WXVT-LD

WXVT-LD (channel 17) is a low-power television station licensed to Cleveland, Mississippi, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for the Delta area. It is owned by Imagicomm Communications alongside dual ABC/ Fox affiliate WABG-TV (channel 6) and low-powered NBC affiliate WNBD-LD (channel 33). The three stations share studios on Washington Avenue in Greenville; WXVT-LD's transmitter is located near O'Reilly, Mississippi.

History

In December 1974, plans were announced for a new television station to broadcast on channel 15, following a channel allocation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The proposed station would operate with a signal strength of 100,000 watts and be broadcast from a tower, which would have been the tallest broadcast tower in the area at the time. It was intended to serve the Greenville area. Although the specific timeline for launching the station was not disclosed, preliminary plans aimed for it to begin broadcasting and serving the Delta area by 1976, with studios located in Greenville and the transmitter positioned northeast of the city. On October 1, 1976, an application was submitted to operate a new television station on channel 15 in Greenville. The studios were to be located on US 82 East in Greenville, while the transmitter would be positioned southeast of O'Reilly, Mississippi. The height of the transmitter was reduced due to a dispute with the town of Cleveland with concerns about potential hazards for planes approaching the Bolivar County Airport. In January 1980, the station was announced to become the new CBS affiliate for the Delta area, with a tentative launch date set for September 1980.

Its first broadcast was on November 7, 1980, on channel 15 under the call sign WXVT. It was a CBS affiliate for its entire existence. Before this, WJTV in Jackson had served as the default affiliate. The station was originally owned by Big River Broadcasting. Future sister station WABG was actually the Delta's original CBS affiliate when it launched back in October 1959 until dropping CBS to become a full-time ABC affiliate in November 1966. Big River Broadcasting sold the station to Lamco Communications in 1984. Lamco then sold WXVT to Greenville Television, Inc. in 1991. Saga Communications purchased WXVT in 1999. David Cavileer became the VP/General Manager and remodeled the station and news set.

The current WXVT-LD began as W17DI-D on February 25, 2010. On December 12, 2011, it was changed to WFXW-LD.

On May 4, 2012, an application was filed with the FCC to transfer ownership of WXVT from Saga Communications to H3 Communications. H3 Communications was owned by the adult children of Charles Harker, president of Commonwealth Broadcasting Group, which owned WABG and WNBD. On January 28, 2013, the FCC granted the sale of WXVT, and it was completed two days later. Commonwealth then took over WXVT's operations, effectively bringing all of the Delta's Big Three network stations under the control of one company.

In 2015, WXVT and WABG appeared in a TruTV reality series ''Breaking Greenville''. It premiered January 29, 2015, and ended on March 26, 2015.

H3 Communications agreed to sell WXVT to Cala Broadcast Partners for $3.7 million on October 30, 2015; concurrently, Cala would purchase WABG-TV, WNBD-LD, and WFXW-LD from Commonwealth Broadcasting Group. Cala was jointly owned by Brian Brady (who owned several other television stations, mostly under the Northwest Broadcasting name) and Jason Wolff (who owned radio and television stations through Frontier Radio Management). On November 30, 2015, Cala assigned its right to purchase WXVT to John Wagner for $100,000. The sale was completed on August 1, 2016; on that date, the station went off the air, with Wagner stating in a filing with the FCC that it was looking for new programming. This resulted in the WXVT intellectual unit, including CBS programming, being moved to a digital subchannel of sister station and NBC affiliate WNBD-LD and mapped to WXVT's former channel 15.

On January 1, 2017, Cable One (now Sparklight) removed channels owned by Northwest Broadcasting after the two companies failed to reach an agreement. On February 1, 2017, the channels were restored to Cable One's lineup under a new carriage deal.

On June 26, 2017, the station became low-power, re-licensed to Cleveland, and moved to RF channel 17. It changed its call sign to WXVT-LD on July 7. In 2020, channel 15 would be sold to Tri-State Christian Television, where it continues to operate as WFXW.

In February 2019, Reuters reported that Apollo Global Management had agreed to acquire the entirety of Brian Brady's television portfolio, which it intended to merge with Cox Media Group (which Apollo acquired at the same time) and stations spun off from Nexstar Media Group's purchase of Tribune Broadcasting, once the purchases are approved by the FCC. In March 2019 filings with the FCC, Apollo confirmed that its newly-formed broadcasting group, Terrier Media, would acquire Northwest Broadcasting, with Brian Brady holding an unspecified minority interest in Terrier. In June 2019, it was announced that Terrier Media would instead operate as Cox Media Group, as Apollo had reached a deal to also acquire Cox's radio and advertising businesses. The transaction was completed on December 17.

On March 29, 2022, Cox Media Group announced it would sell WXVT-LD, WNBD-LD, WABG-TV and 15 other stations to Imagicomm Communications, an affiliate of the parent company of the INSP cable channel, for $488 million; the sale was completed on August 1. On April 8, 2025, Imagicomm announced that the Greenville stations would be acquired by Webb Collums' Deltavision Media.

News operation

Before merging its news operation with WABG-TV in 2016, WXVT's news department was relatively small compared to other Big Three network affiliates, even when considering the size of the market. It lagged well behind WABG in the ratings. Unlike most CBS affiliates in the Central Time Zone, this station never aired midday news during the week and did not provide a full two-hour weekday morning show.

As of August 2016, the station merged its news operation with that of WABG-TV (along with WNBD-LD), under the brand name ''The Delta News''. WXVT previously produced its evening newscasts with anchor Lakiya Scott from its studios on East Reed Road in Greenville.

Subchannel

References

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* ''CDBS Public Access'', Federal Communications Commission, August 1, 2016, Retrieved August 10, 2016.

External links

Official website

{{Imagicomm

2017 establishments in Mississippi
CBS affiliates
Cleveland, Mississippi
Imagicomm Communications
Low-power television stations in Mississippi
Television channels and stations established in 2017
XVT-LD