Construction battle
Interest around the use of channel 27 at Roanoke emerged again in the late 1970s and coalesced around two groups. The first group to express its interest was Roanoke Christian Broadcasting (RCB), which proposed a Christian station.[11] By June, three groups sought the channel: RCB, a second Christian group, and a consortium of businessmen[12] known as Western Virginia Television Corporation (WVTC).[13]
The entrance of WVTC into the latter caused two Christian groups—RCB and the Evangel Foursquare Church—to unite their efforts.[14] RCB and WVTC, the only two channel 27 applicants, fought not only in comparative hearing at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) but in Virginia courts, where WVTC alleged that RCB had plagiarized engineering data from its application.[15] Evangel Foursquare had separated from RCB by 1981, when the FCC approved the addition of channel 38 to Roanoke,[16] which would eventually be used by its WEFC beginning in January 1986.[17]
In June 1982, an FCC administrative law judge released an initial decision in favor of Roanoke Christian Broadcasting, with the primary deciding factor being the larger overlap of ownership and management in the RCB bid.[18] WVTC protested to the FCC Review Board, which upheld the initial decision; meanwhile, the plagiarism lawsuit was dismissed after a judge ruled insufficient evidence was presented, even though RCB admitted to copying nine pages of what it described as public domain engineering information.[19] The FCC's commissioners affirmed the permit grant to RCB in March 1984.[20]
WVFT: The Family Group years
Two years passed without activity on the channel. In March 1986, in an effort to get the station on air and citing the appeals from the original decision that had kept away investors, Roanoke Christian Broadcasting sold the permit to a partnership in which it owned five percent and the remainder was held by Family Group Broadcasting, a chain of independent stations based in Tampa, Florida.[21] Family Group began fitting out studios on Colonial Avenue Southwest in the Franklin-Colonial area of Roanoke, and the call letters WVFT (for "Western Virginia Family Television") were adopted.[22]
After delays in constructing its transmitter facility, WVFT began broadcasting on November 13, 1986, as the second independent in the Roanoke–Lynchburg market.[23] Its primary competitor was WJPR (channel 21) in Lynchburg, which had gone on the air that March.[24] After signing on, the station was sued by WVTF, a Roanoke public radio station owned by the
Merger with WJPR
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.[33] 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.[34]
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.[35] With regard to WJPR and WVFT, his arrest and indictment caused him to be unable to fulfill commitments required by the bankruptcy courts.
Grant ownership
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.[41] In October 1993, WVFT had its call letters changed to WFXR-TV.[42] Grant also upgraded the station's equipment, and the Fox network itself matured during the first years of Grant ownership.[43]
WJPR–WFXR became a secondary affiliate of The WB in 1999, when the network ceased airing its programming on Superstation WGN nationally.[44] 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,[45]
Nexstar ownership
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.[49][50][51][52]
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 sqft studio facility at the Valleypointe office park in northeastern Roanoke County, near Roanoke–Blacksburg Regional Airport.[53] WFXR and WWCW migrated their operations into the new facility—which cost $3 million to build—during the week of September 14, 2015.[54]
