WWCW

Channel 21 at Lynchburg picked up no interest until communications consultant James E. Price of Chattanooga, Tennessee, applied for the channel in 1982 under the name Lynchburg Television Associates.[2][3] The construction permit was awarded in November 1982, took the call sign WJPR, and then was sold to a new investor group led by Price.[4] The permit changed hands two more times before the station was launched, first to Carney Communications of Virginia—owned by Thomas F. Carney of Bal Harbour, Florida—and then to a partnership led by Carney known as Lynchburg–Roanoke Television Partners.[5] One of the partners in the firm was Ralph Renick, a longtime television news anchor in Miami.[6][7]

Construction began in October 1985 at the Thaxton Mountain tower after approval came from Bedford County officials, and the station announced its existence as the first independent in the market.[8] It stated it would launch by the end of 1985, but that date was missed.[9] So too was a target date of February 10,[10] with winter weather being the culprit.[11]

WJPR debuted on March 23, 1986, giving the market a general-entertainment independent station and being the second of three new station launches that year in western Virginia (the others being Christian station WEFC on channel 38, which started January 3,[12] and Family Group Broadcasting-owned independent WVFT on channel 27 in November 1986[13]).[14] Programming was a typical mix of sitcoms, children's shows, and sports, including Baltimore Orioles baseball. It broadcast from studios and offices in a converted Kroger grocery store in Lynchburg's Forest Hills Shopping Center.[10] The Fox network was added to the station's lineup when it launched that October,[15] as well as local high school football telecasts.[16]

WJPR and WVFT gave the Roanoke–Lynchburg market two independent stations in a short amount of time. Channel 21 had a slow start; some cable systems, notably in Lynchburg itself, balked at carrying the new station, and there were few immediate local advertisers.[11] Neither station was able to find sufficient advertising revenue, and it became clear that the Roanoke-Lynchburg market was not large enough to sustain what were essentially two independent stations. Like most early Fox affiliates, WJPR was still programmed largely as an independent.[17] In November 1988, three months after Paramount Pictures sued the station for a debt of $950,000, Lynchburg–Roanoke Television Partners filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization.[6] It was joined in Chapter 11 status by WVFT in April 1989.[18]

On September 13 and 15, 1989, bankruptcy courts in Lynchburg and Tampa, Florida, gave NewSouth Broadcasting, a company owned by Timothy Brumlik of Altamonte Springs, Florida, permission to purchase WJPR and WVFT with the intention of consolidating their programming. The deal began to fall apart on the 15th, however, when Brumlik was arrested on charges of laundering up to $12 million in Colombian drug money.[19] Officials alleged that Brumlik's ownership of TeleOnce in Puerto Rico was a front for two important Latin American media men: Remigio Ángel González, reported to be a business partner with Manuel Noriega in a Panamanian television station, and Julio Vera Gutiérrez, a Peruvian citizen.[20]

The indictment scrambled the picture for the stations Brumlik sought to buy. At the time of his arrest, he had been approved by bankruptcy courts or the FCC to buy WJPR and WVFT; WKCH-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee; and the then-unbuilt WGNM in Macon, Georgia.[19][20][21] With regard to WJPR and WVFT, his arrest and indictment caused him to be unable to fulfill commitments required by the bankruptcy courts. Instead, Henry A. Ash, a Tampa life insurance broker, bid on both stations with the same goal: to combine them.[22] Ash's Roanoke–Lynchburg TV Acquisition Corporation—with WJPR majority owner Thomas Carney as a stockholder—received court approval to buy both stations, paying $2.95 million for WJPR and $1.25 million for WVFT, in February 1990. It then filed with the FCC for a waiver of its rule that prohibited ownership of stations with overlapping signal coverage areas, believing that the market could bear one independent station but not two.[23]

On August 20, 1990, with the purchases pending at the FCC, WVFT began simulcasting WJPR, expanding Fox network coverage to the market's western portions for the first time.[24] FCC approval followed the next month.[25] Key in winning approval was the fact that adding channel 27 to channel 21 provided Fox service to an additional 213,000 people; the commission found it unlikely that the stations could exist separately given their financial problems and local terrain.[26]

On September 15, 1993, WVFT and WJPR were purchased by Grant Communications, owned by Milton Grant. The sale to Grant came after Carney and Ash opted to split their interests in Roanoke–Lynchburg TV Acquisition Corporation.[27] In October 1993, WVFT had its call letters changed to WFXR-TV.[28] Grant also upgraded the station's equipment, and the Fox network itself matured during the first years of Grant ownership.[29]

WJPR–WFXR became a secondary affiliate of The WB in 1999, when the network ceased airing its programming on Superstation WGN nationally.[30] Programs aired in overnight hours until February 1, 2001, when WJPR/WFXR launched a cable-only WB affiliate known as "WBVA-TV" and seen on Cox Communications channel 5. It was also announced at that time that "WBVA" would become a full-power service on channel 21 in May 2001,[31] though instead it was broadcast as a subchannel from the WJPR transmitter beginning in April 2002.[32] In 2006, when The WB and UPN merged into The CW, channels 21 and 27 obtained the rights to the affiliation in the market, with the cable channel going by "WCW5-TV" and the call letters on channel 21 changing to WWCW.[33][34] As early as 2007, The CW was airing in high definition from the WWCW transmitter and in standard definition from the WFXR transmitter (and vice versa for Fox), ensuring coverage of both services in the Roanoke and Lynchburg areas.[32]

On November 6, 2013, the Irving, Texas–based Nexstar Broadcasting Group announced that it would purchase the Grant stations, including WFXR and WWCW, for $87.5 million. The sale was approved by the FCC on November 3, 2014, and was finalized one month later on December 1.[35][36][37][38]

In March 2015, Joseph McNamara—who was appointed as vice president for the stations three months earlier in December 2014—announced that Nexstar planned to move WFXR/WWCW's operations and staff into a new, larger 14,830-square-foot (1,000 m²) studio facility at the Valleypointe office park in northeastern Roanoke County, near Roanoke–Blacksburg Regional Airport.[39] WFXR and WWCW migrated their operations into the new facility—which cost $3 million to build—during the week of September 14, 2015.[40][41]

On January 27, 2016, Nexstar announced it would acquire Media General for $4.6 billion. Nexstar opted to retain WFXR and WWCW over Media General-owned WSLS-TV, which was divested to Graham Media Group.[42][43][44]

WWCW and WFXR broadcast two shared channels (The CW on 21.1 and 27.2 and Fox on 21.2 and 27.1) and two unique diginets each. Also broadcast on the WWCW multiplex are two subchannels of WZBJ-CD as part of the market's ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV) hosting arrangement.

WWCW discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 21, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 20, using virtual channel 21.[48]