WGFL


WGFL, virtual channel 28, is a dual CBS/MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station serving Gainesville, Florida, United States that is licensed to High Springs. Owned by New Age Media, it is sister to two Gainesville-licensed stations: low-powered, Class A Antenna TV affiliate WYME-CD and full-power NBC affiliate WNBW-DT. The latter is actually owned by MPS Media but operated by New Age Media under a local marketing agreement. All three stations, in turn, are operated under a master service agreement by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. The stations share studios on Northwest 80th Boulevard in Gainesville and transmitter facilities on Southwest 30th Avenue near Newberry.
On cable, WGFL is available on Cox channel 4 in Gainesville and Altitude Communications channel 4 in High Springs. There is a high definition feed offered on Cox digital channel 1004.
The Gainesville market is located between several other Florida DMAs. In these areas, local cable systems opt instead for the affiliate for their home market instead of WGFL. This includes Charter Spectrum and Cox in Ocala that both offer WKMG-TV. In Lake City, Comcast Xfinity provides WJAX-TV.

History

As a WB affiliate

WGFL signed on September 20, 1997, offering an analog signal on UHF channel 53. It originally served as the WB affiliate for the Gainesville area and was known on-air as "WB 53". The station also maintained a secondary affiliation with UPN, carrying its programming at 10 p.m. following WB's regular prime time schedule.
WGFL's daytime programming mainly consisted of classic sitcom reruns along with various reality/talk shows such as Queen Latifah. Like most WB affiliates at the time, WGFL carried the afternoon Kids' WB line up along with more youth oriented sitcoms like Sister, Sister during the evenings.

Joining CBS

In May 2002, WGFL announced its intention to affiliate with the CBS network on July 15, 2002; this came about as an affiliation switch arose involving then-CBS affiliate WJXT and then-UPN affiliate WTEV in Jacksonville, which led WJXT to drop CBS programming and become an independent. Up until that point, WJXT had served as the default CBS affiliate for Gainesville because its signal offered city-grade coverage into the area.
When the switch took place, WGFL gained the CBS affiliation and the station re-branded to "CBS 4". Now displaced, the UPN programs were moved to late night hours on WGFL while The WB moved over to a new cable-only station branded as "WB 10". The UPN programming would later move from WGFL in 2004.
The CBS affiliation also brought Florida Gators football as well as the NFL to the station through the network's rights to air SEC and AFC football games. The SEC games have been high ratings draws especially during the Gators' national championship seasons of 2006 and 2008.
During the mid 2000s, WGFL went through a couple of ownership changes. In 2004, the station was sold to Pegasus Communications due an earlier time brokerage agreement with then-owner Budd Broadcasting A short time later, WGFL would become part of New Age Media after Pegasus filed for bankruptcy in 2005.
On September 25, 2013, New Age Media announced that it would sell most of its stations, including WGFL and WMYG-LP, to the Sinclair Broadcast Group. Concurrently, sister station WNBW-DT was slated to be sold to Cunningham Broadcasting and was to continue to be operated by WGFL. On October 31, 2014, New Age Media requested the dismissal of its application to sell WGFL; the next day, Sinclair purchased the non-license assets of the stations it planned to buy from New Age Media and began operating them through a master service agreement.
After WGFL's acquisition by Sinclair, the station retired its 12 year old "CBS 4" logo in April 2016 and replaced it with a simplified logo identical to sister station KDBC in El Paso, Texas.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP Short NameProgramming
28.11080iCBS 4Main WGFL programming / CBS
28.21080iMY 11MyNetworkTV
28.3480iTBDTBD

Analog-to-digital conversion

WGFL discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 53, on July 18, 2008. The station's digital signal broadcasts on its pre-transition UHF channel 28. It was one of very few big three affiliates permitted by the Federal Communications Commission to cease analog transmission prior to the national digital switchover on June 12, 2009. The transmitter facility space formerly occupied by WGFL's analog signal on UHF channel 53 is now used for WNBW's transmission.
As part of the repacking process following the 2016–2017 FCC incentive auction, WGFL moved its UHF channel allocation number from 28 to 29 on January 17, 2020.

Former translators

WGFL formerly operated two analog translator stations, which rebroadcast its signal to other parts of the broadcast market:
StationCity of licenseChannelFormer callsignsNotes
WMYG-LP1Lake City11 W15AG
WJXE-LP
WBFL-LP
WLCF-LP 		Became affiliate of MyNetworkTV on September 5, 2006; license canceled on November 18, 2015
WYPN-CA2Gainesville45 W14CB
WJXE-LP 		Now WYME-CD and an affiliate of Antenna TV

  1. WLCF/WMYG had operated as a translator of WGFL since the station's sign-on in 1997.
  2. WYPN became a translator of WGFL on July 15, 2002; it had previously operated as an independent station since 1994. It would later become a separate station when it picked up the UPN affiliation on December 1, 2004.

    Programming

programming on WGFL includes Extra, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, Hot Bench, and Judge Judy among others. The latter four programs are distributed by CBS Television Distribution.
WGFL also airs The Ilene Silverman Show, a local public affairs program, on Saturdays at 6:30 a.m.
In 2002, WGFL aired a weekly sports-oriented show on Friday evenings called Sports Showdown. The show mainly focused on the Gator sports teams and was hosted by Larry Vettel with Gainesville Sun sports columnist Pat Dooley.

News operation

When the station became a CBS affiliate in 2002, there were plans to start a local news operation as early as the fall of that year. In 2003, WGFL reached an agreement to simulcast the noon, 6:00 p.m., and 11:00 p.m. newscasts from fellow CBS affiliate WTEV in Jacksonville, beginning that November. While WTEV's newscasts focused on the Jacksonville area, they did cover Gainesville during Gator football season or major news events. After a few years, WGFL quietly dropped the WTEV simulcasts in the fall of 2006 and replaced it with the nationally syndicated INN News, produced by Independent News Network.
On October 27, 2010, WGFL launched a local newscast produced by INN under the branding GTN News. The newscast was produced from INN's studios using centralized anchors, and footage from local reporters. Currently, WGFL simulcasts with WNBW at 6:00 and 11:00 p.m.; the 11:00 p.m. newscast can be delayed on either station due to network obligations. WGFL and WNBW also simulcast local news and weather cut-ins on weekday mornings during their respective national network shows. WGFL also aired a standalone 5:30 p.m. newscast which was canceled a few years later. On April 4, 2016, it began using Sinclair's standard music and graphics package, and was renamed CBS 4 News.
By October 2019, production of the newscast had been taken over by Sinclair's West Palm Beach CBS affiliate WPEC, using a secondary studio and set that been previously used by Sinclair's defunct American Sports Network.