WFRV-TV


WFRV-TV, virtual channel 5, is a CBS-affiliated television station licensed to Green Bay, Wisconsin, United States. The station is owned by Nexstar Media Group. WFRV's studios are located on East Mason Street in Green Bay, and its transmitter is located north of Morrison. On cable, the station is available on Charter Spectrum channel 6 and in high definition on digital channel 1006.
WJMN-TV in Escanaba, Michigan operates as a semi-satellite of WFRV, serving the central Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Master control and some internal operations originate from WFRV's Green Bay facilities; WJMN does maintain studios, sales offices and engineering operations in Marquette.

History

The station signed on the air on December 10, 1953 on UHF channel 42 from Neenah as ABC affiliate WNAM-TV, owned by the Neenah-Menasha Broadcasting Company, sister station to the radio station with the same call sign.
Television in northeast Wisconsin changed rapidly through 1954. When WNAM-TV began operations, the market consisted of one VHF station and two UHF stations: WOSH-TV, Oshkosh, an independent; and WNAM-TV. Televisions capable of receiving UHF signals were rare in 1954, and consumers did not adopt it quickly due to its added expense and a perception that reception on UHF was inferior to VHF. WOSH-TV folded in late March. WMBV-TV, a new NBC affiliate, began broadcasting on VHF in September 1954. By November, a second VHF station, WFRV-TV, had a transmitter construction site but had not yet acted on the permit. On November 26, 1954, WNAM-TV and WFRV-TV announced that they would merge, end WNAM's UHF broadcasts on channel 42, and devote their joint future to WFRV-TV's VHF permit. On December 31, 1954, the vice-president of WNAM-TV announced that it would be temporarily ceasing broadcast operations as of January 2, 1955. UHF television service would not return to northeast Wisconsin until 1968.
WNAM-TV's pause in broadcasting allowed the newly merged company to lease and move into unused FM studio and broadcast facilities of WJPG-FM in De Pere, and to set up microwave relays between the WNAM studio and the WFRV one. The new station and facility went online with 100,000 watts of power on May 20, 1955 as WFRV-TV, an ABC and DuMont affiliate, presenting pre-recorded "programs on film". Its first live broadcast was scheduled for June 1, 1955 at 4:45 PM.
In 1959, it changed its network affiliation to NBC. WFRV's early claims to fame included being the first television station in Northeastern Wisconsin to broadcast in color in 1958, the first station to cover a live lunar eclipse in 1959, and Green Bay's first color local news broadcasts.
In the mid-1960s, WFRV was acquired by the Norton Group, a company owned by the Norton family of Kentucky, who also owned Louisville's WAVE. One of the Norton Group's early decisions was to move WFRV's transmitter, which was still located further south of Green Bay and closer to the Fox Valley and as such put WFRV at a disadvantage to other Green Bay stations. The Nortons would gain permission from the Federal Communications Commission to move channel 5's transmitter to Scray's Hill in the Ledgeview section of Glenmore, one of the highest geographical points in the area and the longtime home to other Green Bay broadcast transmitters.
On October 7, 1969, WFRV expanded into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan by signing on semi-satellite WJMN-TV in Escanaba. WJMN's creation was the result of The Norton Group's earlier agreement with the FCC to move WFRV's tower, as the station had to address short-spacing issues with another station on VHF channel 5, Chicago's WMAQ-TV. As part of the agreement to transmit from Glenmore, Orion Broadcasting launched WJMN so that WFRV's service to the U.P. and far Northeastern Wisconsin could continue, and so that a second station in central Upper Michigan could be added.
Orion Broadcasting would merge with Cosmos Broadcasting in 1981. Two years later, in April 1983, WFRV would affiliate with ABC for the second time. Later in the 1980s, WFRV was sold to Midwest Radio and Television, owned by the Murphy and McNally families, who also owned the WCCO stations in Minneapolis–Saint Paul. The Murphys and McNallys would announce a sale of Midwest to CBS in the summer of 1991; the sale was completed in early 1992. CBS had been affiliated with WBAY-TV for almost 40 years, and was unwilling to sever ties with one of its strongest and longest-standing affiliates. It put WFRV and WJMN on the market, but was unable to find a buyer. However, in 1992, the FCC relaxed its ownership restrictions, leading CBS to keep WFRV and move its programming there. On March 15 of that year, WFRV became become a CBS owned-and-operated station, with the ABC affiliation moving to WBAY. This swap would make WFRV one of the few stations in the United States to be affiliated with all of the Big Three television networks during its lifetime. With it, the station became the unofficial home station for the Green Bay Packers ; the station would only serve in this role for two seasons, 1992 and 1993, when the majority of games moved to WGBA for one season in 1994, then to WLUK-TV the next year in 1995. Today, the station airs at least two Packers games each season when the team plays an AFC team at Lambeau Field, or, starting in 2014, with the institution of 'cross-flex' rules, games that are moved from WLUK to WFRV.
By 2001, WFRV would change its longtime Orion Broadcasting-era logo, used since the mid-1970s, for an earlier version of its current logo. One year later, in 2002, WFRV would become the first station in the Green Bay market to begin broadcasting a digital signal. By 2003, WFRV would begin identifying itself as "CBS 5", in line with other CBS-owned stations; the station also adopted a green-and-gold logo to reflect its connection to the Green Bay Packers. The station's current blue-and-yellow logo and graphic scheme was unveiled on July 10, 2006, along with a new news set to coincide with the return to the station of former reporter/anchor Tammy Elliott.
The week of April 16–18, 2007, Liberty Media completed an exchange transaction with CBS Corporation pursuant to which Liberty Media exchanged 7.6 million shares of CBS Class B common stock valued at $239 million for a subsidiary of CBS that held WFRV and approximately $170 million in cash. As part of the transaction, Liberty Media acquired WFRV and WJMN, becoming the only over-the-air television properties to be owned by the company. In May 2007, operations of the stations' websites would move from CBS Television Stations Digital Media Group to a redesigned site powered by Inergize Digital Media. By summer 2007, WFRV phased out the "CBS 5" branding, slowly transitioning to simply "Channel 5," its branding before 2003.
WFRV-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 5, at midnight on February 17, 2009, the original target date in which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 39. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 5. As part of the SAFER Act, WFRV kept its analog signal on the air until March 3 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters.
On April 7, 2011, Nexstar Broadcasting Group announced it would acquire WFRV and WJMN-TV from Liberty Media. The $20 million deal was approved by the FCC on June 28, 2011 and closed three days later on July 1, when Nexstar tapped Joseph Denk to become vice president and general manager of both stations; Denk replaced Perry Kidder, who announced his retirement shortly after the sale was announced. The website URL and operations of WFRV and WJMN also changed to Nexstar's in-house format ; in the case of WFRV, the station's main web address changed from "wfrv.com" to "wearegreenbay.com".
On January 23, 2012, WFRV was rebranded as Local 5, a branding style which originated with Post-Newsweek Stations and which has since been adapted by several of Nexstar's operations. WJMN continued to be branded as Channel 3 until it launched its in-house news operation in April 2014, as most stories in WFRV's newscasts were not local to Upper Michigan.
On January 27, 2016, Media General announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Nexstar. Because Media General owns WBAY, the new company was required to sell that station or WFRV to another owner. On June 3, 2016, it was announced that Nexstar would keep WFRV and its Quad Cities sister station WHBF-TV and sell Media General stations WBAY and its Quad Cities sister station KWQC-TV to Gray Television for $270 million.
The station launched their second subchannel on September 1, 2016 with Bounce TV as part of a group deal made between Bounce TV's parent company and Nexstar.
On September 19, 2019, Nexstar closed their merger with Tribune Broadcasting, giving WFRV its first co-owned Milwaukee sister station in Fox affiliate WITI, which already carries Locker Room from WFRV, though the pair-up was short-lived with Fox Television Stations re-acquiring WITI as part of Nexstar and Fox exchanging several stations in a number of NFC markets at the start of March 2020.
The station launched a third subchannel on April 24, 2020, affiliated with the True Crime Network.

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP Short NameProgramming
5.11080iWFRV-HDMain WFRV-TV programming / CBS
5.2480iBounceBounce TV
5.3480iTCNTrue Crime Network

Sports programming

From 2003 to 2011, WFRV carried Green Bay Packers pre-season games and related official team programming, with the station branding as "Your Official Packers Station." Packer-related programming on WFRV has included Larry McCarren's Locker Room, a Monday night program which featured WFRV sports director and former Packer lineman Larry McCarren analyzing the previous day's Packer game and interviewing with the team's players and staff. In March 2012, the Packers entered into an agreement with Journal Broadcast Group to air Packers pre-season games and official programming on Journal-owned WGBA-TV, making it the "official Packers station" in Green Bay;

News operation

WFRV-TV presently broadcasts 35½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week. In addition to its main studios on East Mason Street in Green Bay, WFRV also operates a Fox Valley bureau in Little Chute, located on Patriot Drive near US 41 freeway. The Valley bureau also has a second Doppler weather radar tower to provide extended radar coverage for the station's weather operation.
The audio feed of WFRV's 5 and 6 p.m. newscasts are simulcast on radio stations in the Fond du Lac–Oshkosh area as well as in the Marinette–Menominee area.
On June 23, 2011, after a six-month upgrade process, WFRV became the first station in the Green Bay market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition; the changeover to HD included an upgrade in the "Storm Team 5" weather technology, including real-time street-level radar. In January 2012, the station launched a new graphics package that is designed solely for 16:9 presentation in mind, cutting off portions of text in 4:3 presentation.
Beginning in September 2012, WFRV would greatly expand the number of hours of news content, including the addition of an hour-long afternoon newscast at 4 p.m. and the expansion of its 6 p.m. newscast from 30 minutes to one hour; the 6 p.m. newscast is reduced to 30 minutes during the NFL season on nights when WFRV airs Packers-related programming.
On December 31, 2012, the station's morning newscast Local 5 First News was retitled to Local 5 This Morning, with a new anchor team and a set used specifically for the morning program. The new version of the program takes cues from CBS This Morning, including a local-specific "Eye Opener" segment at the start of each half-hour.
On September 2, 2013, WFRV launched an hour-long local mid-morning program Local 5 Live!, which is a mix of advertorial and news content. Live! with Kelly and Michael, which had aired on the station in the 9 a.m. timeslot dating back to the late 1980s while still an ABC affiliate, moved to WLUK in the same timeslot.

Ratings

For most of its history, WFRV-TV's newscasts have been competitive with longtime leader WBAY-TV and runner-up WLUK-TV in most time slots although WFRV's newscasts have usually been in third place. However, since Nexstar purchased the station in mid-2011, the station has seen heavy turnover, with many veteran staff members, including Tammy Elliott, Dana Tyler, Olga Halaburda, Ryan Popkey and Larry McCarren departing the station for other opportunities. Anchors, especially on the weekends, are working longer shifts, and even doing both the morning and evening newscasts, and Nexstar has dropped most syndicated programming outside the 3 p.m. hour, which caused ratings problems that outside of Oprah and Live!, had been a problem with WFRV's schedule dating back to the late 1990s.

Notable former on-air staff