WTXF-TV

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WTXF-TV
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Branding	Fox 29
Slogan	Local First
Channels	29 (UHF) analog, 42 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	Fox (since 1986)
Owner	Fox Television Stations
Founded	May 16, 1965
Call letters meaning	TVX and TaFt (former owners, partially through former callsign WTAF-TV)
Former callsigns	WIBF-TV (1965-1969) WTAF-TV (1969-1988)
Former affiliations	Independent (1965-1986) NBC (alternate affiliation) (1966-1976) ABC (alternate affiliation) (1978-1991)
Transmitter Power	5000 kW/347 m (analog) 305 kW/161 m (digital)
Website	www.myfoxphilly.com

WTXF-TV, channel 29, is an owned-and-operated station of the News Corporation-owned Fox Broadcasting Company, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. From studios in downtown Philadelphia and transmitter located in the Roxborough section of the city, the station's signal covers the Delaware Valley area (Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware).

Contents 1 History 1.1 Trivia 1.2 Logos 2 Newscasts 2.1 Reporters 3 Past Personalities 4 See also 5 External links

[edit] History

The station signed on the air on May 16, 1965 as independent station WIBF-TV out of nearby Jenkintown, owned by brothers William, Irwin, and Benjamin Fox. The Fox brothers had already been operating WIBF-FM (103.9 MHz., now WPPZ) for several years. The new UHF television station was located in the basement of the family's Benson East apartment building on Old York Road in Jenkintown. WIBF-TV was the first of three UHF independents in the Philadelphia market to sign-on during 1965, with WPHL-TV (channel 17) and WKBS-TV (channel 48) arriving in September.

WIBF-TV struggled at first, in part because it signed on only a year after the Federal Communications Commission required television manufacturers to include UHF tuning capability. In 1969, the Fox brothers sold the station to the Cincinnati-based Taft Television and Radio Company. Taft already owned WNEP-TV (channel 16) in Scranton, a station whose signal overlapped with channel 29 in the Lehigh Valley area north of Philadelphia. Taft sought a waiver to keep both stations, since the FCC at that time did not allow common ownership of two stations with overlapping coverage areas, even if they were in different markets. The FCC initially granted the waiver [1], but later reversed itself and forced Taft to sell WNEP as a condition of buying WIBF-TV.

Taft assumed control of channel 29 in mid-1969 and changed the calls to WTAF-TV (for TAFt). Under Taft's ownership, WTAF soon established itself as a local powerhouse. By the start of the 1980s, WTAF had passed WKBS as Philadelphia's leading independent station. When WKBS left the air in the late summer of 1983, the station placed advertisements in TV Guide and local papers reminding Philadelphia viewers that channel 29 was still around and that channel 48's former audience was welcome to sample channel 29. But interestingly, the station passed on picking up any of channel 48's shows, most of which went to WPHL-TV.

WTAF-TV was also a strong sports station, having secured broadcast rights to the Philadelphia Phillies (Taft also owned a small portion of the team for much of the 1980s), the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers and the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers at various points. In the 1980s, the station also aired network shows that NBC's then-affiliate KYW-TV and ABC station WPVI-TV preempted in favor of local programming. In the spring of 1986, channel 29 added a 10 p.m. newscast, the second attempt in the market, and the most successful. In the fall of that same year, WTAF-TV became a charter affiliate of the fledgling Fox network.

As part of a group deal, all of Taft's independent and Fox-affiliated stations, including WTAF, were sold to the Norfolk, Virginia-based TVX Broadcast Group in February 1987. A year later, the new owners changed the station's call letters to the current WTXF-TV. The Taft purchase created a large debt load for TVX, and as a result the company sold a number of its smaller stations. Paramount Pictures purchased a minority stake in TVX in 1989. A year later, after calling itself TV-29 for many years, the station changed its on-air branding to Fox 29.

In 1991, Paramount acquired the remainder of TVX which it did not own, and the company's name was changed to Paramount Stations Group, with WTXF as its largest-market station. Viacom gained control of the stations as part of its purchase of Paramount Pictures in 1993. In 1994 Viacom announced plans to create a new network service, the United Paramount Network, which it would co-own with Chris-Craft Industries. The initial affiliation plans called for WTXF dropping Fox and becoming the Philadelphia outlet for the new network, which would launch in January 1995. Though Fox received no official notification from Viacom that the affiliation would be cancelled, Fox made a preliminary deal to buy rival station WGBS-TV (channel 57, now WPSG). Signs of the planned switch began showing up at the start of the 1994-95 season, when WTXF began calling itself simply "29".

The planned move coincided with the biggest affiliation shuffle in Philadelphia television history. In the spring of 1994, CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting, owners of KYW-TV, had entered into a long-term affiliation agreement, which resulted in KYW-TV dropping NBC in favor of CBS. CBS would then sell its longtime owned-and-operated station, WCAU-TV. Several months earlier, Fox entered into a multi-station, multi-year partnership with New World Communications. New World and NBC emerged as the leading bidders for WCAU, with New World intending to switch WCAU to Fox if it emerged victorious. Fox later cancelled its preliminary deal to purchase WGBS and joined the bidding for WCAU, which was eventually sold to NBC. During this time, Viacom/Paramount changed its Philadelphia plans and decided to sell WTXF to Fox, a sale which was finalized in September 1995. Almost simultaneously, Viacom bought WGBS and made it the market's UPN station.

Fox assumed control of WTXF in September 1995. As a Fox owned-and-operated station, WTXF immediately added more first run talk and reality shows to the schedule. In 1996, morning cartoons were dropped in favor of a weekday morning newscast, Good Day Philadelphia. Throughout the mid-to-late 1990s, WTXF was available nationally on satellite as the east coast Fox feed, most notably on PrimeStar.

The station ID was changed to Fox Philadelphia in 1995, but in 2003 reverted back to Fox 29 because of confusion with the Fox News Channel. WTXF also underwent a major overhaul of its building and studios in Old City Philadelphia, with a "Window on the World" type studio making its debut on June 6, 2005.

In areas of New Jersey where the Philadelphia and New York City markets overlap, WTXF shares resources with New York sister stations WNYW and WWOR-TV. The stations share reporters for stories occurring in New Jersey. It is expected that, at the end of October or early November 2006 (depending on when the second studio is finished construction), WTXF will expand its news operations to include a one-hour 5pm newscast, enabling channel 29 to go head-to-head with two of the three other network-owned stations. The Ten O'Clock News Anchors Dawn Stensland and Dave Huddleston are expected to anchor it. Also, on Monday, October 9, 2006, WTXF added a half-hour 11am newscast to its lineup. It is called "First News at Eleven". Good Day Philadelphia anchors Kerri-Lee Halkett and George Mallet anchor the 11am newscast.

Eventually, WTXF-TV will overhaul its on-air look, adopting a logo and graphics similar to that of other Fox O&O stations, including WTVT, WNYW, and WHBQ (see logo gallery below). Channel 29 is also expanding its facilities to include a new studio for its newscasts. The "Window of the World" studio was originally intended for Good Day Philadelphia. On October 1, 2006 the station became the second station in Philadelphia to broadcast its local news programs in high definition.

[edit] Trivia

Philadelphia is the largest television market where My Network TV was not awarded to a Fox owned-and-operated station, as the affiliation is with WPHL-TV. As a result, WTXF does not have secondary affiliation with the network.

[edit] Logos

WTAF-TV ident from 1985-87. The "29" numeric logo was used from the late 1970s until the sale to Fox in 1995.	WTXF-TV logo from 1989-90	WTXF-TV logo from 1991-92; first logo under Paramount ownership	WTXF-TV logo from 1992-95
WTXF-TV logo from 1995-2003	The present Fox 29 logo	Future Fox 29 logo; Logo style is slowly being integrated to all Fox O&Os

[edit] Newscasts

• Good Day Philadelphia - Monday-Friday 5:00-9:00 a.m.

George Mallet & Sharon Crowley

• First News at Eleven - Monday-Friday 11:00-11:30 a.m.

Sharon Crowley & George Mallet

• Fox 29 Five O'Clock News- Monday-Friday 5:00-6:00 p.m.(debuts 1/22/07)

Kerri-Lee Halkett

• Fox 29 Ten O'Clock News - every night 10:00-11:00 p.m.

Dawn Stensland & Dave Huddleston (m-f) Joyce Evans & Tom Burlington (weekend)

Weather Anchors:

• David Aldrich
• Rob Guarino
• Sue Serio

Sports Anchors:

• Don Tollefson
• Bill Vargus

[edit] Reporters

• John Atwater
• Jeff Cole
• Claudia Gomez
• Bruce Gordon
• Steve Keeley

• Gerald Kolpan

• Dorothy Krysiuk
• Dr. Brian McDonough
• Dave Schratwieser

• Robin Taylor

[edit] Past Personalities

• Donya Archer
• Frank Cariello
• Linda Carson, wife of former Philadelphia Eagles assistant and NFL coach Bud Carson
• Chris Cimino
• Howard Eskin
• Christian Farr
• Mike Jerrick
• Tina Kim
• Rich Noonan
• Dave Price
• Nick Smith

[edit] See also

• WTXF-TV Anchors
• WTXF-TV Reporters

[edit] External links

• WTXF-TV Website
• Photos of WTXF's studio
• report of WTXF's studio
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WTXF-TV
• Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia
• WTAF-TV/WTXF-TV historical clips on TV-Ark