WJZY

WJZY

Belmont / Charlotte, North Carolina
Branding	CW 46 (General) WBTV News at 10 on CW 46 (Newscasts)
Slogan	TV to Talk About & On Your Side
Channels	Digital: 47 (UHF) Virtual: 46 (PSIP)
Affiliations	The CW Antenna TV (DT2) The Country Network (DT3)
Owner	Capitol Broadcasting Company (WJZY-TV, Inc.)
First air date	March 9, 1987
Sister station(s)	WMYT-TV, WRAL-TV, WRAZ, WILM-LD
Former channel number(s)	46 (UHF analog, 1987-2009)
Former affiliations	Independent (1987-1995) UPN (1995-2006)
Transmitter power	1,000 kW
Height	554 m
Class	DT
Facility ID	73152
Transmitter coordinates	35°21′44.5″N 81°9′18.4″W
Website	wjzy.com

WJZY is the CW-affiliated television station for Charlotte, North Carolina licensed to Belmont. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 47 (virtual channel 46.1 via PSIP) from a transmitter in Dallas along the Catawba River. The station can also be seen on Time Warner Cable channel 8 and in high definition on digital channel 1146. Owned by the Capitol Broadcasting Company, the station is sister to MyNetworkTV affiliate WMYT-TV and the two share studios on Performance Road along I-85 in unincorporated western Mecklenburg County. Syndicated programming on WJZY includes Two and a Half Men, Family Guy, Seinfeld, and The New Adventures of Old Christine among others.

History

WJZY logo from 2009-2011, under the branding "Charlotte's WJZY".

The station signed on March 9, 1987 as an Independent on analog channel 46. It was the first new full-power station in the Charlotte area since WCTU-TV (now WCNC-TV) launched in 1967. The station was originally licensed as WMHU, but prior to the official launch in 1986, changed its calls to WJZY in November because no Charlotte-area station had ever used a "J" or a "Z" in its call-sign before^{[citation needed]}. Former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt was part of the original ownership company, Metro-Crescent Communications. The station originally ran a format of cartoons, westerns, old movies, and drama shows. Almost immediately, WJZY displaced Washington, D.C.'s WDCA on area cable systems. That regional super station had been available in the Charlotte area since cable television arrived in the early 1970's.

Less than a year later, the Capitol Broadcasting Company (owner of WRAL-TV in Raleigh) bought WJZY. At that time, classic sitcoms, more recent off-network sitcoms, and more recent movies were added. It became a charter UPN affiliate on January 16, 1995. Starting in the mid-1990s, it added more talk and reality shows and moved away from classic sitcoms and movies. In 2003, the kids' shows were dropped after UPN ended its Disney children block.

At one point, WJZY was tied with UPN owned-and-operated station in Atlanta, Georgia (WUPA) as the network's fifth-strongest outlet. It was the over-the-air home of NBA's Charlotte Hornets from 1992 until the team left for New Orleans, Louisiana in 2002, and of the Charlotte Bobcats from 2004 until the games moved to WMYT in 2006. WJZY also occasionally airs Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) football and basketball games that CBS affiliate WBTV does not carry. The station began transmitting its network programming with a high definition digital signal in September 2002.

On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced the two networks would end broadcasting and merge. The new combined service would be called The CW. On March 1, Capitol Broadcasting announced that WJZY would affiliate with The CW, making it the first CW affiliate not owned by the Tribune Company or CBS. In addition, sister station WMYT affiliated with MyNetworkTV, making Capitol Broadcasting the first company to own CW and MyNetworkTV affiliates in the same market. The station changed its branding to "CW 46," although an earlier plan was to change the branding to "CW 8"

From summer 2009 to September 12, 2011, the station branded itself as "Charlotte's WJZY," de-emphasizing its network identity and repositioning itself as more of a "local" station. It returned to the "CW 46" branding on September 12, 2011, without the call-sign.

Late in the evening on March 28, 2010, a severe thunderstorm with strong winds blew trees down causing damage to its transmission building owned by CBC Real Estate, Incorporated. The tower is 2,000 feet tall and hosts this station and three FM radio outlets (WNKS 95.1, WIBT 96.1, and WPEG 97.9).

Digital Television

Channel	Name	Video	Aspect	Programming
46.1	WJZY-HD	1080i	16:9	Main WJZY Programming / The CW
46.2	Antenna	480i	4:3	Antenna TV
46.3	TCN			The Country Network

After the DTV transition on June 12, 2009, WJZY-DT continued broadcasting on channel 47. However through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display its virtual channel as 46. On that date, the station ended regular analog broadcasting, switching to "nightlight" service on channel 46, acting as the official "nightlight" station for the Charlotte market until July 6.

Antenna TV was added to 46.2 on July 22, 2011, although the original launch date was July 25. On December 7, 2011, a third subchannel was added with programming from SonLife Broadcasting Network (SBN), which also aired on WMYT-DT3. On January 24, 2012, WJZY replaced SBN with The Country Network, but technical issues kept WJZY from broadcasting The Country Network full-time until January 31.

Out-of-market cable carriage

In recent years, WJZY has been carried on cable in multiple areas outside of the Charlotte media market. That includes cable systems within the Greensboro market in North Carolina, the Asheville market in North Carolina and South Carolina, the Columbia market in South Carolina, and the Tri-Cities market in Tennessee.

Newscasts

Nightly news open.

CBS affiliate WBTV produces a nightly 10 PM newscast on WJZY. In the November 2011 ratings sweeps period, this broadcast was a distant third behind WCCB and the WAXN newscast produced by WSOC.

External links

• WJZY
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WJZY