New Over-The-Air TV Station Available

July 23, 2010

There’s a new viewing choice in the local television market. WFGX MyTV 35 is now broadcasting from WEAR TV 3’s tower in Baldwin County, providing a strong over-the-air signal in the North Escambia area.

WFGX offers MyNetworkTV programming from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m. with such popular programs as “WWE: Smackdown”, “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?”, “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” and “The Unit”.

The station also airs movies from ThisTV throughout the day and  with the programs “Jerry Springer”, “Maury Povich”, “Inside Edition” and “Extra” on weekdays. During the weekend, WFGX airs “Desperate Housewives”, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Bones”.

The station is available over-the-air as channel 35.1 (physically on channel 50) in standard definition.

“Sometime in early August we will be changing to a High-Definition signal only,” said Joe Smith, WEAR/WFGX operations manager.  In the near future, the station will add “TheCoolTV”,  a music station, on a second digital channel.

In order to view WFGX, viewers using an antenna to receive over-the-air TV should use the “re-scan” feature on their digital TV or DTV converter box.  WFGX is also carried on Cox Cable in Pensacola and Fort Walton Beach, and Mediacom in Gulf Breeze and Milton. WFGX is not currently carried on other area cable systems or satellite services.

“Viewers with cable or satellite should contact those companies asking them to provide WFGX MyTV 35,” Smith said.

WFGX has been on the air since 1987, but was previously available to viewers in the Fort Walton Beach area. With the move to WEAR’s tower near Robertsdale, the station is now available in the entire Mobile-Pensacola television market.

Comments

12 Responses to “New Over-The-Air TV Station Available”

  1. mary on July 25th, 2010 5:31 pm

    I have DISH satellite..do I have to get my rescanned or I dont get the chance to have this channel???

  2. Mario500 on July 24th, 2010 8:46 am

    The only program I’m most interested in watching is “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” from ThisTV, which has WFGX-TV has an affiliate. I wish a station in Mobile had affiliated with ThisTV before WFGX-TV, which could have been better off serving Fort Walton Beach independently if it were not for the alliance with WEAR-TV, a station I dislike for its strange programming practices (airing “Nightline” after 11:00 PM since about 1984, not airing “Jimmy Kimmel Live” until two years after the program began, pre-emptions of network programming, never airing an episode of “Port Charles”, and not airing “World News” on weekends).

    A station operating in Mobile could have gotten the local broadcast rights to “The Jerry Springer Show”, “The Maury Povich Show”, and “Inside Edition” from WFGX-TV after WEAR-TV stopped broadcasting them regularly (WEAR-TV only airs the weekend edition of “Inside Edition”).

    “Friday Night SmackDown” will be moving to the cable/satellite TV network formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel by October. Even if WFGX-TV had not gotten a new broadcast site, folks in southwest Alabama interested in the program still would have gotten access to the program again.

    WFGX-TV’s broadcasting for the entire designated market area may mean more varieties of programming for some folks, but the alliance with WEAR-TV does not make it very unique or independent. Alliances between local TV stations are not always good, as they tend to share programs. WFGX-TV may be interesting now, but beware of the usual consequences of sharing the same owners and facility of another TV station. There is a chance of WFGX-TV losing its affiliation with ThisTV and the station would be no more interesting than other stations in the broadcast area and the move of WFGX-TV’s transmitter to Robertsdale would be viewed as a waste of time by more folks.

  3. yohann on July 23rd, 2010 11:57 pm

    Hallalullia! a good strong signal for my tired old antenna TV. Don’t give a rip about talk shows nor rasselin’, but today I watched a movie ! The commercials were not too terribly long either, not as long and the major s ABC< CBS< NBC<FOX. Not as long as the PBS interim ads either. I watch lots of PBS.
    THANKS TV guy! Maybe you'll program some oldies not aired on RetRo TV, 5.3.
    How do I get a TV schedule on the web for 35.1?

  4. bwayne on July 23rd, 2010 11:57 pm

    We already get all those programs listed thru Brighthouse. They are just repeats of ones already offered, and not worth the air time.

  5. Bill M on July 23rd, 2010 10:54 pm

    More of the same old crap. Why bother?

  6. John Parker on July 23rd, 2010 2:31 pm

    Well those who do not have cable television have a new station to tune in on. But for those who say it is the same old garbage on every other channel, why not tune into PBS or go to the public library? Stations that air commercials are in the business to make money. Original content and original formats probably don’t make much money for stations because advertisers don’t want that type of programming.

  7. YELLARHAMMER on July 23rd, 2010 12:54 pm

    I wonder how Mediacom will address this because of the love hate relationship.

  8. William on July 23rd, 2010 11:55 am

    From wikipedia:

    …This option gives full-powered stations the right to request compensation from cable systems as a condition of carrying them. In this case, Sinclair has the right to require cable systems to carry WFGX as a condition of carrying WEAR.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WFGX

  9. Jerry on July 23rd, 2010 11:53 am

    Wendy, maybe Brighthouse has decided that WFGX does not offer any programming that is worthwhile. Cable systems are not required to carry local low broadcast channels and WFGX is a low broadcast channel.

  10. EMD on July 23rd, 2010 10:56 am

    whitepunknotondope,

    Thank you. I agree 100%. Why not have something decent, clean, funny, educational, relaxing, original. Why would anyone want just more of the same old garbage? What is the point?

  11. Wendy on July 23rd, 2010 10:54 am

    Brighthouse is refusing to add the new channel. I thought Florida consumer protection laws required cable companies to carry all of the local broadcast channels.

  12. whitepunknotondope on July 23rd, 2010 8:21 am

    But they’re recycling junk you can see on other channels.

    Maury Povich? Jerry Springer? Grey’s Anatomy? Law & Order: Criminal Intent? COME ON!!!

    How about some original content or an original format? I wouldn’t waste one ad dollar on this recycled garbage.

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News