WYFX-LD

WYFX-LD is the Fox-affiliated television station for the Mahoning Valley of Northeastern Ohio and Northwestern Pennsylvania. Licensed to Youngstown, Ohio, it broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 19 from a transmitter near the city's Pleasant Grove section. Owned by Media General, WYFX is sister to CBS affiliate WKBN-TV and ABC affiliate WYTV. The latter, however, is actually owned by Vaughan Media and operated by Media General through a shared services agreement (SSA) and a joint sales agreement (JSA). All three outlets share studios on Sunset Boulevard near Youngstown's Pleasant Grove section.

History

WYFX-LP, along with repeater WFXI-LP (channel 17) in Mercer, Pennsylvania, were launched in 1998 as the area's first full-time Fox affiliates. (WFXI-LP shared its call letters with the Fox affiliate in Morehead City, North Carolina; both stations were owned by Piedmont Television until 2007, but were otherwise unrelated.) Previously, WYTV showed some Fox Sports events from 1994 until 1998, while Fox's prime-time programming was seen on cable via WPGH-TV in Pittsburgh, or from the network's Cleveland affiliates, first WOIO-TV, then from WJW-TV after WOIO switched to CBS. With digital television in its infancy at the time, WYFX and WFXI were started with their own signals as opposed to future stations WFMJ-DT2 and WYTV-DT2, which were both launched on new second digital subchannels of WFMJ-TV and WYTV respectively. This resulted in WYFX and WFXI having their own licenses with the FCC. Because of duopoly rules at the time, which would be partially repealed only two years later, both stations were launched as low-power stations (though WFXI converted to a class A license in 2002).