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WTXF-TV "FOX 29" channel 29 is a FOX owned-and-operated television station located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The station is owned by the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of the 21st Century Fox. WTXF's studios are located on Market Street in Center City Downtown Philadelphia, PA and i'ts transmitter is located in the Roxborough section of the city. ==History== The station signed on the air on May 16, 1965 as independent station WIBF-TV, originally owned by brothers William, Irwin, and Benjamin Fox. The Fox brothers had already been operating WIBF-FM (103.9 FM, now WPPZ) for several years. Channel 29's original studio was located in the Fox family's Benson East apartment building on Old York Road in the suburb of Jenkintown, located north of Philadelphia. WIBF-TV was the first commercial UHF station in Philadelphia, and the first of three UHF independents in the Philadelphia market to sign-on during 1965 with WPHL-TV (channel 17) and WKBS-TV (channel 48) both making their debuts in September. WIBF-TV struggled at first, in part because it signed on only a year after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) required television manufacturers to include UHF tuning capability. In 1969, the Fox family sold the station to Cincinnati-based Taft Broadcasting.〔"$20 million in TV sales approved." ''Broadcasting'', May 12, 1969, pg. 48. ()〕 Taft already owned ABC-affiliated WNEP-TV (channel 16) in Scranton, whose signal area also included coverage of the Lehigh Valley, which is part of the Philadelphia market; indeed, WNEP has operated a translator there for years. Taft sought a waiver to keep both stations, since the FCC at that time normally did not allow common ownership of two stations with overlapping coverage areas, even if they were in different markets; the FCC granted the waiver.〔"FCC approves group purchases." ''Broadcasting'', May 26, 1969, pp. 46-48. () () ()〕〔http://www.uiowa.edu/~cyberlaw/FCCOps/1969/17F2-876.htm〕 Taft later opted to sell WNEP-TV in late 1973 to NEP Communications, a group composed of the station's executives and employees. Taft assumed control of channel 29 in mid-1969 and changed the calls to WTAF-TV (which stood for TAFt). Under Taft's ownership, WTAF soon established itself as a local powerhouse. It ran programs from Taft's archive, such as Hanna-Barbera cartoons, which from 1979 onward were distributed by Worldvision Enterprises (which Taft had purchased) and later on the Quinn Martin library. By the start of the 1980s, WTAF had passed WKBS as Philadelphia's leading independent station. From the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s, it was also carried on several cable providers on the New Jersey side of the New York City market, as far north as The Oranges. When WKBS left the air in the late summer of 1983, the station placed advertisements in ''TV Guide'' and local papers reminding Philadelphia viewers that channel 29 was still around and that channel 48's former audience was welcome to sample channel 29. But interestingly, the station passed on picking up any of channel 48's shows, most of which went to WPHL. WTAF-TV also became a strong sports station. At various times, it owned the broadcast rights to Major League Baseball's Philadelphia Phillies (Taft also owned a small portion of the team for much of the 1980s), the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers and the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers. In the 1980s, the station also aired network shows that ABC station WPVI-TV (channel 6) and then-NBC affiliate KYW-TV (channel 3) preempted in favor of local programming. On October 9, 1986, WTAF-TV became a charter affiliate of The Full-Fledgling FOX Television Network (FBC-FOX BROADCASTING COMPANY).〔"Fox network begins to take shape." ''Broadcasting'', August 4, 1986, pg. 44. ()〕 However, channel 29's schedule didn't change that much, since Fox didn't air a full week of programming until 1993-1994; for all intents and purposes, it was still an independent. Taft sold its independent and Fox-affiliated stations, including WTAF to The Norfolk, Virginia-based TVX Broadcast Group in February 1987.〔"Taft's TV's go to TVX for $240 million." ''Broadcasting'', November 24, 1986, pg. 41. ()〕〔"McDonald paints a bright picture for TVX." ''Broadcasting'', May 11, 1987, pg. 37. ()〕 In 1988, the new owners changed the station's call letters to WTXF-TV. The Taft purchase created a large debt load for TVX and as a result, the company sold a number of its smaller stations. Paramount Pictures purchased a majority stake in TVX in 1989.〔"Paramount takes step toward buy of TVX stations." ''Broadcasting'', January 23, 1989, pp. 70-71. () ()〕 The following year, after branding itself as "TV-29" for many years, the station changed its on-air branding to "FOX 29". In 1991, Paramount acquired the remaining stock in TVX that it didn't already own and the company's name was changed to the Paramount Stations Group with WTXF as its largest station by market size.〔"Paramount acquires TVX group." ''Broadcasting'', March 4, 1991, pp. 57, 61. () ()〕 In the late summer & early fall of 1993, FOX shockingly announced its intention to purchase rival independent WGBS-TV (channel 57, now WPSG) and move its programming there in April 1994. As staffers at WTXF-TV continued to reel in the aftermath of that announcement, its corporate parent was undergoing a transition of its own. Only one month later, in September, the original Viacom agreed in principle to merge with Paramount.〔Foisie, Geoffrey, and Christopher Stern. "Viacom, Paramount say 'I do.'" ''Broadcasting and Cable'', September 20, 1993, pp. 14-16. Accessed February 13, 2013. () () ()〕 Not long after that, home shopping giant QVC mounted a competing bid and the two firms entered into an intense bidding war,〔Foisie, Geoffrey. "Paramount: Let the bidding begin." ''Broadcasting and Cable'', July 18, 1994, pp. 14, 16. Accessed February 13, 2013. () ()〕 in which Viacom ultimately prevailed in February 1994, with the deal closing on March 11.〔Foisie, Geoffrey. "At long last: Viacom Paramount." ''Broadcasting and Cable'', February 21, 1994, pp. 7, 11, 14. Accessed February 13, 2013. () () ()〕 Meanwhile, in late October 1993, Paramount-Viacom announced plans to create a new network, The United Paramount Network, which it would co-own with Chris-Craft Industries & United Television. The initial affiliation plans called for WTXF, which was set to lose FOX to WGBS-TV, becoming the Philadelphia outlet for the new network, which was targeted to launch in January 1995.〔Flint, Joe. "Paramount and Warner off and running for the fifth network." ''Broadcasting and Cable'', November 1, 1993, pp. 1, 6-7. Accessed February 13, 2013. () () ()〕 However, FOX's purchase of WGBS fell through in early 1994, making it increasingly unlikely that Paramount would want to drop FOX programming from channel 29 (particularly after FOX acquired the rights to show games from the NFL's National Football Conference including most Philadelphia Eagles games); nonetheless, during the spring, WTXF gradually de-emphasized its Fox affiliation and changing its branding to simply "29". Several months later, the shoe dropped on the biggest affiliation shuffle in Philadelphia television history. In the summer of 1994, Westinghouse Broadcasting, owners of KYW-TV, entered into a longterm affiliation agreement with CBS. This resulted in KYW-TV dropping NBC in favor of CBS, which would then sell its longtime owned-and-operated station, WCAU-TV (Channel 10). Several months earlier, FOX entered into a multi-station, multi-year partnership with New World Communications.〔Foisie, Geoffrey. "Fox and the New World order." ''Broadcasting and Cable'', May 30, 1994, pp. 6, 8. Accessed February 13, 2013. () ()〕 New World and NBC emerged as the leading bidders for WCAU, with New World intending to switch WCAU to FOX if it emerged victorious. FOX also joined the bidding for WCAU in case New World's bid failed. However, Viacom/Paramount changed its Philadelphia plans and decided to sell WTXF to Fox, making WTXF-TV An FOX O&O. Almost simultaneously, Viacom bought WGBS and made it an UPN O&O. Both transactions involving Viacom and Fox closed on the same day – August 25, 1995. Soon after FPX restored the network's name onto the station branding as "FOX Philadelphia" dropped out the Channel Number 29 (similar to how Chicago sister station WFLD was branded as "FOX Chicago" dropping out the Channel Number 32 early its own time) with the channel number used sparingly and the call letters mostly limited to legal IDs; this was because WTXF, to this day, is normally not on channel 29 on area cable systems (though for the first few months, it was merely branded as "FOX" with the call letters below a color-changing FOX logo in promos). As a FOX owned-and-operated station, WTXF immediately added more first run talk and reality shows to the schedule. Throughout the mid-to-late 1990s, WTXF was available nationally to satellite television providers as the east coast FOX feed, most notably on PrimeStar. In 2003, WTXF rebranded back to ''FOX 29'' for the first time since 1994 to create a consistent use of the ''FOX (channel number)'' branding across all FOX-Owned & Operated Stations (It's a historical irony that the station, originally owned locally by the Fox family as WIBF-TV (Unrelated to it) is now owned by Los Angeles-based 20th Century Fox and now 21st CENTURY FOX). WTXF also underwent a major overhaul of its studio facilities in Old City Philadelphia at 330 Market St. with a ("Window on the World" type studio ) making its debut on June 6, 2005. The "Window of the World" studio was originally intended to be used for the station's morning newscast. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「WTXF-TV」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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