WCWF

The station launched on February 22, 1984, as religious independent station WSCO-TV, under the ownership of Northeastern Wisconsin Christian Television Incorporated. The station's former analog transmitter was located outside of the unincorporated Oconto County community of Krakow, four miles (6 km) north of Pulaski on WIS 32. Financial problems would force the station off the air by 1987; VCY America would purchase the station's license that year[2] and return it to the air by 1993 as a sister station to Milwaukee's WVCY-TV with religious and home shopping programming. On April 30, 1997, Paxson Communications (now Ion Media Networks) purchased the station[3] and converted it to a paid programming format under Paxson's inTV service. On August 31, 1998, WSCO became a charter owned-and-operated station of Pax TV (later i: Independent Television, now Ion Television) under the new call sign WPXG (for "Pax Green Bay").

On June 2, 1999, Paxson sold WPXG to ACME Communications;[4] the station immediately became a primary WB affiliate and changed its call sign to WIWB, originally branded as "WB 14" and later "Wisconsin's WB" (The WPXG-TV callsign has been moved to a TV station in Manchester, New Hampshire). Before it joined the network, WB programming in Northeastern Wisconsin was previously seen either through cable providers that carried Chicago-based superstation WGN and/or Milwaukee's WVTV or during off hours on UPN affiliate WACY-TV (channel 32; Kids' WB programming aired as part of WACY's children's lineup). WIWB also continued to air Pax programming in the mornings, overnights and weekends for a few years after ACME's purchase was finalized; it would drop that network by 2004, at which time the station's programming lineup adopted a more general entertainment format that was heavily reliant on sitcom reruns and court shows, in addition to WB programming. Pax TV's successor, Ion Television, would not return to the market over-the-air until November 2015, when WBAY-TV launched it on their DT3 subchannel.

On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW.[5][6] Due to ACME's ownership by former WB executive Jamie Kellner, WIWB's pursuit of the CW affiliation was assumed to be a formality. Indeed, on March 9, 2006, ACME Communications affiliated most of their stations with The CW, including WIWB.[7] The station officially joined the network upon its September 18, 2006, launch. Prior to that date, it temporarily carried not only WB programs, but also shows from UPN after WACY-TV dropped UPN before that network's closure to join MyNetworkTV. At the time, ACME decided not to change the callsigns of any of their WB-to-CW affiliates to avert any further confusion from the launch of the two new networks.

On June 4, 2010, LIN TV Corporation, owner of Green Bay's Fox affiliate WLUK-TV, as part of an agreement with ACME Communications in three markets where both companies owned stations, announced that it would begin to operate WIWB through separate shared services and joint sales agreements; WLUK would provide WIWB with technical, engineering, promotional, administrative and other operational support services, as well as joint advertising sales for the two stations.[8] As part of its agreements with ACME, LIN TV had the option to purchase WIWB, an option it exercised in September 2010, purchasing not only WIWB but another CW station in a similar arrangement, Dayton, Ohio's WBDT.[9] LIN TV included in its license transfer request to the Federal Communications Commission a "failing station waiver", an indication that the station was in an economically non-viable position and that FCC should relax ownership limits that apply to the Green Bay market so that Channel 14 could stay on the air; that limit (found in CFR§73.3555(b)(2) of the FCC's rules) permits ownership duopolies in markets with at least eight full-power stations, whereas Green Bay has only seven (Journal Communications would also seek a waiver in its 2012 purchase of WACY-TV, which has been operated through Journal-owned WGBA-TV since 1994).[10][11]

The studios of WCWF and its sister station, WLUK-TV.

In April 2011, the FCC approved the ownership transfer of WCWF from ACME to LIN TV, also applying the requested failing station waiver.[12] Additionally, the FCC denied a petition from Time Warner Cable, the dominant cable provider in Northeast Wisconsin; the FCC dismissed as speculative TWC's claims that higher retransmission fees for WCWF, when paired with those for WLUK, would result from LIN TV's purchase of the station, and that LIN's collective retransmission plans for both stations did not violate FCC rules.[13] The sale of WCWF to LIN was consummated on May 20, 2011.[14]

Almost immediately after taking control of WIWB, LIN TV would make changes at the station, starting with relocating its operations from the Parkview Plaza strip mall in suburban Ashwaubenon to WLUK's studios on Lombardi Avenue. During August and September 2010, the station would undergo changes in both on-air branding (from "Wisconsin's CW" to "CW14") and call sign (from WIWB to WCWF). Also in the fall of 2010, WCWF would upgrade syndicated programming to high-definition (which already occurs on WLUK), while both WCWF and WLUK would begin hourly cross-promotions of each other's programming.[15] In mid-November 2010, WCWF's website was switched from being managed by ACME's webhost, Desert Bloom Productions, to LIN Media Interactive (LIN Media's branding for EndPlay, formerly Fox Interactive Media).

On March 21, 2014, LIN Media entered into an agreement to merge with Media General in a $1.6 billion deal. Because Media General already owns ABC affiliate WBAY-TV (which was acquired in 2013 as part of Media General's merger with Young Broadcasting), the companies were required to sell either WLUK or WBAY to another station owner in order to comply with FCC ownership rules as well as planned changes to those rules regarding same-market television stations which would prohibit sharing agreements.[16][17][18]

On August 20, 2014, Media General announced that it would keep WBAY and sell WLUK and WCWF, along with WJAR/Providence and WTGS/Savannah, to Sinclair Broadcast Group in exchange for Sinclair stations in Tampa Bay (WTTA), Harrisburg (WHTM) and Colorado Springs (KXRM-TV and KXTU-LD).[19] As part of its acquisition, Sinclair announced it would seek a continuation of the FCC rules waiver allowing the joint ownership of WCWF and WLUK.[20] WHTM's sale of Media General was explored nearly two months earlier, and it was completed, nearly three months before the Media General/LIN deal was completed.[21][22] The sale was completed on December 19.[23]

WCWF is used as a "shadow station" for WLUK programming preempted due to extended breaking news or severe weather coverage, or network programming (mainly sports events) that overruns into or is scheduled to preempt regular programs; for example, 9 p.m. newscasts on WLUK that are preempted for Fox Sports broadcasts will air on WCWF (in prior years, WLUK leased access on a Time Warner Cable channel for its preempted newscasts).[24]

• WLUK-TV

• Official website