WSWG (channel 44) 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 ...

Valdosta, Georgia Valdosta is a city in and the county seat of Lowndes County, Georgia, Lowndes County in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. As the principal city of the Valdosta Metropolitan Statistical Area, Valdosta metropolitan statistical area, ...

, United States, serving as the

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 for the

Albany, Georgia Albany ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. Located on the Flint River, it is the county seat of Dougherty County, Georgia, Dougherty County, and is the sole incorporated city in that county. Located in Southwest Geo ...

, area. It is owned by

Marquee Broadcasting Marquee Broadcasting, Inc. is an American broadcasting company that owns several television stations in the United States. History Marquee began in 2013 when its owners, Brian and Patricia Lane, announced its intent to acquire WMDT and its re ...

alongside Cordele-licensed

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 ...

affiliate

WSST-TV WSST-TV (channel 55) is a television station licensed to Cordele, Georgia, United States, serving as the MyNetworkTV affiliate for the Albany, Georgia, area. It is owned by Marquee Broadcasting alongside Valdosta-licensed CBS affiliate WSWG (ch ...

(channel 55); Marquee also operates

Fox Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush"). Twelve species ...

affiliate

WFXL WFXL (channel 31) is a television station in Albany, Georgia, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for Southwest Georgia. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, the station is operated under joint sales and shared services agreements by Marq ...

(channel 31) under joint sales and shared services agreements with

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair, Inc., doing business as Sinclair Broadcast Group, is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb o ...

. The three stations share offices on Slappey Boulevard in Albany; WSWG's transmitter is located in unincorporated

Cook County Cook County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Illinois and the second-most-populous county in the United States, after Los Angeles County, California. More than 40 percent of all residents of Illinois live within Cook County. ...

, northeast of Adel. Although Valdosta is part of the

Tallahassee, Florida Tallahassee ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of and the only incorporated municipality in Leon County, Florida, Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Fl ...

, television market, which receives CBS programming from

Thomasville, Georgia Thomasville is the county seat of Thomas County, Georgia, United States. The population was 18,881 in 2020. The city deems itself the "City of Roses" and holds an annual Rose Festival. The city features plantations open to the public, a histor ...

–licensed

WCTV WCTV (channel 6) is a television station licensed to Thomasville, Georgia, United States, serving the Tallahassee, Florida, market as an affiliate of CBS and MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Gray Media alongside Live Oak, Florida–licensed MeT ...

, WSWG is assigned by Nielsen to the Albany market. Channel 44 in Valdosta went on the air in 1980 as

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

affiliate WVGA. It operated as a small station with limited local programming from December 1980 to February 1992. During this time, it was off the air in late 1988 and early 1989 after a small airplane crashed into its tower.

WTXL-TV WTXL-TV (channel 27) is a television station in Tallahassee, Florida, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by the E. W. Scripps Company. The station's studios are located on Commerce Boulevard in Midway, Florida, and its transmitter ...

, the ABC affiliate in Tallahassee, ran the station for seven months but ultimately withdrew from its attempt to buy it, after which time it was off the air for three years. Hutchens Communications rebuilt the station as WB affiliate WGVP in 1995, changing to

UPN The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that operated from 1995 to 2006. It was originally a joint venture between Chris-Craft Industries (later sold to News Corporation)'s subsidiary, United Television, ...

in 1997. Financial issues snarled Hutchens Communications ownership and led to several attempts to force a sale and the ultimate resignation of the company's namesake. After being steadied by changes in ownership and management,

Gray Television 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 ...

acquired it in 2005, combined its operations with WCTV under the call sign WSWG, and then repurposed it the next year as a

semi-satellite A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or trans ...

of WCTV for the Albany area. This continued until 2019, when Gray purchased

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

and was forced to sell WSWG to remain under ownership limits in the market. It was then purchased by Marquee Broadcasting.

History

WVGA

Peachtree Telecasting, a consortium of out-of-state investors, applied to 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) in 1978 to build a new TV station in Valdosta. The permit was issued in April 1979, and Peachtree began meeting with the major television networks, seeking an affiliation. The group won the

affiliation for the Valdosta area; the nearest ABC affiliate, WECA-TV (now

) in

, did not adequately cover the city. Peachtree Telecasting investors also included Hi Ho Broadcasting, owner of ABC affiliate

WDHN WDHN (channel 18) is a television station in Dothan, Alabama, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Nexstar Media Group. The station's studios and transmitter are located on AL 52 in Webb. History WDHN launched August 7, 1970, as ...

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 ...

. Construction stretched through most of 1980: the station set up studios on Norman Drive and erected a tower near Adel. The station began broadcasting on the evening of December 24. However, the station got off to a visibly bumpy start. It had presented a $16,000 check to the local chamber of commerce for office renovations in a goodwill gesture, but the check turned out to be bad; further, the studio-transmitter link was misaligned, leading to a degraded signal. Local programming slowly ramped up, first with commercial production and a local farm show before debuting evening newscasts. However, the station had a very difficult time obtaining national advertising, affecting its financial viability. WVGA had to compete with

WALB WALB (channel 10) is a television station in Albany, Georgia, United States, serving Southwest Georgia, Southwestern Georgia as an affiliate of NBC and American Broadcasting Company, ABC. It is owned by Gray Media alongside low-power broadcasti ...

in Albany and

in Tallahassee, which drew higher ratings in the market.

Morris Network Morris Multimedia, Inc. is a media company based in Savannah, Georgia, founded in 1970 by Charles H. Morris. Morris Multimedia is the parent company of Morris Newspaper Corporation and Morris Network. The company's offices are in the Oliver St ...

acquired WVGA and WDHN in 1986. Two years later, however, tragedy struck. On the morning of August 17, 1988, a dense fog spread over the region. Frank Blaydes, a doctor from

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

, was piloting a

Cessna 172 The Cessna 172 Skyhawk is an American four-seat, single-engine, high wing, fixed-wing aircraft made by the Cessna Aircraft Company. Investigators determined that the pilot was not rated to land in such weather conditions and that no information was available to him about the weather at Adel. The tower collapse knocked WVGA off the air until January 1989, costing it considerable advertising revenue. Blaydes's parents initially sued Peachtree Telecasting for wrongful death compensation, claiming the station had been negligent in maintaining the tower. That lawsuit was dropped and replaced with one against Morris, to which the company responded with a countersuit. The matter proceeded to a jury trial in Chatham County in July 1991. In February 1992, Morris Network reached a deal to sell WVGA to WTXL-TV owner ET Broadcasting. ET immediately dropped what local programming remained on the station—which had not aired local news in more than a year—and turned it into a full-time satellite of WTXL-TV, also an ABC affiliate. The FCC granted permission for the two stations to be commonly owned in September, citing the fact that Morris had shopped the station to buyers since 1987 without success; company officials also noted that WVGA was sandwiched between two markets and national ratings services could not agree as to in which market the station belonged. However, the sale was never consummated due to what were described as technical differences. ET walked away from the deal on November 6, 1992. Without a programming source, WVGA left the air.

WB and UPN

For the next two years, several groups looked at purchasing the station, which Morris threatened to dismantle. Gary Hutchens, a local business owner whose Welcome Channel broadcast local programming on the Valdosta cable system and the owner of video production firm Georgia Video Professionals, mounted an effort to put the station back on the air, proposing initially to return it to the air as an ABC affiliate. His Hutchens Communications (HCI) acquired the station for $1 million and announced in January 1994 that it would use its own studio facilities in conjunction with the Adel tower. Hutchens reopened the station on October 28, 1995, as WGVP, an affiliate 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 ...

. It originally operated from temporary studios in Remerton, Georgia, but it returned to the former WVGA building because no other suitable facility existed in Valdosta. The station's tower was the site of tragedy yet again on August 11, 1996, during a helicopter lift of the old antenna off the mast as part of its replacement. The helicopter clipped the tower and crashed into the forest; the pilot died instantly. WGVP switched to

on August 25, 1997, becoming the UPN affiliate of record in the Tallahassee and Albany media markets. In the switch, it retained its local news coverage, with newscasts at 6, 10, and 11 p.m., until January 1998. Even though it technically was the affiliate in the full market, its signal did not reach Tallahassee, leaving that city without UPN programming for more than a year until W17AB, later WVUP-LP, picked up the network as well in October 1998. Meanwhile, back in Valdosta, financial problems were beginning to arise. In September, some employees staged a walkout for lack of payment. Other employees would later speak of being paid in gift certificates to a local restaurant. In order to find cash, Hutchens struck deals with two different companies related to the station. One was Venture Technologies Group, which granted a $50,000 loan and also filed in April 1998 to have the FCC license transferred to it. The other was Southern Nights Entertainment Corporation (SNE), owner of W17AB/WVUP-LP in Tallahassee, which in March 1998 entered into an agreement with Hutchens to run channel 44 under a

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

(LMA). The president of Southern Nights, Don Palmer, was unaware of the Venture Technologies deal until two months later. When Hutchens could not pay the loan to Venture, it sued for the money. A new lease agreement and deal to purchase 51 percent of the station was entered in September 1998, owing to HCI's heavy indebtedness. On its first attempt to buy the station alright, however, legal fallout from the pending Venture suit delayed the transfer. After Venture's suit was dropped in February 1999, Southern Nights reached another deal in February 2000 to buy the station. However, by the time the FCC had granted approval, HCI could not perform; Hutchens no longer owned 51 percent of the station, while Hutchens claimed that Southern Nights had constantly changing financial asks. The deal fell apart in August, and HCI had to reestablish control of the station, dropping UPN programming for several days before it could be restored. MainStreet Broadcasting, a Pennsylvania management company with experience in turning around troubled TV stations, was brought in by the other stockholders in HCI to steady WGVP. Meanwhile, in September 2000—pursuant to early 1999 agreements between Southern Nights and HCI—SNE attempted to auction its rights to purchase Hutchens to the highest bidder on the steps of the Lowndes County courthouse. Hutchens resigned in October 2000, the same month three lawsuits between Hutchens Communications and Southern Nights were consolidated and assigned to a

special master In the law of the United States, a special master is an official appointed by a judge to ensure judicial orders are followed, or in the alternative, to hear evidence on behalf of the judge and make recommendations to the judge as to the dispositi ...

. In 2001, the call letters were changed to WVAG, and a new antenna was installed to improve coverage. Studios were relocated to new facilities, with cable company Mediacom occupying the Norman Drive building. By 2003, ''

Broadcasting & Cable ''Broadcasting & Cable'' (''B&C'', or ''Broadcasting+Cable'') was a telecommunications industry monthly trade magazine and, later, news website published by Future US. Founded in 1931 as ''Broadcasting'', subsequent mergers, acquisitions and ...

'' considered the station to be the third television station in the Albany market, along 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 ...

affiliate WALB-TV and

affiliate

. Control of Hutchens Communications shifted from Gary Hutchens and Robert Lee Hutchens Jr. to Paul Shok and Donald W. Meinke; the company was renamed Padon Communications and then P.D. Communications. P.D. Communications sold WVAG to

for $3.75 million in 2005. For Gray, which had founded Albany's ''

The Albany Herald ''The Albany Herald'' is the daily newspaper for metro Albany in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is distributed in metro Albany and in southwest Georgia. The newspaper was founded in 1891. Offices for the paper were previously housed in the hist ...

'' and WALB-TV but was forced to divest the latter upon acquiring WCTV in 1996 due to signal overlap, the purchase marked a return to the Albany market. Under Gray, the station was renamed WSWG, for Southwest Georgia, in November 2005. WCTV oversaw operations of the station.

CBS

In December 2005, Gray announced that it would add CBS programming to a subchannel of WSWG, the first-ever CBS affiliation with a subchannel. However, when The WB and UPN announced their merger into

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 ...

in 2006, these plans changed. Instead, CBS was broadcast as the station's primary service, with

on a subchannel. On January 30, 2007, WSWG's analog transmission unexpectedly went dark, and a technician's report showed a damaged transmission line and power divider at floor level. Rather than incur $180,000 in repair costs to the tower and power divider, because all WSWG viewers were already in the analog service area of WCTV, Gray opted to surrender its analog license to the FCC the next year and operate as a digital-only channel on UHF channel 43. In addition to WSWG, Gray had accounting and human resources offices in Albany, a legacy of its establishment in the city; these were closed in 2015, with operations being consolidated at corporate headquarters in Atlanta. By that year, WSWG also was broadcasting The CW to Albany as a subchannel. On August 16, 2018, Gray announced that it would sell WSWG to

; the deal made it a sister station to

(channel 55), an

independent station An independent station is a broadcast station, usually a television station, not affiliated with a larger broadcast television network, network. As such, it only broadcasts broadcast syndication, syndicated programs it has purchased; brokered pr ...

that Marquee had earlier agreed to acquire. The sale was part of Gray's acquisition of

, owner of WALB; Gray elected to keep WALB and sell WSWG. In April 2019, Marquee severed WSWG's ties to WCTV. Gray retained the CW affiliation, which moved to

WGCW-LD WGCW-LD (channel 36) is a low-power television station in Albany, Georgia, United States, affiliated with The CW Plus. It is owned by Gray Media alongside dual NBC/ ABC affiliate WALB (channel 10). The two stations share studios on Stuart A ...

. WSWG relocated its signal from channel 43 to channel 31 on November 30, 2018, as a result of the

2016 United States wireless spectrum auction The 2016 United States wireless spectrum auction, officially known as Auction 1001, allocated approximately 100 MHz of the United States Ultra High Frequency (UHF) spectrum formerly allocated to UHF television in the 600 MHz band. The sp ...

. Marquee requested that WSWG's city of license be changed from Valdosta to Moultrie in 2021, in order to have a city of license within the Albany market; the station is assigned to Albany though Valdosta is in the Tallahassee market. In September 2023, the request was dismissed; the FCC noted it would have left no TV station licensed to Valdosta, which is a larger community than Moultrie.

Newscasts

Following the sale to Marquee Broadcasting, WSWG stopped carrying WCTV's newscasts on April 29, 2019. The station then launched local evening and late newscasts from studios in Albany; the news operation is shared with sister station WSST-TV.

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— ...

References

External links

* {{Marquee Broadcasting CBS affiliates Ion Television affiliates Marquee Broadcasting MeTV affiliates MyNetworkTV affiliates Start TV affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1980 SWG Dabl affiliates