City Opelika, Alabama Slogan We're your station! | Branding WLGA Subchannels 66.1 Infomercials | |
Channels Digital: 30 (UHF)
Virtual: 66 (PSIP) Owner CNZ Communications, LLC
(CNZ Communications SE, LLC) | ||
WLGA is a television station in Opelika, Alabama. The channel broadcasts in digital on UHF channel 30. Its studios are located in Opelika, with its transmitter located in Cusseta, Georgia. The station serves the Columbus, Georgia market in western Georgia and eastern Alabama.
History
The station signed on for the first time on May 16, 1982 as WSWS-TV, the Columbus area's first independent station. At the outset, WSWS carried cartoons, religious shows, low budget movies, and programming from the Financial News Network. It was initially owned by Warden Broadcasting, but was acquired by the Christian Television Network (CTN) in 1984. The FNN programs were dropped by 1987, but the station did retain much of its other secular programming, in addition to CTN's programming.
RCH Broadcasting bought WSWS in 1995, and affiliated the station with the upstart UPN network. It also aired programs from The WB and, later, Pax TV (now Ion Television) on a secondary basis during the mid-to-late 1990s. Pappas Telecasting bought the station outright in 1996 and upgraded programming somewhat. Much of the station's programming through the years of its affiliation with UPN and The CW Plus have been situation comedy and dramatic syndicated reruns of older shows and courtroom shows such as Judge Judy and Judge Joe Brown with their 10th anniversary marathon of their respective years of 2006 and 2008. Among those shows, they include The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Cosby Show, Saved by the Bell, The Doris Day Show and My Three Sons. They also aired uncut reruns of the CBS show Evening Shade from 1995-2010 and currently with its normal airing thing on Antenna TV which is the affiliation for WLGA.
The station changed its call letters to WLGA on June 27, 2005. The "WSWS" calls were moved to sister station WSWS-CA, the ABC affiliate in North Platte, Nebraska; they remained there until June 12, 2009, when it became KHGI-CA to reflect its parent station, KHGI-TV.
In September 2006, WLGA joined The CW as an affiliate when UPN merged with The WB. On April 2, 2009, it was announced that The CW would discontinue its relationship with WLGA, instead choosing to broadcast on a digital subchannel of NBC affiliate WLTZ, effective April 27. Although no reason was given, it was likely related to Pappas filing for bankruptcy a year earlier. WLGA became an independent station once again, and completely overhauled its schedule (most of the station's programming outside of network hours during its CW affiliation was provided by The CW Plus, which also moved to the WLTZ subchannel).
In early June 2010, WLGA announced that it would cease operations at 11:59 p.m. on June 4. However, during its silent period, WLGA's license remained active, with a construction permit to broadcast on channel 30 and an application to broadcast on channel 47.
As of August 2012, WLGA returned to the air on channel 47, broadcasting WeatherNation on 66.1. On June 24, 2013, the station was licensed to broadcast on channel 30. In 2013, WeatherNation was replaced with Antenna TV.