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Fox Television Stations, Inc.

Type	Division of News Corporation
Industry	Television
Predecessor(s)	Metromedia New World Communications BHC Communications/ United Television
Founded	April 1986
Headquarters	New York City USA
Key people	Rupert Murdoch (founder) Jack Abernethy (CEO)[1]
Owner(s)	21st Century Fox
Website	Website

Fox Television Stations, Inc. is a group of television stations located within the United States which are owned-and-operated by the Fox Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of the Fox Entertainment Group, part of 21st Century Fox. FTS also produces the Fox program COPS and overseees distribution wing 20th Television as well as MyNetworkTV.

History[edit]

Fox Television Stations was formed in April 1986 after the acquisition of the Metromedia-owned independent stations by the 20th Century Fox film studio, at the time jointly owned by Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, and Denver-based billionaire Marvin Davis. These stations would later become the basis of the Fox television network, which launched in October 1986. Not long after the Metromedia deal was made, Murdoch purchased Davis's shares and News Corporation assumed complete control of 20th Century Fox.

Initially FTS was a semi-autonomous unit in which News Corporation owned over 99 percent of the equity but only 24 percent of the voting power; the balance was held personally by Murdoch.^[2] Federal Communications Commission regulations of that era prohibited foreign interests or non-American citizens from controlling more than 25 percent of an FCC-licensed broadcast station. Though News Corporation was still based in Australia, Murdoch had become a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1985, and the nominal transfer of a majority voting interest to Murdoch was sufficient to get around this hurdle. The quirk was removed permanently when News Corporation reincorporated in the U.S. in 2004.^[3] The Fox network itself and affiliated cable channels were not affected by these regulations.

Starting with the original six stations, Fox Television Stations gained the bulk of its group through two large transactions: the 1997 purchase of New World Communications, succeeding a 1994 business deal between the two companies which led to all of New World's stations switching from other networks to Fox during 1994-95;^[4] and the 2001 acquisition of the Chris-Craft/United group, which gave Fox ownership of several stations then affiliated with the UPN network, and also created several duopolies (two stations in the same market owned by the same company).

The Fox-owned UPN affiliates were not included in the UPN/WB merger (The CW), which was announced on January 24, 2006. Soon after, these stations removed references to UPN from their on-air branding and websites. On February 22, 2006, Fox Television Stations announced that all of their non-Fox outlets will be charter affiliates of a new service known as MyNetworkTV [1], which commenced operations on September 5, 2006.

On December 21, 2007, FTS announced that it would sell nine of its stations to Local TV, LLC, a division of Oak Hill Capital Partners.^[5] Six of the stations that were sold are ex-New World stations. The transaction was completed in 2008.

On January 28, 2013, FTS announced it would be acquiring the Charlotte duopoly of CW affiliate WJZY and MyNetworkTV affiliate WMYT-TV from Capitol Broadcasting Company.^[6] The deal was approved by the FCC on March 11^[7] and completed on April 17.^[8][9] As part of the deal, WJZY will become a Fox owned-and-operated station on July 1.

Partnerships with NBC Local Media, E. W. Scripps and CBS[edit]

On November 13, 2008 Fox Television Stations and NBC Local Media, the station division of NBCUniversal, announced the formation of a partnership that will allow Fox-owned stations and NBC-owned stations to pool their news resources. The partnership is first being tested in the Philadelphia market, where Fox owns WTXF-TV and NBC operates WCAU-TV. The two stations are the first network affiliates in the nation to undertake the plan as an effective way to deal with rising in costs in news operations.

The service is scheduled to roll out later in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Dallas/Fort Worth and Washington, D.C., each a market in which Fox owns and operates two stations and NBC owns and operates an English-language station. ^{[10] [11][12][13][14]}

On April 1, 2009, Fox Television Stations announced a similar arrangement with the broadcast division of the E.W. Scripps Company, which covers markets where the two entities own stations: Detroit, Phoenix and Tampa/St. Petersburg. (title)

On May 19, 2009, WFXT in Boston announced a video-sharing agreement with that city's CBS-owned station, WBZ-TV. The stations will share video for general market news, along with a helicopter for traffic reports and breaking news. (title)

Stations[edit]

Stations are arranged alphabetically by state and city of license. Currently (as of 2013) a total of 29 stations, consisting of 17 Fox stations, 10 MyNetworkTV stations, and one CW affiliate.

Notes:
1) ** -- Indicates an original Fox-owned station from the network's inception in 1986;
2) ++ -- Indicates a station owned by New World Communications prior to its acquisition by News Corporation in 1997;
3) ¤¤ -- Indicates a station owned by Chris-Craft Industries/BHC prior to its acquisition by News Corporation in 2001;

Former[edit]

Footnotes:

• ¹ WCVB-TV was included in the original sale of the Metromedia stations to News Corporation, but was spun off in a separate, concurrent deal to the Hearst Corporation as part of a right of first refusal related to that station's 1982 acquisition by Metromedia.

On a side note, in between the events of Fox acquiring its original charter affiliates and the New World affiliation agreement, only WTXF, WFXT, KDVR, WOFL, KSTU and WOGX were already affiliated with Fox when they were acquired much later on.

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Official listing of FTSG stations