WGHP

WGHP, channel 8, is the Fox-affiliated television station serving the Greensboro/High Point/Winston-Salem, North Carolina (Piedmont Triad) designated market area. The station is owned by Local TV LLC, the media arm of private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners, and its transmitter is located in Sophia, North Carolina.

As a ABC affiliate
In 1958, the Federal Communications Commission assigned a third TV channel to the Piedmont Triad area. The channel 8 allocation was freed up, by the switch of WBTW-TV in Florence, South Carolina, to channel 13, and was short-spaced to WCHS-TV in Charleston, West Virginia and WXEX-TV (now WRIC-TV) in Petersburg, Virginia. Applicants for the High Point channel 8 allocation included Jefferson Standard Broadcasting, owner of TV stations in Charlotte, North Carolina and Florence, South Carolina. The owner of WTOB-TV (channel 26; channel now occupied by WUNL-TV) in Winston-Salem was also interested.[1]

WGHP-TV, then owned by Southern Broadcast Company, began operation on October 14, 1963. It was originally the Piedmont Triad's ABC affiliate. The station occasionally decided not to carry network programming; For example, it didn't carry Dark Shadows, a series which featured paranormal themes, during its network run on ABC and broadcast old movies instead.[2] Likewise, it did not carry The Edge of Night, a soap opera run on ABC from 1975 to 1984. WGHP was subsequently sold to Gulf Broadcasting in 1978.

WGHP was owned by Gulf Broadcasting until 1984, when it was acquired by Taft Broadcasting in a group deal. Great American Broadcasting purchased other Taft properties in 1987, but Taft would keep WGHP until 1992 when Great American bought that station as well.

In 1993, Great American Broadcasting filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That year, it restructured and became known as Citicasters. It then put its stations up for sale.

As a Fox station
In the winter of 1993, New World Communications (which acquired stations from SCI in a similar type of business reorganization to the one Citicasters had come out of) agreed to buy WGHP and three other stations owned by Citicasters, ABC affiliate WBRC (channel 6) in Birmingham, NBC affiliate WDAF-TV (channel 4) in Kansas City and CBS affiliate KSAZ-TV (channel 10) in Phoenix. Citicasters would keep WTSP (channel 10) in Tampa Bay and WKRC-TV (channel 12) in Cincinnati — which were both ABC affiliates at the time. Both of those stations would later switch to CBS when Scripps-Howard contracted with ABC to air on Tampa Bay's WFTS (channel 28) and Cincinnati's WCPO (channel 9). However, around the same time New World also agreed to buy Argyle Television Holdings I's four television stations, including NBC affiliate WVTM-TV (channel 13) in Birmingham (the transfer applications of the Argyle stations to New World were not submitted to the FCC until after New World closed on the Citicasters purchase). The two purchases combined, plus New World's existing seven stations, left the company with 15 stations, which were three more than the FCC permitted at the time. The purchases also left New World with an ownership conflict in Birmingham.

Shortly after the Citicasters purchase Fox agreed to affiliate with all the New World stations, except for NBC affiliates KNSD (channel 39) in San Diego and WVTM-TV, as well as independent station WSBK-TV (channel 38) in Boston, which would be sold to the Paramount Stations Group subsidiary of Viacom and become a UPN station. New World consummated on its purchases of WGHP, WDAF and KSAZ on September 9, 1994 and of WBRC on October 12 of that same year. But while WDAF switched to Fox and KSAZ became an interim independent station (in preparation for its switch to Fox that December) three days after the deal was consummated, WGHP's affiliation agreement with ABC would not run out for another year. (Likewise, WBRC's ABC affiliation agreement would not expire for another two years.) In early 1995, while the Argyle purchase was awaiting FCC approval, New World announced that it would be selling WGHP and WBRC directly to Fox, and put the two stations into a trust company that April. Fox then took over the operation of the two stations through local marketing agreements in the summer of 1995. On September 3, 1995, WGHP took the Fox affiliation. It carried all Fox programs, including Fox Kids which it showed weekday afternoons from 1-4 p.m., replacing ABC soap operas, as well as on Saturday mornings where a local newscast previously ran. The ABC affiliation went to former Fox affiliate WNRW (channel 45, now WXLV-TV). WGHP added a few more talk/reality shows as well as some off-network sitcoms such as I Love Lucy, Seinfeld, Beverly Hillbillies, and others. The weekday newscasts expanded to occupy the Good Morning America timeslot. The evening newscasts remained in place. the 11 p.m. newscast was moved to 10 p.m. and expanded to an hour. On January 17, 1996, Fox completed the purchases of both WGHP and WBRC, with WGHP becoming an official Fox owned-and-operated station; WBRC had to wait another seven and one-half months, until September 1996, to switch from ABC to Fox. From 1996 to 2008, WGHP was the only Piedmont Triad area station to be owned and operated by any major network.

In 1996, Pappas approached WGHP about picking up Fox Kids and moving it to its newly acquired WBFX (channel 20; then a WB affiliate, later WTWB-TV and now CW affiliate WCWG). In between that time Fox executives, upon picking up new affiliates through New World, decided to redo the on-air coverage policy of airing Fox Kids; the station can choose to keep airing it or be granted the right to preempt it and pass it down to another local counterpart. WGHP decided to let the other station have the programming. This would be the first Fox owned-and-operated station to not run the kids block, and only one of two (with WBRC), until New World merged with Fox in 1997. WGHP added more talk and court shows in the afternoon. WTWB dropped Fox's children programming in late 2001 when Fox canceled the weekday block nationwide. In 2002, Fox began a Saturday morning block of cartoons to replace Fox Kids known as Fox Box (later 4Kids TV), but WGHP did not pick that up. As a result, Fox's 4Kids TV did not air in Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point. Fox discontinued children's programming on December 28, 2008 (it is unknown if Fox will resume children's programming in the future). Today, Fox offers a two-hour Saturday morning infomercial block (Weekend Marketplace), but WGHP still declined to pick it up; it currently airs on MyNetworkTV affiliate WMYV.

On September 10, 2007, WGHP debuted a new logo and graphics package similar to what is currently being rolled out to other Fox owned-and-operated stations across the country. The new logo is similar to sister stations WJW-TV and WNYW-TV. On December 22, 2007, Fox announced that it had entered into an agreement to sell WGHP and seven other Fox owned-and-operated stations[3] to Oak Hill Capital Partners' Local TV LLC, which currently owns nine stations acquired from The New York Times Company. The sale was closed on July 14, 2008.

Out-of-market cable and satellite carriage
WGHP can be viewed over on West Jefferson cable outlets in Ashe County, which is part of the Charlotte DMA. It is also viewable on Time Warner Cable in Carrboro which is part of the Raleigh DMA. On DirecTV, WGHP is available in many locations outside of the DMA. In North Carolina, WGHP is viewable in Chatham, Hoke, Lee and Orange counties. In Virginia, it is viewable in Carroll, Grayson and Henry counties. The Virginia independent cities also include Danville and Martinsville.

Digital television
WGHP is a charter affiliate of Tribune Broadcasting's new digital multicast channel Antenna TV, which is carried on digital subchannel 8.2.[4] [5] The network, airing classic sitcoms from the 1950s to the 1990s during the afternoon and evening, and movies during the morning and late night hours, is carried on Local TV-owned stations in other markets as well as stations owned by the network's parent company Tribune Broadcasting.

The 8.2 subchannel is also carried over channel 126 on the Time Warner Cable digital tier, channel 175 over Charter Communications in North Wilkesboro and channel 510 on Windstream-Lexington. WGHP 8.2 uses a modified logo of the station's previous logo used from the 1977-1987. WGHP-TV 8.2 offers all-classic TV Programs such as "The Monkees", "Partridge Family", "Maude", "All In The Family", "Gidget", "The Flying Num", "Too Close For Comfort", "Three`s Compant", "The Ropers", "Father Knows Best", "Hazel", "Burns And Allen", "Sanford And Son", "Three Stooges", "Benny Hill Show" and many other popular retro classic TV shows from the 1950`s-1970`s. TV 8.2 also shows many classic movies from the 1930`s-1980`s.

Analog-to-digital transition
Until June 12, 2009, the station broadcast its analog signal on VHF channel 8 and its digital signal on UHF channel 35, using its analog assignment of channel 8 as its virtual digital channel via PSIP. The station is carried on cable channel 10 in most parts of the market. By law, WGHP ceased broadcasting on analog channel 8 and digital on channel 35 at approximately 11:05 PM on June 12, 2009 and began digital only broadcasting on channel 8. The signal was to be at reduced power until additional equipment is ready.[6]

Due to the number of complaints from those unable to pick up the signal on channel 8, WGHP received temporary authorization to return to broadcasting on channel 35. While technical issues with the channel 8 signal were being worked out, WGHP transmitted digitally on both 8 and 35. On October 14, WGHP requested the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) change its channel from 8 to 35.[7] After the station lost "a sizeable number" of its viewers, the FCC agreed with WGHP's assessment that it would be "best served" by staying on channel 35.[8] On December 15, 2009, the FCC issued a Report & Order, approving WGHP's move from channel 8 to channel 35.[9] At 11:02 a.m.[10] on March 8, 2010, WGHP terminated operations on channel 8, operating solely on channel 35 on a permanent basis.[11]

Programming
WGHP clears the entire Fox network schedule (nightly primetime, Saturday late night, and Fox Sports programming, and the political talk show Fox News Sunday; except for Fox's Saturday morning infomerical block, Weekend Marketplace, which airs on WMYV). WGHP, like most Fox stations, airs a mix of talk/court/reality shows in the daytime and sitcoms in the late evening. WGHP is one of numerous Fox stations that carry Divorce Court, Judge Alex, Judge Joe Brown and Judge Judy (which airs before the 5 p.m. newscast) and Seinfeld (which airs in late night). The station also airs Access Hollywood and TMZ on TV weeknights after the 6 p.m. newscast, and airs weekend telecasts of House, Monk, Grey's Anatomy and Bones.

The station currently carries the minimum amount of educational and informational children's programming, as the stations airs a three-hour block of syndicated children's shows consisting of Pets.TV, Dog Tales, Animal Rescue, Animal Atlas, Wild About Animals, Jack Hanna's Into the Wild, along with reruns of Saved by the Bell on Saturday mornings.

News operation
WGHP broadcasts a total of 39 hours of local news a week (seven hours on weekdays, and two hours each on Saturdays and Sundays), more than any other television station in the state of North Carolina. From the time that WGHP affiliated with Fox in 1995 and then became a Fox owned-and-operated station in 1996, the station has put more emphasis on its local newscasts; news was expanded to 3½ (later four) hours on weekday mornings, plus the addition of a 5:30 p.m. newscast. WGHP is of only two ex-New World station that Fox did not relaunch a 11 p.m. newscast on its schedule before the completion of the Local TV purchase, as Fox did with some of its other O&O stations (Cleveland's WJW (channel 8) is the other).

WGHP is one of only two ex-New World stations and former Fox O&Os (along with WJW in Cleveland) sold to Local TV without a newscast in the traditional late news timeslot (former sister station WBRC in Birmingham—now owned by Raycom Media—along with WDAF in Kansas City and WITI in Milwaukee already had 10 p.m. newscasts along with its 9 p.m. newscast long before the Local TV purchase and KTVI in St. Louis added a 10 p.m. newscast after its 9 p.m. newscast in 2008, just before the sale closed). Other than WJW and WGHP, KTBC in Austin (which remains an Fox O&O) is the only other ex-New World station without a newscast in the traditional late news timeslot.

On September 13, 2009 starting with the 10 p.m. newscast, WGHP became the first station in the Piedmont Triad in true 16:9 widescreen format (not HD), not only in the studio but local remote live reports also. As of early 2010, WGHP would be joined by the other two major news stations—WFMY-TV and WXII-TV—in broadcasting local newscasts in upconverted widescreen SDTV (at least from the studio).

On September 12, 2010 starting with the 10 p.m. newscast[12], WGHP began broadcasting its local newscasts in 720p high definition, making WGHP the first station in the Piedmont Triad to broadcast their local news programming in high definition.

Newscast titles

 * Eyewitness News (1969–?)
 * Eyewitness News 8
 * TV-8 Eyewitness News (?–1986)
 * The Piedmont News (1986–?)
 * WGHPiedmont News
 * The Piedmont NewsChannel (1990–1995)
 * FOX8 News (September 14, 1995–present)

Station slogans

 * Channel 8 & 8WGHP-TV (1963-1967)
 * Channel ei8ht (1967-1976) (The name "ei8ht" has also been used by KOMU, WJW, KAIT, and a few others.)
 * We're Still Having Fun, TV-8's The One (1977-1980; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
 * We`re The One You Can Turn To, TV-8 (1978-1979; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
 * You and Me and TV-8 (1980-1981; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
 * Now Is The Time, TV-8 is The Place (1981-1982; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
 * Come on Along with TV-8 (1982-1983; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
 * That Special Feeling on TV-8 (1983-1984; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
 * The Piedmont's Favorite News Team (1984–1988)
 * You`ll Love It on TV-8 (1985-1986; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
 * Together on TV-8 (1986-1987; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
 * Something's Happening on Channel 8 (1987-1990; localized version of ABC ad campaign)
 * WGHPiedmont (1987–1990; used with a triangle 8 logo also used by KSBW)
 * Piedmont Triad's Watching WGHP (1990-1992; localized version of "America's Watching ABC" ad campaign)
 * The Piedmont NewsChannel (1990–2005)
 * If It's Piedmont Triad, It Must Be Channel 8 (1992-1993; localized version of "It Must Be ABC" ad campaign)
 * Watch By More Piedmont Triad, Channel 8, ABC (1993-1995; last localized version of ABC ad campaign; last slogan as ABC affiliate)
 * Cool Like Fox 8 (1995-1996; first localized version of Fox ad campaign; first as Fox affiliate)
 * Just One Piedmont Triad...Just One Fox...Fox 8 (1997-1999; localized version of Fox ad campaign)
 * If It's Really Special, It's on Fox 8 (1999-2002; localized version of Fox ad campaign)
 * Fox 8 Now (2002-2005; localized version of Fox ad campaign)
 * Fox 8 is Be There (2005-2006; localized version of Fox ad campaign)
 * The News Leader (2005–present)
 * So Fox 8 (2009-present; localized version of Fox ad campaign)

Current on-air staff (as of February 2010)[13]
Anchors Fox 8 Weather Team Sports Reporters
 * Cindy Farmer - weekday mornings "FOX8 Morning News" and noon
 * Brad Jones - weekday mornings "FOX8 Morning News" and noon
 * Julie Grant - weekday mornings "FOX8 Morning News"
 * Kerry Charles - weekday mornings "FOX8 Morning News"
 * Shannon Smith - morning reporter; "FOX8 Morning News"
 * Katie Nordeen - weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
 * Neill McNeill - weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
 * Melissa Painter - weekends at 6 and 10 p.m. ; also consumer reporter
 * Van Denton (AMS Seal of Approval) - Chief Meteorologist, weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
 * Emily Byrd - Meteorologist; weekday mornings "FOX8 Morning News" and noon
 * Charles Ewing (AMS Seal of Approval) - Meteorologist; weekends at 6 and 10 p.m.
 * Kevin Connolly - Sports Anchor; weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
 * Danny Harnden - Sports Anchor; weekends at 6 and 10 p.m.; also sports reporter
 * Stephanie Ando - general assignment reporter
 * Roy Ackland - "Roy's Folks" feature reporter
 * Tom Britt - traffic reporter; also fill-in weather anchor
 * Bob Buckley - general assignment reporter
 * Shelby Baker - general assignment reporter
 * Carter Coyle - general assignment reporter
 * Adrienne DiPiazza - general assignment reporter
 * Joe Dominguez - general assignment reporter
 * Michael Hennessey - general assignment reporter
 * Brandon Jones - general assignment reporter
 * Sarah Krueger - general assignment reporter
 * Kristin Nelson - general assignment reporter
 * Amber Roberts - general assignment reporter
 * Shelley Roupas - general assignment reporter
 * Jasmine Spencer  - general assignment reporter
 * Chad Tucker - general assignment reporter
 * Natalie Wilson - general assignment reporter
 * Kim Wynne - general assignment reporter

Former staff

 * Dr. Paul Bearer (Dick Bennick) - host of Shock Theatre (mid-to-late 1960s; deceased)
 * Nicho Bella - weekend evening anchor
 * Fred Blackman - 6 p.m. anchor (1969–2001)
 * Rich Brenner - sports anchor (1987–2008) (retired under the Fox Television Stations' health insurance plan because of heart problems)
 * Sharon Crews - news and weather anchor (1977-1980)
 * Frank Deal - weather anchor (1969–1996; deceased)
 * Charlie Harville - news and sports anchor/host of Championship Wrestling (1963–1977, returned to WFMY in 1977; deceased)
 * Roxanna Haynes - general assignment reporter
 * Scott Hunter - reporter
 * Bobbi Martin - reporter (1963–1983, 1987–1990; deceased)
 * Dan McReynolds - sports anchor (1977–1985; currently at KIII-TV in Corpus Christi, Texas)
 * Jo Nelson - Eyewitness News at Noon co-anchor, host of Dialing for Dollars (c. 1972-c. 1979; deceased)
 * Angela Rodriguez - reporter
 * Jeff Varner - weekend evening anchor (now evening anchor with WWMT in Kalamazoo, Michigan)