WNBW-DT (channel 9) is a

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the eart ...

in Gainesville, Florida, United States, affiliated with

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

. It is owned by MPS Media, which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) with New Age Media, owner of

High Springs High Springs is a city in Alachua County, Florida, United States. It is the fourth-largest city in Alachua County and seventh-largest in North Central Florida. The population was 6,215 at the 2020 census. History The present-day area of High S ...

–licensed dual

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

MyNetworkTV MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as My Network) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its ...

affiliate

WGFL WGFL (channel 28) is a television station licensed to High Springs, Florida, United States, serving the Gainesville area as an affiliate of CBS and MyNetworkTV. It is owned by New Age Media alongside low-power, Class A Antenna TV affiliate ...

(channel 28) and low-power, Class A

Antenna TV Antenna TV is an American digital television network owned by Nexstar Media Group. The network's programming consists of classic television series, primarily sitcoms, from the 1950s to the 1990s. Antenna TV's programming and advertising operati ...

affiliate

WYME-CD WYME-CD, virtual channel 45 (UHF digital channel 27), is a low-powered, Class A Antenna TV- affiliated television station licensed to Gainesville, Florida, United States. Owned by New Age Media, it is sister to two full-power stations: High S ...

(channel 45), for the provision of certain services. All three stations, in turn, are operated under a master service agreement by the

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, ...

. The stations share studios on Northwest 80th Boulevard (along

I-75 Interstate 75 (I-75) is a major north–south Interstate Highway in the Great Lakes and Southeastern regions of the United States. As with most Interstates that end in 5, it is a major cross-country, north–south route, traveling from St ...

/ SR 93) in Gainesville and transmitter facilities on Southwest 30th Avenue near

Newberry Newberry is a surname, a variant of Newbury. Notable people with the surname include: * Booker Newberry III (born 1956), American singer and keyboardist * Brennan Newberry (born, 1990), American professional stock car racing driver * Brian Newb ...

. WNBW-DT began broadcasting on the final day of 2008 and was the first in-market NBC affiliate serving Gainesville since 1973, with NBC affiliates from

Orlando Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures re ...

and

Jacksonville Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the List of United States cities by area, largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the co ...

carried on cable serving as the primary source of the network's programming for the city. MPS Media, a virtual duopoly partner of New Age Media, owned the station and contracted with New Age to operate it. In 2014, Sinclair began providing many operational services for the New Age stations in lieu of an attempted purchase of most of the company. WGFL and WNBW simulcast the same local newscasts.

History

In June 2008, WGFL announced that it would be launching a new digital-only television station on September 8, utilizing a construction permit that had been filed for in 1996 as analog channel 29 and approved in 2005. Construction required the early termination of analog service from WGFL on July 28. New Age Media officially launched WNBW-DT on December 31, 2008, at 11:30 p.m. through an LMA with MPS Media, New Age's typical partner in such projects, which purchased the permit from its original owner, Pegasus Communications. On that date, WNBW began regular programming, bringing local NBC service back to Gainesville since

WCJB-TV WCJB-TV (channel 20) is a television station in Gainesville, Florida, United States, affiliated with ABC and The CW Plus. Owned by Gray Television, the station maintains studios on Northwest 43rd Street in Gainesville, and its transmitter is ...

switched its affiliation from the network to

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

in 1973. Cable homes in the station's service area had been served by

WESH Wesh or WESH may refer to: *Wesh in Spin Boldak, Kandahar province, Afghanistan *Wesh–Chaman border crossing The Wesh–Chaman border crossing is one of the major international border crossings between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Located on the ...

from

and

WTLV WTLV (channel 12) is a television station in Jacksonville, Florida, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Orange Park–licensed ABC affiliate WJXX (channel 25). Both stations share studios on East Adams Stre ...

from

; MPS estimated 32,000 homes in Gainesville went unserved by the network prior to launching WNBW. It holds rights to enforce blackouts on out-of-market stations carrying NBC and syndicated programming such as WESH in Orlando, which originally served Gainesville and Ocala as the ''de facto'' affiliate. Cox Communications began offering WNBW to Gainesville-area cable subscribers on channel 9 beginning January 16, 2009, and it began blacking out WESH during network programming that July. Originally, WNBW indicated it would eventually air some local programming including local newscasts by the end of 2009, a requirement of its affiliation agreement. On September 25, 2013, New Age Media announced that it would sell most of its stations, including WGFL and WMYG-LP, to the

. Concurrently, MPS Media planned to sell WNBW-DT to Cunningham Broadcasting; the station would have continued to be operated by WGFL. On October 31, 2014, MPS Media requested the dismissal of its application to sell WNBW-DT; the next day, Sinclair purchased the non-license assets of the stations it planned to buy from New Age Media and began operating them through a master service agreement. On July 28, 2021, the FCC issued a forfeiture order stemming from a lawsuit against MPS Media. The lawsuit, filed by

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...

, alleged that MPS Media failed to negotiate for retransmission consent in good faith for the stations. Owners of other Sinclair-managed stations, such as

Deerfield Media Deerfield Media, Inc. is a broadcasting company and a shell corporation owned and operated by Stephen P. Mumblow. It was established on December 1, 2012 by the acquisition of several television stations connected to the Sinclair Broadcast Group. ...

, were also named in the lawsuit. MPS was ordered to pay a fine of $512,288.

Newscasts

WGFL and WNBW simulcast ''CBS 4 News'', which produces 6:00 and 11:00 p.m. newscasts for the Gainesville area and cut-ins during the stations' respective national morning shows. The news service was known as ''GTN News'' until 2016 and produced by

Independent News Network News HUB (formerly known as Independent News Network) is a production company based in Little Rock, Arkansas, which syndicates "localized" news programs for broadcast television stations in the United States, that have budgets limiting their ...

in Davenport, Iowa. The newscasts are currently presented from Sinclair's

WPEC WPEC (channel 12) is a television station in West Palm Beach, Florida, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Fort Pierce–licensed CW affiliate WTVX (channel 34) and two low-power, Class A s ...

West Palm Beach West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

: Until June 3, 2015, WYME-CD did not air a digital signal, as with the case of many Class A stations. WYME-CD is also broadcast as WNBW's fourth subchannel. As part of the repacking process following the 2016–2017 FCC incentive auction, WNBW shifted from transmitting on channel 9 to channel 8 on May 1, 2020.

References

External links