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WFAA history
WFAA company history timeline
In January 1950, Belo purchased KBTV from Lacy-Potter for $575,000; the sale received FCC approval on March 13, 1950, with Belo formally assuming control of Channel 8 on March 17.
In 1950, WFAA switched its primary affiliation to NBC, and also affiliated with ABC on a secondary basis.
DuMont shut down in 1955, amid various issues that arose from its relations with Paramount that hamstrung it from expansion.
WFAA lost its NBC affiliation on September 1, 1957, as the network had awarded WBAP-TV the exclusive affiliation for the Dallas–Fort Worth market as a byproduct of the transmitter relocation and signal boost; this left Channel 8 as an exclusive affiliate of the then-low-rated ABC.
During the 1958–59 television season, WFAA served as the taping location for Jack Wyatt's ABC true crime reality series, Confession, in which assorted criminals explained why they chose to reject the mores of society and turn to crime.
Through the merger with Gannett, WFAA became the company's largest television station by market size (supplanting CBS-affiliated sister station WUSA in Washington, D.C., which has been owned by the company since 1986); it also marked channel 8's first ownership change in 63 years.
On January 14, 1987, the Hill Tower transmitter facility in Cedar Hill (which was jointly owned by WFAA and KDFW) was struck by a Navy F-4 Phantom as it was performing training exercises while on approach to the Dallas Naval Air Station.
The photographs are all in color and were taken from 1990 to the present.
By 1999, when it purchased ABC affiliate KVUE in Austin from the Gannett Company, Belo owned television stations in Texas' four largest television markets (WFAA, KHOU, KVUE and CBS affiliate KENS in San Antonio).
On October 1, 2007, Belo announced plans to split off its broadcasting and newspaper interests into two independent companies.
On June 13, 2013, the Gannett Company announced that it would acquire Belo for $1.5 billion (the purchase price would increase to $2.2 billion by the merger's completion). The deal was granted FCC approval on December 20, and was finalized on December 23.
On August 5, 2014, Gannett announced that it would split its broadcast and print media properties into separate publicly traded companies.
Following its acquisition of Belo, Gannett shut down Texas Cable News on May 1, 2015.
On September 25, 2020, WFAA would gain a sister station when Tegna acquired KMPX (channel 29) from Estrella Media which airs its Estrella TV network over that station.
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Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of WFAA, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about WFAA. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at WFAA. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by WFAA. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of WFAA and its employees or that of Zippia.
WFAA may also be known as or be related to WFAA, Wfaa-Tv, Inc. and Wfaa-tv.