or cbs affiliate wjax tv . wjxx orange park jacksonville florida united states city orange park florida branding wjxx abc 25 general first coast news newscasts slogan abc 25 start here general first for you newscasts channels digital 10 vhf virtual 25 psip affiliations .1 abc .2 first coast news weather plus owner tegna media multimedia holdings corporation first air date february 9 1997 ; 19 years ago 1997 02 09 call letters meaning jax informal abbreviation for jacksonville sister station s wtlv former channel number s analog 25 uhf 1997 2009 transmitter power 29.5 kw height 290.7 m facility id 11893 transmitter coordinates 30 16 24 n 81 33 13 w 30.27333 n 81.55361 w 30.27333 ; 81.55361 coordinates 30 16 24 n 81 33 13 w 30.27333 n 81.55361 w 30.27333 ; 81.55361 licensing authority fcc public license information profile cdbs website www.firstcoastnews.com wjxx virtual channel 25 vhf digital channel 10 is an abc affiliated television station serving jacksonville florida united states that is licensed to orange park . the station is owned by the tegna media division of tegna inc. as part of a duopoly with nbc affiliate wtlv channel 12 ironically a former abc affiliate itself from 1980 to 1988 . the two stations share studio facilities located on east adams street near everbank field in downtown jacksonville ; wjxx maintains transmitter facilities located on eve drive in the city s kilarney shores section . contents 1 history 1.1 early history 1.2 duopoly with wtlv 2 digital television 2.1 digital channels 2.2 analog to digital conversion 3 programming 4 news operation 4.1 on air staff 4.1.1 notable current on air staff 4.1.2 notable former on air staff 5 references 6 external links history edit early history edit the station first signed on the air on february 9 1997 ; 1 the station was founded by wpr l.p. 2 and operated by allbritton communications under a local marketing agreement . in 1996 allbritton had signed another lma with wb affiliate wbsg tv channel 21 in nearby brunswick georgia ; 2 in april of that year abc signed a ten year affiliation agreement with allbritton which renewed contracts with the group s three existing abc affiliates wjla tv in washington d.c. which had long been one of the network s strongest affiliates ktul in tulsa oklahoma and whtm in harrisburg pennsylvania and resulted in five of its other television stations switching to the network among them were nbc affiliate wciv now heroes & icons affiliate wgwg in charleston south carolina and low power independent station w58ck now wbma ld in birmingham and cbs affiliates wcft tv now heroes & icons affiliate wses in tuscaloosa and wjsu tv now heroes & icons affiliate wgwg in anniston the three of which would form a triple simulcast to serve as the abc affiliate for central alabama . 3 4 one of the stations involved in the affiliation agreement was wbsg which allbritton announced that it would replace wjks channel 17 now cw affiliate wcwj as jacksonville s abc affiliate . 3 4 wjxx was originally slated to launch as an independent station . however since wbsg s signal did not extend into the southern portions of the jacksonville market south of the city proper wpr l.p. reached an lma with allbritton with the intent to have it serve as the abc affiliate for the florida side of the market . 2 allbritton subsequently planned to sign wjxx on april 1 as the market s primary abc affiliate with wbsg serving as a semi satellite for the georgia side . however after wjks began phasing out abc programming as it transitioned into becoming the market s wb affiliate later changing its callsign to wjwb now wcwj abc asked allbritton to sign on wjxx two months early . unfortunately construction of the station s new full power transmitter was still pending approval from the federal communications commission fcc at the time forcing the station to broadcast at low power for several months . this rendered the station more or less unviewable in much of northeastern florida and extreme southeastern georgia even in parts of jacksonville proper . 4 5 allbritton bought wjxx outright in september 1997 . 1 allbritton heavily invested in wjxx including constructing a state of the art studio facility on a.c. skinner parkway in south jacksonville . 6 it was the first television station in the united states to be designed from the ground up for digital television a medium which was then fairly new . 2 at one point wjxx faced the prospect of becoming an abc owned and operated station ; in june 1998 abc parent the walt disney company entered into negotiations to purchase the eight allbritton stations and the lmas with wjxx and wjsu reportedly offering the company more than 1 billion to acquire them . 7 8 the sale would have made wjxx the first commercial station in jacksonville to be an owned and operated station of a network . negotiations between disney and allbritton broke down when the former dropped out of discussions to buy the stations the following month . 9 despite allbritton s best efforts to improve the station wjxx failed to gain significant ratings traction in the market ; in addition to lingering confusion from the early announcement that wbsg would be the abc affiliate for jacksonville and the subsequent early launch of channel 25 4 the combined signal of wjxx and wbsg was somewhat inferior to that of their two vhf competitors cbs affiliate wjxt channel 4 now an independent station and nbc affiliate wtlv channel 12 . 5 not helping matters was the fact that wjxx was initially placed on channel 7 by local cable provider mediaone which later sold its jacksonville system franchise to comcast which suffered from co channel interference from pbs member station wjct which transmitted its broadcast signal on vhf channel 7 . additionally until the station s studios opened in december wjxx relayed its signal to mediaone directly from its transmitter resulting in a lower quality signal as it did not yet have a fiber optic relay to transmit the station feed to the provider . 5 duopoly with wtlv edit after the fcc legalized television station duopolies on november 15 1999 allbritton announced the following day november 16 that it would sell wjxx to the gannett company then owner of wtlv . 5 normally duopolies between two big four network affiliates or even big three affiliates would not be permissible under the then newly implemented duopoly rules because they usually constituted the four highest rated television stations within a market . fcc regulations do not allow common ownership of any two of the four highest rated stations in a market basing the ownership restrictions on the monthly total day viewership of the market s broadcast television outlets . however wjxx was ranked at fifth place in the ratings among the jacksonville market s television stations often trailing wjwb which had gone from being one of abc s weakest affiliates to becoming one of the wb s strongest and fox affiliate waws channel 30 now wfox tv in addition to wjxt and wtlv . 5 once the sale was finalized on march 17 2000 gannett s purchase of wjxx became the first instance where a single owner maintained a duopoly involving two stations that were both affiliated with a big three television network all of jacksonville s big four network affiliates ended up under the control of two media companies by july 2002 when wtev tv channel 47 now wjax tv which was operated alongside clear channel communications owned waws replaced wjxt as the market s cbs affiliate ; wjax and wfox are now controlled by cox media group which owns the latter outright . gannett integrated wjxx s operations into wtlv s facilities near downtown jacksonville s stadium district and combined both stations news personnel resulting in the creation of a joint news operation presently known as first coast news . however most of the news staff was composed of veterans of wtlv the deal did not include wbsg which subsequently affiliated with pax tv 10 and was soon acquired by that network s owner paxson communications and changed its call letters to wpxc tv . the studios of the newly created duopoly were also renovated and a new graphics and music package global village by stephen arnold music 11 was introduced for the newscasts . around the first week of october 2012 gannett entered a dispute against dish network regarding compensation fees and dish s autohop commercial skip feature on its hopper digital video recorders . gannett ordered that dish discontinue autohop on the account that it is affecting advertising revenues for its jacksonville television stations . gannett threatened to pull them both from the satellite provider should the skirmish continue beyond october 7 and dish and gannett fail to reach an agreement . 12 13 the two parties eventually reached an agreement after extending the deadline for a few hours . 14 on june 29 2015 the gannett company split into two separate companies with one side specializing in print media and the other side specializing in broadcast and digital media . wjxx and wtlv along with gannett s other television station properties were retained by the latter company named tegna . 15 digital television edit digital channels edit channel video aspect psip short name programming 16 25.1 & 5 comcast 720p 16 9 wjxx dt main wjxx programming abc 25.2 & 201 comcast 480i 4 3 doppler first coast news weather plus analog to digital conversion edit on june 12 2009 wjxx terminated its analog signal on uhf channel 25 as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television . 17 the station s digital signal remained on its pre transition vhf channel 10 . 18 through the use of psip digital television receivers display wjxx s virtual channel as 25 . due to the shutdown of wjxx s analog transmitter in clay county viewers in areas such as gainesville lost reception of wjxx while the station began providing at least grade b signal coverage in flagler county and on georgia s colonial coast . programming edit in addition to carrying the entire abc programming schedule syndicated programs broadcast by wjxx as of september 2016 update include live with kelly divorce court the wendy williams show t.d. jakes and extra . wjxx also broadcasts the sony pictures television game shows jeopardy and wheel of fortune in the event that those programs are pre empted on wtlv . news operation edit logo for first coast news . wjxx presently broadcasts 19 hours of locally produced newscasts each week with four hours on weekdays and one hour each on saturdays and sundays ; in addition sister station wtlv produces the sports highlight program first coast news sports final which airs sunday nights at 11 30 p.m. on both stations and the political discussion program first coast news on point which airs sunday mornings at 7 30 a.m. wjxx does not simulcast the 4 30 a.m. half hour of the weekday edition and the entirety of the saturday or sunday morning edition of good morning jacksonville and the weekday noon and weekend 6 00 p.m. newscasts which air exclusively on wtlv ; however wjxx exclusively airs a half hour weeknight 7 00 p.m. newscast and a half hour 6 30 p.m. newscast on weekend evenings . in addition to their main studio facilities wtlv and wjxx operate a southern bureau which covers stories within clay st. johns and putnam counties . wjxx and wtlv operate their own weather radar which is located next to wjxx and wtlv s kilarney shores transmitter and also utilizes radar data from the national weather service forecast office near jacksonville international airport . wjxx s news department informally launched in september 1997 with the debut of a half hour 7 00 p.m. newscast abc 25