WOFL

Channel 35 in Orlando first began broadcasting March 31, 1974, as WSWB, Central Florida's first independent station. Owned by Sun World Broadcasting, WSWB produced children's programming (Uncle Hubie's Penthouse Barnyard), and aired reruns of such shows as Batman, Bugs Bunny, Popeye, Green Acres, Mister Ed, Lost in Space and Star Trek. Its sign-on was 19 months late, delayed by shortages affecting the construction of its studios and excavation necessary to erect its tower at Bithlo,[3] which briefly was the tallest structure in Florida.[4]

The 1970s recession impacted the station's operations, and Sun World encountered financial difficulties. Within months, Sun World was searching for a buyer.[5] In June 1975, they appeared to have found it when they entered into an agreement with Martin International Corp.[6] The deal was filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that December,[7] but Sun World's troubles continued to worsen. In January 1976, the studio building, tower and land were auctioned as part of foreclosure proceedings.[8]

A running dispute with RCA over payment for leased equipment ended with the company obtaining a court order to seize the assets on September 29, 1976. The following afternoon, U.S. Marshals entered the station and shut it down at 2:39 p.m., in the middle of an airing of The Mickey Mouse Club, beginning to remove RCA's property.[5] Negotiations began to try to restore operations, with a myriad of involved parties, including RCA; creditor Continental Credit Corporation, which had earlier obtained an order to seize office equipment to meet its debt;[5] Sun World; and Ted Turner, owner of the Atlanta Braves and television stations in Atlanta and Charlotte, who had paid $250,000 for the 47-acre (19 ha) transmitter site.[9]

Turner sought the appointment of a receiver to manage WSWB's affairs.[10] Judge Frederick Pfeiffer agreed and named Edwin Starr as receiver in November.[11] However, Pfeiffer then in April 1977 turned down Starr's recommendation to sell the license to Turner and opted for the bid backed by shareholders, of a five-investor consortium known as the Omega group.[12] An attempt by Turner to overturn the ruling was rebuffed.[13] In the meantime, the former WSWB studios were sold to public television station WMFE-TV (channel 24).[14]

RCA's $2 million judgment and equipment was acquired by another new party to the proceeding: the Christian Broadcasting Network.[12] CBN would play a further role in delaying the return to air of channel 35 after the Omega license transfer was filed at the FCC in September 1978.[7] Omega prevailed at the FCC and in Florida courts over objections by Turner and CBN.[15]

Omega immediately set out to return the station to air. It bought the former Orange State Bank building on South Orange Blossom Trail, renovating it into new studios.[16] Under the new call sign WOFL, channel 35 returned to the air on October 15, 1979.[17]

Meredith Corporation, which had been a stakeholder in Omega,[15] exercised its option to buy out Omega in 1982. In 1986, the station moved to its current facility in Lake Mary—a major change from the Orange Blossom Trail site. As the 1980s progressed, WOFL acquired more recent sitcoms, cartoons and movies.

WOFL became one of the Fox Broadcasting Company's charter affiliates at the network's inception on October 9, 1986. However, it still essentially programmed itself as an independent in the network's first few years because, until April 1987, Fox carried only one program (The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers). The station was frequently ranked as one of the country's leading Fox affiliates during the network's early years, achieving a number one ranking on several occasions through the early 1990s. It was also the most profitable station in Meredith's station group, despite being its only UHF "independent" station at that time. As the 1990s progressed, WOFL offered fewer movies and older shows, and more talk, reality and court shows. As with most Fox stations, WOFL carried children's programming including those from the network's Fox Kids block. Despite having competing independents, WOFL was one of the last remaining Fox affiliates in a major market to retain broadcasting rights to most cartoons syndicated by Disney throughout the 1990s; while this left Orlando without an official Disney Afternoon lineup (due to Fox Kids competing for those same timeframes in most markets), the station still aired all of the lineup, though out of pattern in other timeslots.

Most of WOFL's programming, including Fox programming, was originally seen in Citrus County on W49AI in the 1980s. The station did not air WOFL's late-night programming, however, as it signed off at midnight. This arrangement continued until Ocala-based WOGX (channel 51) became the Fox affiliate for Gainesville in 1991. In 1996, WOFL took over the operations of WOGX, which became a semi-satellite of WOFL.

WOFL, along with KVVU (channel 5) in Las Vegas, were excluded from the 1994 affiliation deal between Meredith and CBS, which was spurred by an affiliation deal between Fox and New World Communications that caused Tampa-based WTVT (channel 13) and 11 other stations to switch to the network. The two stations were among Fox's strongest affiliates at the time, despite WOFL broadcasting on the UHF band and WTVT broadcasting on the VHF band. At the same time, CBS's existing Orlando station, WCPX-TV (channel 6, now WKMG-TV), was one of that network's weaker affiliates, and Fox did not want to move from a UHF outlet to a lower-rated VHF outlet. Meredith briefly owned WCPX for one day in September 1997, following a merger with that station's owner, First Media.

In 2002, Meredith traded WOFL and WOGX to News Corporation's Fox Television Stations Group, and, in return, Meredith received KPTV (channel 12) in Portland, Oregon; the deal was finalized on June 17, 2002, making WOFL a Fox owned-and-operated station, and sister station to then-UPN affiliate WRBW. Fox had acquired WRBW and KPTV several months earlier, when it acquired the United Television station group. This trade protected WOFL's Fox affiliation. After the trade was finalized, WRBW merged its operations with those of WOFL, and moved into WOFL's facility in Lake Mary. WOFL was the only network-owned station in the Orlando/Daytona Beach market during that time as the Chris-Craft purchase effectively stripped WRBW of its status as a UPN O&O. WOFL began airing fewer cartoons on the weekdays in the late 1990s and, in 2002, dropped them altogether during the five-day week when Fox ended its children's programming block and leased the lineup to 4Kids Entertainment under the 4Kids TV brand. Until Fox bought WJZY in Charlotte in 2013 (currently owned by Nexstar Media Group), it was also the smallest Fox O&O in the Eastern Time Zone.

On December 14, 2017, The Walt Disney Company, owner of ABC (affiliated network of WFTV, channel 9), announced its intent to buy WOFL's parent company, 21st Century Fox, for $66.1 billion; the sale, which closed on March 20, 2019, excluded WOFL and sister stations WRBW and WOGX as well as the Fox network, the MyNetworkTV programming service, Fox News, Fox Sports 1 and the Fox Television Stations unit, which were all transferred to the newly-formed Fox Corporation (since an outright buyout of Fox would be illegal under FCC regulations prohibiting a merger between any two of the four major networks).[18][19]

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

WOFL was the first television station in the Orlando market to commence broadcasting of its digital signal in February 2000 on UHF channel 22. The station's digital signal began broadcasting in widescreen format in January 2002, and started to offer high definition programming in the 720p resolution format in September 2004.

WOFL shut down its analog signal, on UHF channel 35, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[20] The station's digital signal continued to broadcast on its pre-transition UHF channel 22. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 35.

WOFL was one of three stations in the Orlando area (along with WKCF and WKMG-TV) to participate in the "Analog Nightlight" program, which lasted until WOFL's analog transmitter was shut down permanently on July 12, 2009.[21]