high point north carolina . for the radio station in detroit michigan that initially held the wghp call letters until 1930 see wxyt am . wghp high point greensboro winston salem north carolina united states city high point north carolina branding fox8 general fox8 news newscasts tv 8.2 dt2 slogan start local . stay local . channels digital 35 uhf virtual 8 psip subchannels 8.1 fox 8.2 antenna tv 8.3 this tv affiliations fox since 1995 owner tribune broadcasting wghp license llc first air date october 14 1963 1963 10 14 call letters meaning winston salem greensboro high point former channel number s analog 8 vhf 1963 2009 digital 8 vhf 2009 2010 former affiliations abc 1963 1995 transmitter power 1000 kw height 365 m facility id 72106 transmitter coordinates 35 48 46.5 n 79 50 28.1 w 35.812917 n 79.841139 w 35.812917 ; 79.841139 licensing authority fcc public license information profile cdbs website www.myfox8.com wghp virtual channel 8 uhf digital channel 35 is a fox affiliated television station serving the piedmont triad region including greensboro winston salem and its city of license high point north carolina united states . the station is owned by the tribune broadcasting subsidiary of the tribune media company . wghp maintains studio facilities located on francis street just outside downtown high point and its transmitter is located in sophia . the station is carried on channel 10 on cable providers throughout much of the market . contents 1 history 1.1 as an abc station 1.2 as a fox station 2 digital television 2.1 digital channels 2.2 tv8 .2 2.3 this8 .3 2.4 analog to digital conversion 3 programming 4 news operation 4.1 notable former on air staff 5 out of market cable and satellite carriage 6 references 7 external links history edit as an abc station edit in 1958 the federal communications commission assigned a third vhf channel frequency to the piedmont triad area . the channel 8 allocation was freed up by the move of florence south carolina s wbtw to channel 13 and was short spaced to wchs tv in charleston west virginia and wxex tv now wric tv in petersburg virginia . applicants for the high point channel 8 allocation included jefferson standard broadcasting owner of wbtv in charlotte and wbtw . the owner of wtob tv channel 26 ; whose channel allocation is now occupied by wunl tv in winston salem was also interested . 1 southern broadcast company was awarded the license and signed on wghp on october 14 1963 . it originally operated as an abc affiliate taking the affiliation from both wfmy tv channel 2 and wsjs tv channel 12 now wxii tv which shared secondary affiliations with the network starting in 1953 wfmy carried the network from its 1949 sign on . wghp s original studios were located inside the sheraton hotel on north main street in downtown high point . the station occasionally declined some network programs ; for example it chose to preempt the paranormal themed drama series dark shadows during its network run on abc choosing to run classic movies instead . 2 likewise it did not carry the soap opera the edge of night during its 1975 to 1984 run . in its last years as an abc affiliate wghp aired nightline on a 30 minute delay in favor of running syndicated programs most notably m a s h. wghp was subsequently sold to gulf broadcasting in 1978 . gulf then sold the station to taft broadcasting as part of a group deal in 1984 . that same year the station moved to its current location on francis street outside of downtown high point . on october 12 1987 taft was restructured into great american broadcasting after a hostile takeover . former taft president dudley taft formed a new company that took the taft broadcasting name and bought wghp from great american . the new taft held onto channel 8 until 1992 when great american repurchased the station . in december 1993 great american broadcasting filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and was restructured again to become citicasters ; it then put its entire television division up for sale . as a fox station edit in the winter of 1993 new world communications which acquired stations from sci in a similar type of business reorganization to the one citicasters had come out of agreed to buy wghp and three other citicasters owned stations wbrc in birmingham wdaf tv in kansas city and ksaz tv in phoenix . citicasters kept wtsp in st. petersburg and wkrc tv channel 12 in cincinnati which were both abc affiliates at the time . both of those stations would later switch to cbs when scripps howard broadcasting signed a contract with abc to move its programming to its tampa fox affiliate wfts and its cincinnati cbs affiliate wcpo tv . around the same time new world had also agreed to buy argyle television s four television stations including wvtm tv in birmingham the transfer applications of the argyle stations to new world were not submitted to the fcc until after new world closed on the citicasters purchase . the two purchases combined along with new world s existing seven stations left the company with 15 stations three more than the fcc had permitted a single station owner to operate at the time and left new world with an ownership conflict in birmingham . on may 23 1994 fox agreed to affiliate with 12 of new world s stations 3 with wvtm nbc affiliate knsd in san diego and independent wsbk in boston left out of the sale the two nbc affiliates were bought by the network and became o & os while wsbk was sold to the paramount stations group and joined upn . new world later determined that due to the ownership conflicts and the fact it would go over the fcc s ownership limit it would sell wghp and wbrc to fox directly . since fox was not able to immediately acquire wghp wbrc and memphis s whbq tv due to questions over the american citizenship of then parent company news corporation s australian born ceo rupert murdoch new world decided to acquire wghp but place it in an outside trust on september 9 1994 wbrc was also put in this trust the following month on october 12 . 4 while wdaf switched to fox and ksaz became an independent station a temporary move in preparation for its december switch to fox on september 12 three days after new world s purchase of those stations was consummated abc still had one year left on its affiliation contract with wghp likewise the network s affiliation contract with wbrc would not run out for two years . these factors also led to new world s decision to sell the two stations to fox almost immediately . wghp logo used through the mid 1980s . fox took over the operations of both stations under local marketing agreements in september 1995 ; wghp subsequently switched to fox on september 3 . it carried all of the network s programs including fox kids whose weekday afternoon block ran from 1 4 p.m. replacing abc soap operas as well as on saturday mornings where a local newscast previously ran . the market s original fox affiliate wnrw channel 45 assumed the abc affiliation and changed its call letters to wxlv tv . wghp added a few more talk and reality shows as well as some off network sitcoms such as i love lucy and seinfeld . fox completed its purchases of wghp and wbrc on january 17 1996 with wghp becoming a fox owned and operated station and the first commercial station in the piedmont triad area to be owned by a major network wbrc had to wait another 7 months until september 1996 to switch from abc to fox . the move gave wghp its fifth owner in a little over a decade . in february 1996 pappas telecasting companies approached wghp about acquiring fox kids programming for its newly acquired wb affiliate wbfx channel 20 ; now cw affiliate wcwg . upon gaining new affiliates through new world fox executives at the time decided to change the carriage policies for fox kids to allow a station to choose to keep airing it or be granted the right to pass the block to another station in the market . wghp decided to let the fox kids block move to channel 20 beginning in march 1996 becoming the first fox owned station that did not run the block and only one of two along with wbrc to do so until new world merged with fox in 1997 . wghp added more talk and court shows in the afternoon . wtwb dropped fox s children s programming in late 2001 when fox canceled the weekday block nationwide ; wghp chose not to pick up fox s new saturday morning cartoon block fox box later 4kids tv which replaced fox kids in 2002 . as a result the block did not air at all in the piedmont triad . fox discontinued children s programming on december 28 2008 replacing it with a two hour saturday morning infomercial block called weekend marketplace which wghp also declined to air ; it airs instead on wmyv . on september 10 2007 wghp debuted a new logo and graphics package as part of a standardized on air look that was rolled out all of fox s owned and operated stations . on december 22 2007 fox sold wghp and seven other fox o & o stations 5 to the oak hill capital partners subsidiary local tv which had earlier bought nine stations from the new york times company ; the sale was finalized on july 14 2008 . on july 1 2013 the tribune company which formed a management company that operated both tribune and local tv s stations in 2008 acquired the local tv stations for 2.75 billion ; 6 the sale was completed on december 27 reuniting wghp with mynetworktv affiliate wphl tv in philadelphia which tribune acquired in 1992 . 7 8 digital television edit digital channels edit the station s digital channel is multiplexed channel video aspect psip short name programming 9 8.1 720p 16 9 wghp main wghp programming fox 8.2 480i tv8 .2 antenna tv 8.3 this8 .3 this tv tv8 .2 edit wghp broadcasts programming from antenna tv on digital subchannel 8.2 10 11 the subchannel launched on january 1 2011 as a charter affiliate of the network through an affiliation agreement related to network owner tribune broadcasting s management agreement with local tv . the subchannel uses the on air branding tv8 .2 a reference to the longtime tv8 branding used by wghp during the late 1970s and early 1980s and uses a modified version of the logo that the station used during that period . the 8.2 subchannel is also carried on time warner cable digital channel 1250 charter communications digital channel 175 in north wilkesboro and windstream digital channel 510 in lexington . this8 .3 edit wghp also broadcast programming from this tv on digital subchannel 8.3 . wghp this8 .3 airs over the air currently on channel number 8 3 . analog to digital conversion edit wghp shut down its analog signal at approximately 11 05 p.m. on june 12 2009 as part of the fcc mandated transition to digital television for full power stations . 12 the station s digital signal relocated from its pre transition uhf channel 35 to vhf channel 8 for post transition operations . the signal had broadcast at full power from an auxiliary tower until the analog transmitter on the main tower was converted two weeks after the transition . 13 due to the number of complaints from those unable to pick up the signal on channel 8 wghp received temporary authorization to broadcast an alternate digital signal on uhf channel