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WJAX-TV, virtual channel 47 (UHF digital channel 19), is a CBS-affiliated television station located in Jacksonville, Florida, United States. The station is owned by Bayshore Television, LLC; the Cox Media Group subsidiary of Cox Enterprises, which owns Fox affiliate WFOX-TV (channel 30), operates WJAX-TV under joint sales and shared services agreements. The two stations share studio facilities located on Central Parkway in Jacksonville's Southside section; WJAX-TV maintains transmitter facilities located on Hogan Road, also in the city's Southside section. On cable, the station is available on Comcast channel 6 and in high definition on digital channel 433. ==History== The station was the brainchild of John Stone Thigpenn who, while working as an announcer at Christian radio station WBIX (1010 AM, now WJXL) during May 1977, read Pat Robertson's "Shout it From the Housetops," Robertson's personal account of how he founded the Christian Broadcasting Network. Thigpenn, who gained faith to create a similar venture in Jacksonville, mentioned on the air that he wanted to start a Christian television station in the Jacksonville market. Within minutes of this announcement, listener Janice Paulk from Fernandina called to ask who she should make a check out to in support of the effort. Thigpenn suggested the name "Christian Television of Jacksonville," knowing he could later formally create a business license and banking account under that name. Three days later, a check for $1,000 was received from Paulk. Further inspired by such a generous donation, Thigpenn contacted his friend Russell Linenkohl, president of the local Full Gospel Businessmen's Association. Linenkohl suggested teaming up with other Christian business leaders to jointly discuss how best to proceed. Included in that group were physicians already known by Thigpenn, Stephen Gyland and Douglas Fowler. Other businessmen being recommended were local bankers Richard Martin, Rufus Kite Powell and Thomas McGehee. The group agreed to hold a public meeting to invite citizen comments regarding the endeavor. At the end of this public meeting, the attendees voted to appoint the head table to form a selection committee tasked with appointing and forming a Board of Directors for Christian Television of Jacksonville. Before the public meeting, Thigpenn had already contacted the Broadcast Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission to discover that two UHF channel allocations (channels 30 and 47) were available for use in Jacksonville. He also discovered that two entities were already competing for the channel 30 frequency. The group decided to avoid the time and expense of litigating a challenge for that allotment and opted to file for a license to operate a station on channel 47. Thigpenn, who did not share the same community prominence as the other appointing members, agreed to act as a silent partner to the newly appointed Board of Directors for Christian Television of Jacksonville. He subsequently headed up the Community Ascertainment requirement as one of several exhibits needed by the FCC as part of the license application process. While Christian Television of Jacksonville received the construction permit and eventual license from the FCC, it did not garner the expected financial donations from the community to sustain its operating costs. The board then decided to transfer the ownership to Thomas McGehee, who was serving as the board's president. McGehee and his brother Frank McGehee formed North Florida Television Incorporated, which was awarded the license transfer by the FCC.〔(New CBS affiliate has garage-studio roots ), ''The Florida Times-Union'', June 17, 2002.〕 Thigpenn was appointed to the new board and was listed as a principal on the newly granted license. After all the planning and financing, the station officially signed on the air on August 1, 1980 as WXAO-TV (standing for the Greek letters for "Christ, the Alpha and the Omega"). It first broadcast from studio facilities located on University Boulevard/SR 109 on Jacksonville's Southside. Thigpenn served as the station's first news director during its first four years on the air. The station intended to be a family-friendly alternative to the network programs on the market's commercial television stations; it carried religious programs from The PTL Club, the Christian Television Network and the Trinity Broadcasting Network as well as secular programs including cartoons, westerns and a few classic sitcoms. WXAO was the first television station in Jacksonville to broadcast on a 24-hour schedule, never generated very high viewership. Gradually, the station abandoned most of its religious programming. In 1983, the station changed its call letters to WNFT. At that point, it began running more movies and drama series. By 1989, it was airing a blend of cartoons, recent off-network sitcoms and drama series, and movies. The McGehees sold WNFT to Krypton Broadcasting in 1990 for approximately $3 million;〔〔Kerr, Jessie-Lynne: () Florida Times-Union, July 14, 2006, "Mac Papers co-founder was civic, religious leader"〕 Krypton owned two other stations with similar formats, WTVX in West Palm Beach and WABM in Birmingham, Alabama. Krypton filed for bankruptcy in 1993 and sold its stations to separate owners over the next year. In October 1994, WNFT was sold to RDS Broadcasting, which entered into a local marketing agreement with Clear Channel Communications, owner of Fox affiliate WAWS (channel 30). WNFT integrated its operations into that station's studio facilities on Central Parkway; the two stations pooled resources and programming, while running the strongest syndicated programs (including cartoons and sitcoms) on WAWS. Meanwhile, WNFT restructured its schedule to focus largely on older cartoons, movies, sitcoms and drama series. It became a charter affiliate of the United Paramount Network when the network launched on January 16, 1995. The station changed its call letters to WTEV-TV (which had previously been used by present-day ABC affiliate WLNE-TV in New Bedford, Massachusetts as a CBS affiliate) on March 16, 1996. During the late 1990s, WTEV began decreasing its reliance on classic sitcoms, cut back on cartoons, and began to focus more of its programming inventory on talk and reality shows. Clear Channel would buy the station outright in 2000, creating the second television duopoly in the Jacksonville market. 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「WJAX-TV」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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