WFLI-TV


WFLI-TV, virtual channel 53, is a dual CW/MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station serving Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States that is licensed to Cleveland. The station is owned by MPS Media; New Age Media, which owns Chattanooga-licensed This TV affiliate/Comet-operated station WDSI-TV, operates WFLI-TV under a local marketing agreement. Both stations, in turn, are operated under a master service agreement by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, making them sisters to Chattanooga-licensed dual ABC/Fox affiliate WTVC.
WFLI and WDSI share studios on East Main Street in Chattanooga's Highland Park section; master control and some internal operations for the two stations are based at WTVC's facilities on Benton Drive in Chattanooga. WFLI-TV's transmitter is located on Sawyer Cemetery Road in unincorporated Mile Straight.
On cable, WFLI is available on Comcast Xfinity channels 6 and 435, and on EPB Fiber Optics channels 6 and 306. Although parts of the Chattanooga market are in the Central Time Zone, all schedules are listed in Eastern Time.

History

The station signed-on May 25, 1987 as an independent co-owned with WFLI radio . It aired an analog signal on UHF channel 53 from a transmitter in Cohutta, Georgia. On January 16, 1995, WFLI joined UPN as a charter affiliate. In 1997, the station was sold to Lambert Broadcasting, LLC. It added The WB in 1999 as a secondary affiliation; two years later, WFLI dropped UPN and became a full-time WB affiliate. The Meredith Corporation acquired WFLI in 2004.
Between 2001 and 2003, the station sold late-night Saturday paid programming time to an independent producer, out of which eventually arose the format and style of Fuel TV, which went by that name on WFLI. Fox Cable Networks eventually bought the trademarks and concept of Fuel TV in 2003 to launch it as a full-fledged cable network in July of that year, and the original Fuel TV program on WFLI ended in September 2003.
On March 7, 2006, WFLI was announced as Chattanooga's CW affiliate at the network's launch on September 18 in the wake of the merger of the WB and UPN into The CW. Meanwhile, WDSI launched a new second digital subchannel to serve as the area's MyNetworkTV affiliate beginning September 5. On November 26, 2007, Meredith announced the sale of WFLI to MPS Media which closed April 1, 2008. Shortly thereafter, New Age Media began operation of the station through an LMA. On May 23, 2011, WFLI signed-on a new second digital subchannel of its own to offer MeTV.
Sinclair Broadcast Group purchased the non-license assets of WFLI-TV and WDSI-TV from New Age Media for $1.25 million in September 2015 and began operating them under a master services agreement.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP Short NameProgramming
53.1720pWFLI-CWMain WFLI-TV programming / The CW
53.2480iMyNETWFLI-DT2 / MyNetworkTV
53.3480iMeTVMeTV
53.4480iCHARGECharge!

Analog-to-digital conversion

WFLI-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 53, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 42. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 53, which was among the high band UHF channels that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.

Programming

programming on WFLI includes Pawn Stars, 2 Broke Girls, Family Feud, and Two and a Half Men among others.