WSWG
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| WSWG (semi-satellite of WCTV Thomasville, Georgia / Tallahassee, Florida) |
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| Valdosta / Albany / Moultrie / Tifton, Georgia |
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| City of license | Valdosta, Georgia |
| Branding | Southwest Georgia's CBS WCTV Eyewitness News |
| Channels | |
| Subchannels | 44.1 CBS 44.2 MyNetworkTV |
| Owner | Gray Television (Gray Television Licensee, Inc.) |
| First air date | December 24, 1980 |
| Call letters’ meaning | SouthWest Georgia |
| Sister station(s) | WCTV |
| Former callsigns | WVGA (1980-1992) WGVP (1995-2001) WVAG (2001-2005) |
| Former channel number(s) | 44 (analog, 1980-1992 & 1995-2007) |
| Former affiliations | ABC (1980-1992) silent (1992-1995) The WB (1995-2001) UPN (2001-2006) |
| Transmitter Power | 50 kW |
| Height | 253 m |
| Facility ID | 28155 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | 31°10′18.9″N 83°21′57.1″W / 31.171917°N 83.365861°W |
| Website | wswg.tv |
WSWG is the CBS-affiliated television station for southwest Georgia that is licensed to Valdosta. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 43 from a transmitter in northeast Cook County. While there is no longer an over-the-air analog signal of the station, it can be seen on Mediacom cable channel 6 and in high definition on digital channel 811. Owned by Gray Television, the station has studios on 2nd Avenue Southwest in Moultrie. WSWG is sister station and semi-satellite of Tallahassee, Florida's CBS affiliate, WCTV.
Master control and most operations of WSWG are located at that station's studios on Halstead Boulevard along I-10 in Tallahassee. As a semi-satellite, it airs most of WCTV's non-network programming although sometimes at different times. There are also programs that only air on WSWG and some are only seen on WCTV. It also airs separate station identifications and commercials. WSWG operates the area's MyNetworkTV affiliate on its second digital subchannel. Like the main channel, WSWG-DT2 is a semi-satellite of WCTV-DT2 which is Tallahassee's MyNetworkTV affiliate. On cable, WSWG-DT2 is located on Mediacom channel 7.
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[edit] Digital television
The station's digital signal is multiplexed.
| Channel | Programming |
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| 43.1 | main WSWG programming / CBS HD |
| 43.2 | WSWG-DT2 MyNetworkTV SD |
[edit] History
Analog channel 44 first signed on December 24, 1980 (Christmas Eve) as WVGA, the ABC affiliate for southwest Georgia. Prior to that time, extreme central southern Georgia and extreme northern Florida were among the few in eastern part of the country without a clear over-the-air signal from ABC. The nearest stations (in Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Gainesville, and Columbus) only provide marginal signals to the region. At the time, ABC was the top network in the United States. WVGA was founded by Hi Ho Broadcasting who also owned fellow ABC affiliate WDHN in Dothan, Alabama. The station carried a typical slate of ABC and syndicated shows. In 1986, Hi Ho sold its stations to Morris Network, a broadcasting company owned by the Morris Newspaper Corporation. The station was unable to make any headway against long-dominant NBC affiliate WALB-TV or WCTV, and by the late-1980s, was in severe financial trouble.
WVGA shut down its news department, relied more on bartered and brokered programming / infomercials, and started to sign-off earlier (at Midnight) following Nightline. The station's owners originally planned on selling it to the owners of WTXL-TV in Tallahassee which would then have made WVGA a semi-satellite. However, that deal fell through. WVGA's fate was sealed in January 1992, when a plane crashed into its transmission tower and knocked the station off-the-air. Not having enough funds to rebuild the tower, Morris opted to close down WVGA instead. In 1994, Morris sold the channel 44 license to Hutchens Communications who reopened the station on October 20, 1995 as a WB affiliate with the calls WGVP. However, in 2001, when The WB insisted on going cable-only in most small markets (including Albany), WGVP affiliated with UPN and renamed itself WVAG. The station moved their studios to Moultrie where they remains today.
Hutchens sold WVAG to Padon Communications in 2004, who in turn, sold it to Gray Television soon afterward. Ironically, Gray had been the founder and longtime owner of WALB. Under Gray, the station was re-named WSWG and its operations were merged with those of now sister station WCTV in Tallahassee. Ironically, Gray had been the founder and original owner of rival WALB but was forced to sell it after buying WCTV because channel 6 provides a city-grade signal to most of the Georgia side of the Tallahassee market. On January 24, 2006, The WB and UPN announced that they would end broadcasting and merge. The new combined network would be called The CW. The letters would represent the first initial of its corporate parents, CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. On February 22, News Corporation announced that they would start up another new network called MyNetworkTV. This new service, which would be sister to FOX, would be operated by FOX Television Stations and its syndication division, Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created in order to give UPN and WB stations, not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates, another option besides becoming independent and compete against The CW.
On September 4, one day before MyNetworkTV launched, WSWG dropped UPN and became affiliated with CBS as a semi-satellite of WCTV. This created a strong combined signal with just under 50% overlap. WCTV had been the default CBS affiliate in Albany for many years. At one point in time, there was a plan where WSWG was to move CBS to a new second digital subchannel and keep UPN on analog. On the same day WSWG joined CBS, it started a new second subchannel that became the area's MyNetworkTV affiliate. Former WB 100+ affiliate WFXU became affiliated with The CW via The CW Plus on September 18.
On January 30, 2007, WSWG's analog signal on channel 44 went dark due to a damaged transmission line at the transmitter. Rather than incur the expense of restoring a signal that would only be temporary (analog broadcasting was due to end in the United States within two years), the station requested permission to surrender its analog license and broadcast only in digital on UHF channel 43. The FCC granted the request on one year later. However, unlike its old analog signal on channel 44, which operated at 1.7 million watts, digital channel 43 operates only at 50,000 in order to protect Alabama Public Television and PBS station WGIQ in Louisville, Alabama.
[edit] Newscasts
WSWG simulcasts every WCTV newscast except weeknights at 5. However, it has a separate news open. WCTV operates two news bureaus in southwest Georgia. This includes the Valdosta Bureau (on East Central Avenue) and the Thomasville Bureau (on North Broad Street). There are five WCTV personalities that cover the area but do not use WSWG branding. All WCTV newscasts originate from its studios on Halstead Boulevard along I-10 in Tallahassee. See that article for a complete listing of news personnel. Like WCTV-DT2, MyNetworkTV affiliate WSWG-DT2 airs an hour-long extension of the Good Morning Show on weekday mornings at 7.
- John Rogers - weekend morning anchor and Valdosta Bureau
- Jacqueline Ingles - Valdosta
- Kim Carapucci - Valdosta
- La’Tasha Givens - Thomasville
- Iram Ali - Thomasville
[edit] External links
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