorologist
A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists ...
. It does not simulcast any newscasts from WTVY.
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— ...
:
References
External links
WTVY official website
WRGX-LD2/WTVY-DT3 "Dothan's CW"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wrgx-Ld
2013 establishments in Alabama
The CW affiliates
Gray Media
RGX-LD
NBC affiliates
Telemundo affiliates
Television channels and stations established in 2013
RGX-LD