WLFL

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = WLFL
city =
station_
station_slogan =
station_branding = CW 22
analog = 22 (UHF)
digital = 57 (UHF)
other_chs =
affiliations = The CW
network =
founded =
airdate = December 18, 1981
location = Raleigh / Durham, North Carolina
callsign_meaning = Light For Living
(slogan used by original owners prior to sign-on)
former_callsigns = WLFL-TV (1981-1993)
former_channel_numbers =
owner = Sinclair Broadcast Group
licensee = WLFL Licensee, LLC
sister_stations = WRDC
former_affiliations = Independent (1981-1986)
Fox (1986-1998)
The WB (1998-2006)
effective_radiated_power = 5,000 kW (analog)
568 kW (digital)
HAAT = 510 m (analog)
610 m (digital)
class =
facility_id = 73205
coordinates = coord|35|42|50|N|78|49|3|W|type:landmark_scale:2000 (analog)
coord|35|40|29.1|N|78|31|39.2|W|type:landmark_scale:2000 (digital)
homepage = [http://www.raleighcw.com/ raleighcw.com]

WLFL, channel 22, is CW-affiliated television station for The Triangle area of North Carolina that is licensed to Raleigh. Its analog transmitter is located in Apex southeast U.S. 1. The station's digital transmitter is located on U.S. 70 southeast of Forest Hills near the Wake and Johnston County line. Owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, WLFL is sister station to MyNetworkTV affiliate WRDC. The two stations share studios on Highwoods Boulevard in the Brentwood section of Raleigh. Syndicated programming on WLFL includes: "Friends", "Everybody Loves Raymond", "Family Guy", and "The Simpsons". The station can be seen on cable channel 2 in Raleigh and most of its suburbs including Fayetteville. It is on channel 6 in Cary, Garner, Clayton, and Smithfield. In Durham and Chapel Hill, the station is located on chanel 10. WLFL airs on channel 12 in Carrboro.

History

WLFL-TV was originally in planning in 1976 as a Christian-themed station to be operated by L.L. "Buddy" Leathers' Carolina Christian Communications, a radio company which owned several religious stations in the Triangle and surrounding areas. Carolina Christian was bought out by Family Television in 1980. They would remake UHF channel 22 as a general entertainment independent station running cartoons, sitcoms, dramas, and old movies in addition to religious programming. After a late-September launch which was delayed for three months due to technical problems and bad weather, the station finally went on the air at 2 P.M. on December 18, 1981 with the movie "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" as its inaugural program following a day of test patterns. While licensed to Raleigh, its studios were initially located at 2410 Broad Street in Durham (the same building where WTVD set up shop in 1954) and its master control facility was located with the transmission and tower facilities near Apex.

In 1985, WLFL was purchased by the Norfolk, Virginia-based TVX Broadcast Group which upgraded the station's programming until it was actually the third-highest rated station in The Triangle. A year later, TVX moved WLFL into a new studio at 1205 Front Street in Raleigh just inside the Beltline. Later that year, it became a charter affiliate for the new Fox network along with all other TVX stations. The station also replaced its original convert|1000|ft|m|sing=on tower and one megawatt ERP transmission facilities with a new convert|1550|ft|m|sing=on tower and five megawatt visual, 500 kW aural ERP transmission facilities. The transmitter site remained at its original location located near Apex. TVX sold off most of its medium market stations in 1988 following its purchase of Taft Broadcasting's independent stations and Fox affiliates. It held onto WLFL until its merger with Paramount Pictures in 1991 after which the group was renamed "Paramount Stations Group". By this time, WLFL was one of the strongest Fox affiliates in the country. In 1993, the station dropped the -TV suffix from its call sign.

Paramount sold WLFL to the Sinclair Broadcast Group in 1994 and entered into a local marketing agreement (LMA) with WRDC the following year. That station was owned by Glencairn Broadcasting, a separate entity which the Smith family (who also owned Sinclair) had a majority stake in thus creating a duopoly in the market even before Sinclair purchased WRDC outright in 2001. While WLFL was the senior partner in the deal, it vacated its Front Street studio that year and moved to WRDC's new studios in the nearby Highwoods office complex. WNCN-TV, which acquired the market's NBC affiliation from WRDC in 1995, moved into WLFL's old studios at the same time. In 1996, Fox announced that it would not renew its contract with WLFL when it got involved in a dispute with Sinclair over programming issues during the 10 P.M. slot. Even though Fox later relented, it still managed to seek a new affiliation with WRAZ-TV in 1998 leaving WLFL to pick up programming from The WB.

On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced that they would end broadcasting and merge. The new combined network would be called The CW. The letters would represent the first initial of its corporate parents: CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. On February 22, News Corporation announced that they would start up another new network called MyNetworkTV. This new service, which would be a sister network to Fox, would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division, Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created in order to give UPN and WB stations, not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates, another option besides becoming independent. It was also created to compete against The CW. It was initially seen as a foregone conclusion that WLFL would be The CW's Triangle affiliate. It was by far the stronger of the two stations in Sinclair's Triangle duopoly and network officials were on record as favoring the "strongest" WB and UPN stations. However, when the new network announced its first group of stations outside the core group of Tribune Company and CBS Corporation-owned stations, WLFL was not on the list. In February, sister station WRDC was announced as an affiliate of the newly-formed MyNetworkTV. It was not until May 2 that Sinclair agreed to affiliate all of its non-MyNetworkTV WB affiliates, including WLFL, with the CW.

Post-analog shutdown

After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, taking place on February 17, 2009, WLFL will move its digital broadcasts from channel 57 to channel 27. This channel is currently occupied by the digital signal of sister station WRDC but it will free up at that time as WRDC's digital broadcast will move to channel 28, their current analog home. Both digital signals will, as now, emanate from the Raleigh Digital Candelabra Tower near Auburn and not the current analog WLFL tower near Apex which has been sold to Clear Channel Radio for local FM stations WDCG and WKSL. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers will display WLFL's virtual channel number as 22.

News operation

WLFL launched a news operation and a 10 P.M. newscast in 1992. It was known as "Fox 22 10 O'Clock News" and featured North Carolina's first 10 P.M. newscast since WKFT attempted one in the late-1980s. After the station's switch to The WB, the news became known as "WB 22 News at 10". In August of 1998, WLFL began having newscast competition as WRAZ began airing a 10 o'clock newscast produced by WRAL-TV. WLFL's broadcast, which had been one hour in length and used Sinclair's controversial "News Central" format for the previous four years, was cut down to thirty minutes in September of 2005 in an attempt to boost its anemic ratings against WRAZ. WLFL's news had been anchored by Bob Vernon on weekdays and Tamara Gibbs (now with WTVD) on weekends. Alternate anchors included Kami Carrmann. Weather reports were done Sunday through Thursday by Chief Meteorologist Kristen Emery and on Friday and Saturday by Susan Shrack. March 30, 2006 marked the last official broadcast for "WB 22 News at 10". After a fourteen-year run, the news operation at WLFL was closed as a result of a cost-cutting move implemented by Sinclair. On June 26, WLFL began airing a new 10 P.M. newscast produced by WTVD. It broadcasts from that station's studios on Fayetteville Street in downtown Raleigh. On April 21, 2008, WTVD became the third television station in the area to produce its newscasts in high definition. The WLFL broadcast was included in the upgrade.

News team

"ABC 11 Eyewitness News at 10 on CW 22" "(10 to 10:35 P.M.)"
"Weeknights"
*Anchors:
**Steve Daniels
**Tisha Powell
*Weather:
**Chris Hohmann
*Sports:
**Mark Armstrong

"Weekends"
*Anchors:
**Fred Shropshire
**Shae Crisson
*Weather:
**Scott Dean
*Sports:
**Joe Mazur

"WLFL features additional personnel from WTVD. See that article for a complete listing."

Former personalities

* David Alan (now at WVEC-TV in Norfolk, Virginia)
* Andrea Arcenaux (once worked at CNN prior to arrival)
* Laura Berry (once worked at the WB)
* Varen Black
* Carolyn Clifford (now at WXYZ-TV in Detroit)
* Bobby Estill
* Paul Furr (floor camera, floor director & News Photographer; Now at WTVD-TV)
* Tom Foolery (Real name is Dave Wisniewski. Because his other on air personality was Double Deuce Kid's Club host aka "Tom Foolery" he was referred to on air as just "Tom" of "Tom's Weather" to avoid confusion)
* Lori Geary (now at WSB-TV in Atlanta)
* Lauren Green (now a producer in Washington, DC)
* Amy Hockert
* Robert Judson (former fill in sports anchor; now at WTVD-TV)
* Captain Jim Kilpatrick (Full-time American Airlines pilot & weekend meteorologist)
* Matt Lundy
* Carlos McCormick
* Rachel McNeill (now at KPRC-TV in Houston)

* Bryan Moore (now a Manager with Northrop Grumman Newport News, Virginia)
* Mark Mottern (now a producer and freelancer in Hollywood, Ca)
* Steve Noble (former reporter for a L.A. based tabloid show)
* Bill Reh (who now works at WNCN-TV, Raleigh's NBC station)
* Suzanne Robinson
* Amy Szutowicz (now working in Washington, D.C.)
* Mike Solarte (now Sports Director for News 14 Carolina, also hosted radio talk show at WRBZ)
* Rick Sullivan (now at UNC-TV)
* Keenan Smith (now at WGN-TV in Chicago)
* Steve Swienckowski
* Dallas Woodhouse (now Director of Americans for Prosperity, in Raleigh, NC)
* Nancy Yamada (Now a Washington D.C. based Reporter)
* Perry Alexander Photo-journalist (now a successful auto dealership owner in New Bern NC)
* Liz Hamel (now Liz Wellinghorst, president of W Communications, LLC, a Northern NJ public relations firm; www.wcomm- pr.com)

External links

* [http://www.raleighcw.com/ WLFL "CW 22"]
* [http://www.myrdctv.com/ WRDC "MyRDC TV"]
*TVQ|WLFL