Fiktiv USA - WGNO-TV

WGNO, virtual and UHF digital channel 26, is an ABC-affiliated television station licensed to New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. The station is owned by Nexstar Media Group, as part of a duopoly with CW affiliate WNOL-TV (channel 38). The two stations share studios at The Galleria on Galleria Drive (just south of I-10) in Metairie; WGNO's transmitter is located on East Josephine Street in Chalmette. On cable, the station is available on Cox Communications and AT&T U-verse channel 11.

The station first signed on the air at 5:00 p.m. on October 16, 1967, as WWOM-TV. The call sign stood for "The Wonderful World Of Movies," an adaptation of the "Wonderful World of Music" meaning used by co-owned radio station WWOM 600 AM, now WVOG, and 98.5 WWOM-FM, now WYLD-FM. The station inaugurated programming with a greeting by then-Mayor Victor H. Schiro, which was followed by its first program, the 1927 Al Jolson film The Jazz Singer. Originally owned by David Wagenvoord, it was the first independent station in the state of Louisiana and the first commercial television station to sign on in New Orleans since WWL-TV Channel 4 debuted as the market's CBS affiliate on September 7, 1957.

The station—which broadcast for eight hours a day from late afternoon to midnight during its first years of operation—maintained a general entertainment programming format consisting mostly of older movies, some theatrical cartoon shorts and a few off-network syndicated programs. During its first decade on the air, the station also cherry-picked several programs from NBC, ABC and CBS that WDSU (channel 6), WVUE-TV (then on channel 12, now on channel 8) and WWL-TV chose not to broadcast. In 1969, the station experimented with a 24-hour daily schedule, claiming to be the first television station in the United States to broadcast on such a schedule; however, this format was short-lived.

The station was sold to Communications Corp. of the South in 1971; after the purchase was finalized, the station changed its call letters to WGNO-TV on March 9, 1972. Around this time, the station began running more off-network syndicated sitcoms and westerns, along with a moderate amount of cartoons. The station expanded its programming schedule to about 12 hours each day by 1972, then began signing on at 10:00 a.m. in 1974; WGNO expanded its daily programming hours to about 19 hours a day by 1975. The station was sold to Seymour Smith and his family in 1976, continuing to program a general entertainment format with vintage sitcoms, older movies and religious programs.

WGNO began to be carried on many cable providers in southern Louisiana (including within the Baton Rouge market) during the 1970s, before it was replaced by Atlanta-based superstation WTCG. In 1981, WGNO also ran business news programming from the Financial News Network. From 1982 to 1987, WGNO aired a series of public service announcements featuring a character called "Tom Foote"; Tom was a local entertainer seen in area schools and in the French Quarter. For a time, the station produced an hour-long program called Tom Foote's Video Clubhouse, as well as News for Kids, produced by Foote.

WGNO was purchased by Glendive Media in 1978, who would in turn sell the station to Tribune Broadcasting in 1983. By coincidence, the station's callsign reflects a connection with Tribune's flagship television station in Chicago, WGN-TV (whose own call letters stand for "World's Greatest Newspaper", in reference to the longtime slogan of the company's founding newspaper, the Chicago Tribune); however, channel 26 had the "WGN" lettering in its callsign twelve years before Tribune even bought the station; this connection, coupled with the fact that two other Tribune-owned television stations also incorporated the "WGN" name in their callsigns (Denver's KWGN-TV and Atlanta's WGNX (now WGCL-TV), the former of which remains owned by the company), channel 26 kept the WGNO call letters. Under Tribune, the station continued to grow, and WGNO remained the leading independent station in the market even as other competitors signed on the air—WNOL-TV (channel 38) in March 1984 and later, WCCL (channel 49, now Ion Television owned-and-operated station WPXL-TV) in March 1989. WGNO reportedly turned down an offer by Fox to become a charter affiliate of the network, prior to its October 1986 launch; Fox programming instead went to WNOL, which its then-owners TVX Broadcast Group used as leverage to get Fox to sign a deal to affiliate with the majority of the company's independent stations. The station dropped the "-TV" suffix from the callsign on August 17, 1988.

On November 2, 1993, the Warner Bros. Television division of Time Warner announced the formation of The WB Television Network, in which the Tribune Company held a minority ownership interest (initially 12.5%, before eventually expanding to 22%). As a result, Tribune affiliated the majority of its independent stations with the network as charter affiliates. This effectively ended WGNO's 28-year run as an independent station upon The WB's launch on January 11, 1995. At that time, The WB only offered a few hours of programming each week (airing only for two hours on Wednesday nights at the time of its launch, before adding a three-hour Sunday evening lineup, and a Monday-Saturday children's program block in September 1995); as a result, WGNO continued to run syndicated programming for the remainder of the broadcast day.

That same year, Burnham Broadcasting sold longtime ABC affiliate WVUE-TV (now owned by Gray Television) and three other stations to SF Broadcasting, a joint venture between Savoy Pictures and Fox, resulting in all four stations dropping their "Big Three" affiliations and joining Fox. On August 14, 1995, ABC signed a 10-year affiliation agreement with Tribune Broadcasting for WGNO to become its New Orleans affiliate. WVUE switched its affiliation to Fox on January 1, 1996 (as SF Broadcasting's only ABC affiliate to join that network; KHON-TV in Honolulu, WALA-TV in Mobile and WLUK-TV in Green Bay were all affiliated with NBC prior to their switches), resulting in a three-way swap that resulted in WGNO becoming the market's new ABC affiliate, while the WB affiliation (along with cartoons and some syndicated programs that were part of WGNO's inventory) moved to former Fox affiliate WNOL-TV (channel 38).

As a result of joining ABC, channel 26 became the second Tribune-owned station to switch to a "Big Three" network (Atlanta sister station WGNX, now owned by the Meredith Corporation as WGCL-TV, was set to affiliate with The WB at its launch, but joined CBS one month prior in December 1994 after WAGA-TV switched from CBS to Fox through a deal with New World Communications) and only the third "Big Three" station in its portfolio (along with KDAL-TV (now KDLH) in Duluth, Minnesota, a CBS affiliate that Tribune had owned from 1960 to 1970). From 1999—when Tribune sold CBS affiliate WGNX (now WGCL-TV) in Atlanta to the Meredith Corporation—until 2013, WGNO was the only Tribune-owned television station that was affiliated with a "Big Three" network (by 2007, the company's other 22 stations were, and remain, affiliates of either Fox, The CW or MyNetworkTV). However, Tribune's December 2013 acquisition of Local TV added eleven additional "Big Three" stations to its portfolio; the purchase also displaced WGNO/WNOL as the company's smallest television stations by market size, with the Fort Smith, Arkansas duopoly of CBS affiliate KFSM-TV and MyNetworkTV affiliate KXNW filling that role.

Tribune Broadcasting began managing the operations of WNOL under a local marketing agreement in 1996. The company merged with channel 38's then-owner Qwest Broadcasting (a company run by a group of minority investors led by Quincy Jones) in 2000, creating the market's first television duopoly with WGNO. Despite now being placed under common ownership, WGNO and WNOL continued to operate separately from one another: WNOL continued to be based out of its existing studio facility on Canal Street. In July 2005, WGNO relocated from its studio facilities at the World Trade Center New Orleans in the city's Central Business District to a facility at New Orleans Centre.

As Hurricane Katrina approached the Louisiana coast in August 2005, WGNO's operations were moved to fellow ABC affiliate WBRZ-TV in Baton Rouge. For a time after the hurricane hit, the station's evening newscasts were produced out of various locations throughout the New Orleans area as the main studio at the World Trade Center New Orleans was inaccessible. WGNO eventually established temporary facilities (including a makeshift studio and control room) from two trailers outside of the Louisiana Superdome, with most of the station's broadcast equipment being purchased from eBay resellers. In April 2006, WGNO announced that its broadcast operations would temporarily relocate back to the World Trade Center building as New Orleans Centre management decided not to re-open the complex and terminated the station's lease agreement (WGNO had only moved into the facility a few weeks before Katrina hit the area).

In February 2007, Tribune announced that rather than move WGNO to WNOL's facility on Canal Street, the station would instead move its operations to The Galleria building in nearby Metairie; this made WGNO the first New Orleans area television station to move its studio facilities outside of the city proper. Station management indicated that they wanted to keep WGNO's operations in New Orleans, but could not find a facility that was suitable. The station began broadcasting from new high definition-ready studios inside The Galleria on August 29, 2007 (coinciding with the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina), which included a brand-new news set and weather center.

On April 1, 2012, Tribune Broadcasting removed all WGNO, WNOL, and its then 21 other television stations from satellite provider DirecTV due to a carriage dispute over an increase in payments to transmit the stations' signals. DirecTV signed a new carriage agreement with Tribune on April 4, 2012, restoring both stations as well as the other Tribune-owned stations on DirecTV.

On December 3, 2018, Irving, Texas-based Nexstar Media Group announced it would acquire Tribune's assets for $6.4 billion in cash and debt. The deal—which would make Nexstar the largest television station operator by total number of stations upon its expected closure late in the third quarter of 2019—would give the WGNO/WNOL duopoly additional sister stations in Baton Rouge (Fox affiliate WGMB-TV, CW affiliate WBRL-CD, independent station KZUP-CD and NBC-affiliated SSA partner WVLA-TV), Alexandria (Natchez, Mississippi-licensed Fox affiliate WNTZ-TV) and Lafayette (CBS affiliate KLFY-TV). Factoring in Nexstar's existing properties in Shreveport (NBC affiliate KTAL-TV, KSHV-TV [MyNetworkTV] and SSA partner KMSS-TV [Fox]) and Monroe (Fox affiliate KARD and NBC-affiliated SSA partner KTVE), the combined company would have television stations in every media market within the state of Louisiana, except for Lake Charles, as a result. The deal was approved by the FCC on September 16, 2019 and closed on September 19, 2019.

Syndicated programs broadcast on WGNO include Extra, The Big Bang Theory, The Wendy Williams Show, The Drew Barrymore Show, Access Hollywood, The People’s Court, and Judge Mathis. The station also produces NOLA Marketplace, a program profiling New Orleans area businesses.

From 1993 (when the team relocated to New Orleans from Denver) until 1995, WGNO served as the over-the-air broadcaster of the American Association's New Orleans Zephyrs (now a member of the Pacific Coast League), carrying games from the minor league baseball franchise.

For a few years, WGNO had no NFL games outside of one simulcast wild card game from ESPN per year due to its ABC affiliation, and WDSU carrying the Monday Night Football games of the New Orleans Saints that were carried by ABC until the 2006 move of that package to ESPN. Until 2015, it carried Saints games that were produced as part of the NFL Network's Thursday Night Football package before that moved to a split between NBC and CBS. Thus, the only way the station would carry a Saints game is if they were a wild card or low division winner, and ESPN was chosen to broadcast that Wild Card Weekend game with ABC. This changed with the 2018 NFL season, when CBS' portion of the Thursday night schedule was moved to Fox and NBC's portion, except for the annual NFL Kickoff and Thanksgiving night games, became exclusive to NBC. WGNO now only carries any Saints Thursday night games which are otherwise exclusive to NFL Network.

WGNO also airs select New Orleans Pelicans games through the network's broadcast rights with the NBA.

WGNO presently broadcasts 27 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 5 hours each weekday and an hour each on Saturdays and Sundays). In addition to its newscasts on channel 26, WGNO also produces an additional 16 hours of newscasts each week on sister station WNOL-TV, two hours from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. each weekday morning and one hour at 9:00 p.m. each weeknight, and a half-hour each weekend night. In addition, the station produces the half-hour public affairs program The 411, which airs Sundays at 6:30 a.m. with a rebroadcast later that morning on WNOL-TV.

During hurricane coverage, WGNO often partners with other Nexstar-owned stations to supplement WGNO's storm coverage; audio of the station's hurricane coverage is also simulcast on WTIX-FM (94.3), as was the case during Hurricane Gustav in September 2008 (in which WGNO hurricane coverage resulted in the station canceling local segments of the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, which aired as scheduled on WNOL-TV) and Hurricane Isaac in August 2012.

Prior to affiliating with ABC, news programming on WGNO consisted solely of news updates that ran daily from 1971 to the mid-1980s, airing during the station's syndicated programming. The station also produced a sports discussion program called the Hometown Sports Page during its latter years as an independent in the early 1990s. WGNO began developing a full-scale news department shortly after taking the ABC affiliation; the news department launched on March 18, 1996, with the debut of half-hour newscasts at 5:00 p.m. each weeknight and seven nights a week at 10:00 p.m. The station added an additional half-hour early evening newscast at 6:00 p.m. on September 21, 1998 (prior to that point, the station continued to air syndicated programming during the 6:00 p.m. half-hour). During the mid-to-late 2000s, the station was known for its "Wheel of Justice" series, which featured a bounty hunter named Tat-2, capturing local criminals with arrest warrants.

For many years after joining ABC, WGNO had the distinction of being one of the largest major network affiliates by market size that did not produce a weekday morning or midday newscast; this changed on September 8, 2008, when the station debuted a half-hour newscast at 11:00 a.m.; this was followed on September 29 by the launch of a two-hour morning newscast, Good Morning New Orleans, running from 5:00 to 7:00 a.m. On April 20, 2009, WGNO moved its 6:00 p.m. newscast to the 6:30 timeslot, in order to reach viewers whose work commutes prevented them from arriving home in time to watch a 6:00 p.m. newscast; syndicated programming filled the program's former timeslot. The program did not attract significant viewership, and fell to last place in the evening news ratings within a year of its launch; the following year, the station reinstated its 6:00 p.m. newscast, creating at that time New Orleans's only hour-long news block during that hour. WGNO – as well as WDSU – continue to broadcast their local newscasts in widescreen standard definition (WVUE was the first New Orleans area station to broadcasts its newscasts in high definition with WWL-TV upgrading to HD in October 2014).

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WNOL-TV, virtual channel 38 (UHF digital channel 15), is a CW-affiliated television station licensed to New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. The station is owned by Nexstar Media Group, as part of a duopoly with ABC affiliate WGNO (channel 26). The two stations share studios at The Galleria on Galleria Drive (just south of I-10) in Metairie; WNOL-TV's transmitter is located on East Josephine Street in Chalmette. There is no separate website for WNOL-TV; instead, it is integrated with that of sister station WGNO.

On cable, WNOL-TV is available on Cox Communications and AT&T U-verse channel 13.

The station first signed on the air on March 25, 1984. It was the second independent station to sign on in the New Orleans' market, after eventual sister station WGNO, which signed on the air in October 1967; the station maintained a general entertainment format, running a variety of cartoons, sitcoms, older movies, drama series and religious programs (many of which were formerly carried by WGNO). The station's original slogan, "Don't Stay Home Without Us," was an homage to the popular American Express advertising campaign featuring Karl Malden.

In 1985, the station was sold to the TVX Broadcast Group. In July of that year, WNOL became the first commercial station in New Orleans (second station after PBS member WYES-TV) to begin stereo broadcasts. WNOL, as with TVX's other television stations, became a charter affiliate of Fox when the network launched on October 9, 1986. (The station's schedule continued to represent more of an independent station as Fox's lone series at that time was a late night talk show, and they wouldn't start a full seven days of programming until 1993.) Reportedly, WGNO passed on the Fox affiliation; after that occurred, TVX used WNOL as leverage to get Fox to sign a deal to affiliate with the majority of the company's independent stations. TVX acquired Taft Broadcasting's independent and Fox-affiliated stations in 1987. Subsequently, the following year, TVX began selling off many of its television stations; in 1989, TVX sold WNOL to Qwest Broadcasting, a company owned by minority investors led by musician Quincy Jones. In addition to Fox network programming, WNOL continued to offer cartoons, sitcoms, movies, and drama series on its schedule into the 1990s.

In March 1994, Fox entered into a partnership with minority-owned communications firm Savoy Pictures (which would serve as majority partner) to form SF Broadcasting. On August 25 of that year, SF Broadcasting announced that it would acquire three television stations from Burnham Broadcasting—among them, New Orleans's longtime ABC affiliate WVUE (channel 8)—adding those stations alongside a fourth Burnham station that SF had acquired two months earlier in a separate deal. As part of the deal, WVUE and the three other acquired stations (WLUK-TV in Green Bay, KHON-TV in Honolulu and WALA-TV in Mobile) would switch their respective network affiliations from ABC (on WVUE) and NBC (on the three other stations) to Fox beginning in the fall of 1995. The Fox affiliation moved to WVUE on January 1, 1996; unlike the "Big Three" affiliates that switched to Fox through a similar deal between the network and New World Communications, WVUE and the other former Burnham stations also carried the Fox Kids weekday and Saturday blocks. The switch spawned a three-way affiliation swap in the market as WNOL joined The WB, a network that had been carried from the network's launch in January 1995 on WGNO (the result of that station's ownership by network part-owner Tribune Broadcasting)—which in turn picked up the ABC affiliation from WVUE. WNOL also acquired select cartoons and other syndicated programs that were previously part of WGNO's programming inventory. As the 1990s progressed, WNOL began to decrease its reliance on classic sitcoms, and gradually added more talk and reality series for the station's daytime schedule. After Fox picked up the rights to air NFL games in 1994, channel 38, via the NFL on Fox, succeeded WWL-TV as the New Orleans Saints' station of record; it only served in this role for the 1994 and 1995 seasons; in 1996, WVUE-TV took over this role.

WGNO's owner Tribune Broadcasting, which held a minority ownership interest in The WB, entered into a local marketing agreement to operate WNOL in 1996; Tribune purchased the station outright in 2000, following the company's merger with Qwest, creating the first television duopoly in the New Orleans market between WNOL and WGNO. Along with other similarly-formatted stations, WNOL began to scale back on carrying cartoons (such as The Wacky World of Tex Avery) beginning in 2000. Cartoons on the station were eventually relegated to weekends only, when The WB discontinued the Kids' WB weekday afternoon block in December 2005, leaving its existing Saturday morning block.

When Hurricane Katrina hit the New Orleans metropolitan area on August 29, 2005, the storm destroyed the transmitter facilities of both WNOL and WGNO. The two stations set up temporary analog transmitter facilities from a multi-purpose tower in Algiers; WGNO and WNOL also partnered with i: Independent Television affiliate (now Ion Television owned-and-operated station) WPXL-TV (channel 49) to transmit its digital signals as separate subchannels on that station. On March 29, 2008, WNOL began transmitting its digital signal from a new tower in Metairie, broadcasting on UHF channel 15, ending the relay of both stations on WPXL. Tribune management decided that since it elected to relocate WGNO's digital signal to its analog-era UHF channel 26 when most full-power stations switched to digital-only transmissions in 2009, that it would instead flash-cut WGNO's digital signal on the air upon the transition and instead carry WGNO's digital signal as a digital subchannel of WNOL in the interim.

From March 29, 2008, to June 12, 2009, WNOL's digital signal was divided into a high definition feed for WGNO on digital channel 15.1 (mapped to virtual channel 26.1) that transmitted in ABC's recommended 720p resolution format, while WNOL's digital feed transmitted in 480i standard definition on digital channel 15.2 (mapped as virtual channel 38.1); Cox Communications continued to carry an HD feed of WNOL (presented in 1080i) via a fiber-optic connection over the provider's HD tier to allow high definition broadcasts of CW network programming to continue in some form. When WGNO's analog signal was shut down on June 12, 2009, that station moved its programming to its newly separate digital channel on UHF 26, allowing WNOL to resume broadcasting HD programming in 1080i for the first time since August 2005.

On January 24, 2006, Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would launch The CW, a network developed as a joint venture between the two companies that initially featured a mix of programming from both The WB and UPN (the latter of which was acquired by CBS less than a month before the merger announcement on December 31, 2005, after its split from Viacom was finalized). The network signed a ten-year affiliation agreement with Tribune Broadcasting to affiliate with 16 of the 19 WB-affiliated stations that the company owned at the time, with WNOL being named as the New Orleans affiliate of the network. Channel 38 became a charter affiliate of The CW when the network commenced operations on September 18, 2006. UPN affiliate WUPL (channel 54), which was owned by CBS at the time (it is now owned by Tegna), became an affiliate of MyNetworkTV, a competing network developed by the Fox Television Stations and Twentieth Television subsidiaries of News Corporation.

Unusual for a duopoly, even after Tribune acquired WNOL, its operations remained separate from WGNO; the station continued to be based at a facility located on Canal Street. In February 2007, Tribune announced that rather than moving WGNO to WNOL's facility, that channel 26 would instead move to The Galleria building in nearby Metairie. As a result, WNOL merged its operations with WGNO within its studio space at the Galleria.

On April 1, 2012, Tribune Broadcasting removed all WNOL, WGNO, and its then 21 other television stations from satellite provider DirecTV due to a carriage dispute over an increase in payments to transmit the stations' signals. DirecTV signed a new carriage agreement with Tribune on April 4, 2012, restoring both stations as well as the other Tribune-owned stations on DirecTV.

On December 3, 2018, Irving, Texas-based Nexstar Media Group announced it would acquire Tribune's assets for $6.4 billion in cash and debt. The deal—which would make Nexstar the largest television station operator by total number of stations upon its expected closure late in the third quarter of 2019—would give the WGNO/WNOL duopoly additional sister stations in Baton Rouge (Fox affiliate WGMB-TV, CW affiliate WBRL-CD, independent station KZUP-CD and NBC-affiliated SSA partner WVLA-TV), Alexandria (Natchez, Mississippi-licensed Fox affiliate WNTZ-TV) and Lafayette (CBS affiliate KLFY-TV). Factoring in Nexstar's existing properties in Shreveport (NBC affiliate KTAL-TV, KSHV-TV [MyNetworkTV] and SSA partner KMSS-TV [Fox]) and Monroe (Fox affiliate KARD and NBC-affiliated SSA partner KTVE), the combined company would have television stations in every media market within the state of Louisiana, except for Lake Charles, as a result. The sale was approved by the FCC on September 16 and was completed on September 19, 2019.

Syndicated programs broadcast by WNOL-TV include Jerry Springer, How I Met Your Mother, Family Guy, Seinfeld, and Modern Family. Occasionally as time permits, WNOL may take on the responsibility of airing ABC network programs when WGNO is unable to in the event of extended breaking news or severe weather coverage (such as when major hurricanes affect the New Orleans area).

WGNO presently produces 16 hours of locally produced newscasts each week for WNOL-TV (with three hours each weekday and a half-hour each on Saturdays and Sundays). The station also carries other local programs produced by WGNO; the station airs rebroadcasts of WGNO's business program NOLA Marketplace seven days a week and that station's public affairs program The 411 on Sunday mornings (two hours after its original 6:30 a.m. broadcast on channel 26).

Sister station WGNO began producing a prime time newscast at 9:00 p.m. for WNOL-TV on May 1, 2006. The newscast, which airs for an hour on weeknights and a half-hour on weekends, competes with an hour-long in-house newscast on Fox affiliate WVUE-DT (channel 8) and a half-hour weeknight-only newscast on MyNetworkTV affiliate WUPL (the latter of which is produced by WWL-TV).

On July 7, 2010, WGNO began producing a two-hour extension of its weekday morning newscast for WNOL-TV. The program airs from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. and competes against the morning newscasts on WVUE-DT (channel 8) and WWL-TV (channel 4).