WBXX-TV

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WBXX-TV (East Tennessee's CW) is the CW affiliate in the Knoxville, Tennessee television market. Licensed to Crossville, Tennessee, the station serves the East Tennessee region, broadcasting from offices in Knoxville. It broadcasts on analog UHF channel 20 and digital channel 50. Its transmitter is located in Oliver Springs, Tennessee.

History

The station began operation in October 1997 as a WB affiliate. Originally billed as "WB20", it renamed itself as "East Tennessee's WB" in September 2003 as part of a nationwide rebranding push by The WB. During the 2001 and 2002 television seasons, it ran selected shows from the UPN lineup on weekends, as there was no UPN station in the market at that time. The station is owned and operated by ACME Communications.

WBXX was consistently one of the highest-rated WB stations in the country, and was recognized as such by the WB network.

On March 9, 2006, it was announced that WBXX would affiliate with The CW Television Network, as part of a group deal with the network and ACME Communications.

On July 28, 2006, during its FCC license renewal, it was admonished along with several other stations across the country for airing an ad in the Pokémon program for a Gameboy e-Reader that contained a fleeting image of a Pokemon card. [1]

Newscasts

WBXX currently airs two news programs. 10 News at 10 is co-production with WBIR, the Knoxville NBC affiliate. While many stations air a 10pm newscast, 10 News at 10 differs from these in that it is only ten minutes long, featuring primarily the top stories of the day, and a local weather forecast. The station's late-night programming has accordingly been shifted 10 minutes later.

Weekday mornings, the station airs The Daily Buzz, a three-hour news/entertainment show syndicated by the station's parent company.

Kids' Club

Beginning in 1998, the station aired a series of interstitials called "WB20 Kids Club" (later "The Dubba Clubba"), hosted by Joe Cool, who presented information and contests to viewers in several vignettes each weekday, covering topics such as science, biology, conservation, music, and pet care. Joe Cool was played by comedian Jackson Bailey. While popular with children, the program was a victim of its own success. Originally programmed as a way to fill time when the station was young and had available airtime inventory, rising ratings and increased demand from advertisers forced the producers to shorten the segments, and by 2003 the show was taken off the air due to a lack of available inventory.

Trivia

WBXX is the only full-powered Knoxville-market station to be licensed in a city in the Central Time Zone; Cumberland County (where Crossville is located) and Fentress County are the two counties in the Knoxville market that observe Central Time, one hour earlier than Knoxville, in Eastern Time. However, while WB programming has times given in Eastern and Central, local WBXX programming only has times given in Eastern.

External links

• East Tennessee's CW website
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