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WFXT history
WFXT company history timeline
After being awarded a construction permit to build the station from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in June 1972, CBN targeted the new channel 25 to begin operations within one year.
The station first signed on the air on October 10, 1977, as WXNE-TV (standing for "Christ (X) in New England"); originally operating as an independent station, it was founded by the then-Portsmouth, Virginia-based Christian Broadcasting Network.
Most notably, in 1980, WXNE took over production of the weekday bowling program Candlepins for Cash, which had just been canceled by CBS affiliate WNAC-TV (channel 7, now WHDH) after seven seasons.
After only a few months as host, Petrocelli was ousted in favor of the program's original host when it aired on WNAC-TV, Bob Gamere, who remained on Candlepins until it ended its run on channel 25 in 1983.
In April 1986, WXNE and the other two CBN-owned stations — KXTX-TV in Dallas and WYAH-TV (now WGNT) in Portsmouth — were put up for sale.
When the sale to News Corporation was completed on January 19, 1987, Fox changed the station's call letters to WFXT and made a complete overhaul of the station's on-air presentation.
On April 21, 1988, Rupert Murdoch, who had earlier stated his intention to retain the Herald, announced that WFXT would be put up for sale.
However, in 1988, the station did manage to buy two popular weekday syndicated shows away from WNEV—Hollywood Squares (the then-current John Davidson version) and Entertainment Tonight—when the CBS affiliate phased them off its schedule, due to other programming commitments.
In 1989, Fox proposed placing WFXT in a trust company as it sought to find a buyer willing to meet its $35 million asking price; on April 26, the FCC ruled that the trust would be required to sever all of the station's ties to Fox, including the network affiliation.
Existing CBS affiliate WHDH-TV, meanwhile, was deciding between affiliation offers from NBC and Fox, the latter of which its Miami sister station WSVN had been affiliated with since 1989.
That September, Fox agreed to sell the station to the Boston Celtics' ownership group for $20 million; the sale was completed on May 11, 1990.
In 1990, among securing the rights to several new, high-profile rerun syndication packages, WFXT managed to buy rights to The Cosby Show, reruns of which had been airing on WCVB-TV (channel 5) for the past two years.
By 1992, WFXT was carried on many cable providers in areas of New England where there was no locally-based Fox affiliate station.
One of the few productive moves that WFXT made under the ownership of the Boston Celtics was entering into a news share agreement with regional cable news channel New England Cable News (NECN) to produce a primetime newscast at 10:00 p.m., which debuted on September 7, 1993.
In September 1994, NECN began to produce a half-hour midday newscast at 12:30 p.m. for channel 25, which was subsequently canceled.
WFXT's Fox affiliation again came into question in 1994, in the wake of the network's affiliation deal with twelve New World Communications stations, when reports emerged that then-CBS affiliate WHDH-TV was considering a switch to Fox.
NBC withdrew its petitions on February 17, 1995, allowing Fox to retake control of channel 25 on July 7.
During this time, Fox Television Stations created an in-house news department for the station, culminating in the September 9, 1996 launch of a new 10:00 p.m. broadcast, initially branded as Fox News Boston before reviving the Fox 25 News title the following year.
On June 4, 2001, WFXT added a 4:30 p.m. newscast (making it the first Fox-owned station to have produced a newscast during the 4:00 p.m. hour) that was anchored by Jodi Applegate and was targeted at a female audience.
In the fall of 2001, WPXT (which served as the over-the-air Fox affiliate for the Portland area since the network launched) disaffiliated from Fox due to a payment dispute between Pegasus Broadcasting (the station's owner at the time) and the network.
At one point in 2006, the station was "tentatively planning" to carry programming from News Corporation-owned MyNetworkTV (a sister network to Fox) on weekdays from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. if the new network was unable to find an affiliate in the Boston market.
WFXT's analog signal began malfunctioning on November 1, 2008 as a result of a failing transmission line, forcing the station to reduce its power.
The station then began to state that the possibility existed that its analog signal might have to be shut down ahead of the analog-to-digital transition deadline for full-power stations, which at that time was scheduled for February 17, 2009.
On May 19, 2009, WFXT and the CBS-owned duopoly of WBZ-TV/WSBK-TV entered into a Local News Service agreement, which allows the stations to share local news footage, along with a helicopter for traffic reports and breaking news.
The 5:00 p.m. newscast, which consistently placed fourth in its timeslot, was discontinued in favor of a half-hour 6:00 p.m. newscast on September 14, 2009.
Channel 50 ended its affiliation with MyNetworkTV in September 2011, shortly after changing call letters to WBIN-TV; WSBK (a CBS-owned sister station to WBZ-TV that had shunned the network at its formation) took over the affiliation at that time.
On October 7, 2013, WFXT relaunched its 5:00 p.m. newscast after a four-year hiatus.
On June 24, 2014, Fox announced that it would trade WFXT and Memphis sister station WHBQ-TV to the Cox Media Group, in exchange for the San Francisco duopoly of Fox affiliate KTVU and independent station KICU-TV. The trade was completed on October 8, 2014.
On October 27, 2015, WFXT dropped the Fox O&O-style branding and introduced a new logo and on-air appearance.
In February 2019, it was announced that Apollo Global Management would acquire Cox Media Group and Northwest Broadcasting's stations.
The sale was completed on December 17, 2019.
© 2022 Cox Media Group.
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WFXT may also be known as or be related to WFXT and Wfxt.