WGMB-TV is the local
FoxFox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
affiliate for
Baton Rouge, LouisianaBaton Rouge is the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish and is the second-largest city in the state.Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, medical, and research center of the American South...
. It is owned by
Communications Corporation of AmericaCommunications Corporation of America is a broadcasting company in the United States that owns television stations in smaller markets. The company is headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana...
, and is sister station to the area's
The CWThe CW Television Network is a television network in the United States launched at the beginning of the 2006–2007 television season. It is a joint venture between CBS Corporation, the former owners of United Paramount Network , and Time Warner's Warner Bros., former majority owner of The WB...
affiliate, WBRL-CD. WGMB also shared facilities and staff with WVLA-TV (channel 33) and KZUP-CD (channel 19). WGMB's transmitter is located near
Addis, LouisianaAddis is a town in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 2,238 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Addis is located at ....
.
The stations transmits its analog signal on
UHFUltra-High Frequency designates the ITU Radio frequency range of electromagnetic waves between 300 MHz and 3 GHz , also known as the decimetre band or decimetre wave as the wavelengths range from one to ten decimetres...
channel 44, and its digital signal on UHF channel 45. The station is seen
via satelliteIn the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....
through
DirecTVDirecTV is an American direct broadcast satellite service provider and broadcaster based in El Segundo, California. Its satellite service, launched on June 17, 1994, transmits digital satellite television and audio to households in the United States, Latin America, and the Anglophone Caribbean. ...
and
Dish NetworkDish Network Corporation is the second largest pay TV provider in the United States, providing direct broadcast satellite service—including satellite television, audio programming, and interactive television services—to 14.337 million commercial and residential customers in the United States. Dish...
and on cable
Cox CommunicationsCox Communications is a privately owned subsidiary of Cox Enterprises providing digital cable television, telecommunications and wireless services in the United States...
and AT&T U-verse.
History
The station first signed on August 11, 1991, making Baton Rouge the last of the Top 100 Nielsen Designated Market Areas to receive a Fox affiliate. It has been owned by the Galloway family since its inception. It took five years to bring Fox to Baton Rouge, as the
FCCThe Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
licensed channel 44 to Baton Rouge in 1983 and several potential buyers sought a license. One company, Parish Family Television expressed an interest in broadcasting an independent station affiliated with the network in 1986 with the call letters WPFT. Delays occurred as Southwest Multimedia of
HoustonHouston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...
expressed an ownership interest in Parish Family Television and rival company Louisiana Super Communications objected to this sale. After Southwest Multimedia bowed out of the ownership stake, Thomas Galloway of
LafayetteLafayette is a city in and the parish seat of Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, United States, on the Vermilion River. The population was 120,623 at the 2010 census...
purchased the license from PFTV in November 1990. The station installed an antenna on WVLA's tower, bought from future sister station
WNTZWNTZ-TV is the Fox affiliate television station for the Alexandria, Louisiana Designated Market Area. It is licensed to Natchez, Mississippi, which is part of the Jackson, Mississippi television market. The station also has a secondary affiliation with MyNetworkTV.It broadcasts a digital signal on...
's parent company at the time, Delta Media Corporation. From April 1990 to February 1991, local
NBCThe National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
affiliate
WVLAWVLA-TV, virtual channel 33, is the NBC-affiliated television station for Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It transmits its digital signal on UHF channel 34. It is owned by White Knight Broadcasting, but it is controlled by ComCorp. and is sister station to the area's Retro Television Network affiliate,...
aired week-delayed episodes of Fox shows such as
The SimpsonsThe Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
,
Married with Children, and
In Living ColorIn Living Color is an American sketch comedy television series, which originally ran on the Fox Network from April 15, 1990 to May 19, 1994. Brothers Keenen and Damon Wayans created, wrote, and starred in the program. The show was produced by Ivory Way Productions in association with 20th Century...
.
In addition to its Fox affiliation, WGMB also carried
Universal Television'sUniversal Television is the television production arm of the NBCUniversal Television Group, and by extension, the NBC television network...
Action PackAction Pack is a fictional comic book superhero team in the . Created by Dan Slott, they first appeared in Avengers: The Initiative #7.-History:...
and was a secondary affiliate of
PTENThe Prime Time Entertainment Network was a United States television network launched in 1993 by the Prime Time Consortium, a joint venture between Warner Bros. Domestic Television and the Chris-Craft group of independent stations...
in its early years of operation. In 1996, WGMB became a sister station of WVLA when Thomas Galloway's son, Sheldon, purchased the NBC affiliate from businessman Cyril Vetter. Sheldon had previously held a stake in WGMB but sold it to his father to make it easier for him to buy WVLA.
The station originally broadcasted from Florida Blvd. until the Galloways purchased WVLA. In 1999, WGMB, along with WVLA, WBBR (now WBRL), and WZUP (now KZUP), moved to their current studios on Perkins Road in Baton Rouge.
The station did not produce a local newscast until 2007; however, it usually broadcasted children's events and programming from around the Baton Rouge area in the 1990s as part of its "Fox 44 Kids Club." One locally-produced show was "Fox Rox Saturday," which aired in the late 1990s on Saturday mornings. WGMB also aired one high school football game each week during the fall from the Baton Rouge area in the early 2000s.
Digital television
The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
Digital channels>
| Channel |
Name |
Programming |
| 44.1 |
WGMB-DT |
Main WGMB-TV Programming / FOX |
| 44.2 |
WGMB-DT2 |
Simulcast of WBRL-CD |
Analog-to-digital conversion
WGMB-TV shut down analog transmissions on June 12, 2009. The station remained on its current pre-transition channel 45. Through the use of
PSIPThe Program and System Information Protocol is the protocol used in the ATSC digital television system for carrying metadata about each channel in the broadcast MPEG transport stream of a TV station and for publishing information about television programs so that viewers can select what to watch...
, digital television receivers display its
virtual channelIn telecommunications, a logical channel number , also known as virtual channel, is a channel designation which differs from that of the actual radio channel on which the signal travels....
as 44.
HD and Syndicated Programming
WGMB currently airs all of
FOXFox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
network programming in
High DefinitionHigh-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
and a few of its syndicated programming such as
The Big Bang TheoryThe Big Bang Theory is an American sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, both of whom serve as executive producers on the show, along with Steven Molaro. All three also serve as head writers...
and
Two and a Half MenTwo and a Half Men is an American television sitcom that premiered on CBS on September 22, 2003. Starring Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer, and Angus T. Jones, the show was originally about a hedonistic jingle writer, Charlie Harper; his uptight brother, Alan; and Alan's growing son, Jake...
in HD. The station also airs infomercials, such as
Jack Van ImpeJack Leo Van Impe is a televangelist who is known for his half-hour weekly television series Jack Van Impe Presents, an eschatological commentary on the news of the week through his interpretation of the Bible...
presents. WGMB also airs first run syndicated promgrams, including,
America's Court with Judge RossAmerica's Court with Judge Ross is a nationally-syndicated American television show that debuted in several top U.S. markets on September 20, 2010. This show uses a former real-life judge presiding over fictionalized small claims court cases. Here, Kevin A. Ross is the presiding judge...
,
Swift Justice with Nancy GraceSwift Justice with Jackie Glass is a syndicated court program hosted by Judge Jackie Glass....
,
Judge JudyJudge Judy is an American court show featuring former family court judge Judith Sheindlin arbitrating over small claims cases in small claims court...
,
Judge Joe Brown,
The People's CourtThe People's Court is a US television court show in which small claims court cases are heard, though what is shown is actually a binding arbitration....
,
Judge MathisJudge Mathis is a syndicated television legal reality show produced originally by Black Pearl Productions. In 2008, it entered its tenth season produced by AND Syndicated Productions and Telepictures. It is taped at NBC Tower in Chicago, but includes cases and litigants from other U.S....
,
Divorce CourtDivorce Court is a judge show about cases which only involve divorcing couples. Out of the shows currently airing in the court-themed genre, Divorce Court is the oldest...
, and
Judge AlexJudge Alex is a United States syndicated courtroom television show that debuted September 12, 2005. The host/arbitrator is the Hon. Alex Ferrer, a former police officer, lawyer, and Florida judge. The show was produced in Houston at the television studios of Fox's KRIV , as was previously done with...
. And sitcom syndicated programming at the station includes:
Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns,
Tyler Perry's House of PayneTyler Perry's House of Payne is an American comedy-drama television series created and produced by playwright, director, and producer Tyler Perry. The show revolves around a multi-generational family living under one roof in Atlanta, Georgia led by patriarch Curtis Payne and his wife Ella...
, and
TMZTMZ on TV, or simply TMZ and TMZTV, is an American syndicated entertainment and gossip news television show that premiered on September 10, 2007. The program is generally aired on Fox, The CW and MyNetworkTV affiliates, though a majority of the stations that carry the series are Fox affiliates...
.
Newscast
On March 12, 2007, WGMB debuted a local newscast entitled
Fox News Louisiana airing weeknights at 9 p.m. In the summer of 2008, the newscast was rebranded as
Fox News Baton Rouge. WGMB also produces and pre-records the 9 p.m. newscast for sister station
KADNKADN-TV is the Fox affiliate in Lafayette, Louisiana.-History:Channel 15 in Lafayette was originally home to KLNI-TV, which operated as an NBC affiliate beginning on September 16, 1968. With KATC-TV and KLFY already operating, the Lafayette market was considered too small at the time to support...
in Lafayette, and formerly did so for
KMSS-TVKMSS-TV is the Fox affiliate in Shreveport, Louisiana. The station is seen via satellite through Dish Network and DirecTV...
in Shreveport. The KMSS-TV evening newscast is now handled by
KFXKKFXK-TV is the Fox affiliate station of Longview, Texas. Its East Texas coverage area includes Tyler and Longview. The station is owned by White Knight Broadcasting, and controlled by Communications Corporation of America. Its transmitter is located near New London, Texas...
of
Tyler, TexasTyler is a city in and the county seat of Smith County, Texas, in the United States. It takes its name from President John Tyler . The city had a population of 109,000 in 2010, according to the United States Census Bureau...
.
On August 20, 2007, WGMB debuted
Fox News Louisiana AM to counter the national morning shows. The newscast, anchored by Rachel Slavik and Lauren Unger, featured eight weather updates an hour from meteorologist Jesse Gunkel. It also was simulcast on sister station
WNTZWNTZ-TV is the Fox affiliate television station for the Alexandria, Louisiana Designated Market Area. It is licensed to Natchez, Mississippi, which is part of the Jackson, Mississippi television market. The station also has a secondary affiliation with MyNetworkTV.It broadcasts a digital signal on...
in Alexandria, although news from that area rarely made it to the program. On 2 December 2008, WGMB cancelled the newscast due to cost cuts; at the same time the station also laid off an undisclosed number of employees. WGMB’s sister station, NBC affiliate WVLA, will continue to air its 6 a.m. local newscast, which precedes
The Today Show.
On April 28, 2009, WGMB announced the discontinuation of all locally produced newscasts. The 9 p.m. newscast will originate from sister station KETK in Tyler, Texas.
WGMB also airs a 30-minute sports program called
The Show on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. It is produced by KETK in
Tyler, TexasTyler is a city in and the county seat of Smith County, Texas, in the United States. It takes its name from President John Tyler . The city had a population of 109,000 in 2010, according to the United States Census Bureau...
, and is hosted by Tamara Jolee.
On January 3, 2011, WGMB started producing its 9 p.m. newscast locally from Baton Rouge.
Fox44 News Baton Rouge (Weeknights 9 to 9:30 p.m.)
- Anchor:
- Emily Turner
Emily Susano Turner is a reporter for WGMB and WVLA in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She was a standout pitcher on the LSU Tigers softball team and a 4th round draft pick of the Philadelphia Force in the National Pro Fastpitch league in 2007.-College softball career:Turner was a member of the LSU...
- Weather:
Newscast titles
- Fox News Louisiana (general) / Fox News Louisiana A.M. (mornings; 2007–2008)
- Fox 44 News / Fox News Baton Rouge (2008–present)
Station slogans
- Giving You More FOX 44 (early 90s)
- Gotta watch Fox 44 (late 1990s)
- Baton Rouge's Home for Sports and Entertainment (2006–2008)
Bankruptcy
In June 2006, owner ComCorp filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. ComCorp said in a press release viewers and staff would see no changes at the station.
External links