New World Communications ownership
On May 23, 1994, as part of a broad deal that also saw News Corporation acquire a 20% equity interest in the company, New World Communications signed a long-term agreement to affiliate its nine CBS-, ABC- or NBC-affiliated television stations with Fox, which sought to strengthen its affiliate portfolio after the National Football League (NFL) accepted the network's $1.58 billion bid for the television rights to the National Football Conference (NFC) – a four-year contract that began with the 1994 NFL season – on December 18, 1993.[11] WAGA-TV was among the stations involved in the Fox agreement, which also initially included four of New World's other existing CBS-affiliated stations – WITI-TV, WJBK-TV, WJW-TV and WTVT – and four additional stations – CBS affiliate KSAZ-TV in Phoenix, ABC affiliates WBRC-TV in Birmingham and WGHP in High Point, North Carolina, and NBC affiliate WDAF-TV in Kansas City, Missouri — that were part of New World's concurrent $360-million acquisition of Great American Communications's television properties. (The agreement would subsequently be amended to include four additional stations that New World acquired later that month from Argyle Television Holdings.)[12][13][14] At the time, Fox's owned-and-operated and affiliate stations were mostly UHF outlets that had limited to no prior history as major network affiliates, among them its existing Atlanta outlet, WATL-TV (channel 36, now a MyNetworkTV affiliate), which the network's Fox Television Stations unit had acquired from Renaissance Broadcasting (during its acquisition of then-WATL parent Chase Broadcasting) in 1993. Although the network already owned WATL and was in the midst of planning to launch a local news department for channel 36, Fox found the prospect to having its programming carried on a VHF station too much to resist, considering that WAGA had a stronger market position and a long-respected local news operation. (At the time, channel 5 placed second, behind WSB-TV, in total day and news viewership.) As a result, Fox decided to include WAGA in the affiliation agreement with New World and have Fox Television Stations sell WATL.
With only a few months before WAGA was set to switch to Fox, CBS needed to find a new affiliate in what had become the nation's 10th largest media market. It approached all of Atlanta's major television stations to potentially reach an agreement. However, none of them were interested at first. CBS first approached WXIA-TV; however, its then-owner Gannett Broadcasting subsequently signed a long-term affiliation deal renewing its contract with WXIA and its sister NBC affiliates in Jacksonville, Minneapolis–St. Paul and Phoenix. WSB-TV was later eliminated as an option as its Atlanta-based owner, Cox Enterprises, would reach a new long-term agreement with ABC to retain its affiliation with that network.[15][16] WATL was eventually eliminated as Qwest Broadcasting (a joint venture between music producer Quincy Jones, former NFL defensive end Willie Davis, television producer Don Cornelius, television host Geraldo Rivera, and Tribune) announced in November that it would purchase WATL from Fox Television Stations as part of a two station, $167-million deal.[17]
By September 1994, with only a little more than two months left before channel 5 was slated to join Fox, CBS faced the prospect of having to pipe in WRBL in Columbus, WMAZ-TV in Macon, WSPA-TV in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and WDEF-TV in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for Atlanta-area cable customers until it found a new affiliate in the market. Almost out of desperation, on September 26, CBS made a deal to buy independent station WVEU (channel 69, now WUPA) for $46 million.[18][19] However, this was only a contingency, since WVEU's signal at the time barely made it outside of Atlanta itself and its closest-in suburbs, and it barely registered as a blip in the ratings. Even after it agreed to buy WVEU, CBS still sought to move its programming to a higher-profile station. It continued to negotiate with Tribune Broadcasting to reach a deal to affiliate with longtime independent station WGNX (channel 46, now WANF), which initially turned down CBS' offer to affiliate with the station; WGNX was especially attractive for the network since channel 46 was the only non-Big Three station in the Atlanta market that had a functioning news department. That November, Tribune relented and signed a deal with CBS to convert WGNX into the network's new Atlanta affiliate.
WAGA-TV officially became a Fox affiliate on December 11, 1994, when the network's programming lineup moved to the station from WATL; the first Fox network program to air on the station as a full-time affiliate was Fox NFL Sunday at noon Eastern Time that day, leading into that afternoon's NFL doubleheader: an early game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Los Angeles Rams and a mid-afternoon game between the San Francisco 49ers and the San Diego Chargers. (The affiliation switch involving WAGA, WGNX and WATL was originally slated to occur on November 27, but was delayed two weeks to allow Fox, New World and CBS to iron out the final details.)[25][26] Prior to the end of its 45-year affiliation with CBS, WAGA had been the network's longest-tenured affiliate south of Washington, D.C. (a title now held by Charlotte affiliate WBTV, which has carried CBS programming since it signed on the air on July 15, 1949, four months after WAGA); it was also the only station in Atlanta that did not change its primary affiliation. As a result, Atlanta became one of the few TV markets in the United States where all "Big Three" stations changed affiliations, having been affected by an earlier switch in 1980, when WSB became an ABC affiliate, and WXIA switched to NBC. WGNX concurrently took over the CBS affiliation, which necessitated the shift of a large number of the syndicated cartoons, drama series and sitcoms in its inventory over to WVEU – which had become a UPN affiliate when that network launched on January 16, 1995 – as channel 46 could not continue to accommodate many of these shows due to CBS's network-dominated programming lineup; as a result, WGNX became the only Atlanta television station that did not retain its entire existing syndicated programming lineup following the switch.
As with most of the other New World-owned stations affected by the affiliation agreement with Fox, WAGA-TV made little mention of the Fox logo and name in its on-air imaging at the outset. Instead, it retained the "Channel 5" branding it had used since 1991 (modified slightly from the "TV5" branding it had used for most of the 1980s). It also retained the Eyewitness News moniker it had used for its newscasts since July 1981. In addition to expanding its local news offerings at the time it joined Fox, the station replaced CBS daytime and late night programs that migrated to WGNX with an expanded slate of syndicated talk shows as well as some off-network sitcoms, game shows and documentary-based reality series, and also acquired some syndicated film packages and first-run and off-network syndicated drama series for broadcast in weekend afternoon timeslots on weeks when Fox did not provide sports programming; however, the revamped programming schedule – as was the case with most of New World's other Fox stations – relegated children's programs to weekend mornings only.
With the switch from WAGA to WGNX, CBS lost significant viewership in the northern portion of the Atlanta market. Despite its five million-watt analog signal, WGNX did not penetrate nearly as far into this area as WAGA did because of the relatively mountainous terrain that is found in that part of northern Georgia. At the time, much of this region was among the few areas in the United States where cable was still not readily available. CBS did not return over-the-air to this area until Toccoa's WNEG-TV (channel 32, now WGTA) joined CBS the following August. Although it was located in the Greenville–Spartanburg–Asheville market, WNEG served as the de facto CBS affiliate for the far northern portion of the Atlanta market as well as the Greenville–Spartanburg–Asheville market's western fringes until that station's sale to the University of Georgia in 2008. (WGNX's availability in this area increased through expanded cable and satellite distribution in subsequent years.) WGNX, which changed its call letters to WANF in 2022, would eventually lose its CBS affiliation on August 16, 2025, with the network moving to WUPA.
Fox Television Stations ownership
On July 17, 1996, News Corporation—which separated most of its entertainment holdings into 21st Century Fox in July 2013—announced that it would acquire New World in an all-stock transaction worth $2.48 billion. The purchase by News Corporation was finalized on January 22, 1997, folding New World's ten Fox affiliates into the former's Fox Television Stations subsidiary and making all twelve stations affected by the 1994 agreement owned-and-operated stations of the network. (The New World Communications name continues in use as a licensing purpose corporation—as "New World Communications of [state/city], Inc." or "NW Communications of [state/city], Inc."—for WAGA and its sister stations under Fox ownership, extending, from 2009 to 2011, to the former New World stations that Fox sold to Local TV in 2007.)[28][29][30]
At that time, Channel 5 became the third English language network-owned commercial station in the Atlanta market (Viacom, then-owner of UPN's Atlanta station WUPA, had acquired part-ownership of that network in 1996). It was also one of two stations that switched to Fox under the New World agreement that replaced an existing Fox O&O, only to later be sold to the network itself (in Dallas–Fort Worth, sister station KDFW-TV had replaced KDAF
