WBXX-TV

WBXX began operation as independent WCPT-TV ("Wonderful Cumberland Plateau Television") on analog channel 55 (716–722 MHz) beginning October 3, 1976 from a tower site on Haley Mountain (Renegade Resort) in Cumberland County, Tennessee.[1] It was owned by Edward M. "Mack" Johnson, who also owned 49% of WSCV AM in Crossville. The studios in Crossville were a former loan office.[1] WCPT-TV produced a nightly local newscast, as well as a three-hour live "Saturday Night Jamboree"; much of its syndicated fare came by bus the day after airing on Nashville's WZTV.[1] Viewers in Cookeville could view the station by translator on channel 28;[2] it also maintained a facility there.[3] The station did look at obtaining an ABC affiliation,[2] but the station needed to serve 1,500 more households to make the arrangement worthwhile.[1] It also tried to move to channel 7 in 1977, which the station opted not to pursue further after meeting with opposition from WTVK.[4] Initially, WCPT-TV ran a mix of religious shows, some low-budget syndicated movies and westerns, and some cartoons, as well as sporting shows and public affairs programs. By the early 1980s, more movies and drama shows aired as well as cartoons.

Channel 55 was sold to Calvin C. Smith, who owned stations in Kentucky, and John A. Cunningham in 1979.[4] In February 1980, citing poor reception and failing equipment, they asked to switch from channel 55 to channel 20, which was reserved as educational, and make 55 the non-commercial allocation for Crossville;[5] this was approved and WCPT-TV was ordered to move to channel 20 effective August 13.[6] Additionally, Smith and Cunningham were approved to increase channel 20's effective radiated power to 2,818 kW (it had signed on with just 16) in 1981,[4] but those facilities were never implemented.

Still operating at low power, the station became WINT-TV on December 27, 1982, and in 1983, the station was sold mostly to Larry Hudson, with Cunningham retaining 10 percent.[7] In 1988, WINT-TV aired religious programming.[8]

In 1995, CW TV, headed by Cynthia Willis, acquired the station for $700,000[9] by way of Crossville TV, LP. CW applied to move the transmitter site to Upper Windrock, an outcropping on Buffalo Mountain along the Cumberland Plateau above Oliver Springs, Tennessee, and boost power to 3,630 kW—covering Knoxville.

In 1997, the partners in Crossville TV LP sold the license to ACME Communications. ACME immediately changed the call letters to WBXX-TV, and in October 1997, channel 20 relaunched from its new facilities as Knoxville's affiliate of The WB. It was the second station for ACME, behind KWBP in Portland, Oregon, which it had acquired that June.[10] The station also ran select UPN programming during 2001 and 2002, as that network did not have a Knoxville affiliate at the time.[11][12]

"CW 20" logo, used from August 2008 through April 2018

WBXX was consistently one of the highest-rated WB stations in the country, and was recognized as such by The WB network. After being known as "WB20" since signing on, WBXX rebranded as "East Tennessee's WB" in September 2003. When the station took affiliation with The CW, it was renamed "East Tennessee's CW." WBXX rebranded again, to "CW20", in August 2008.

In February 2011, ACME Communications announced a deal to sell the station to Virginia-based Lockwood Broadcast Group. The sale was approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on March 21 with the consummation being completed on May 6.[13][14][15] From 1998 until 2004, the station aired a series of interstitials during children's programming called WB 20 Kids Club (later Dubba Clubba) hosted by comedian Jackson Bailey (known as "Joe Cool"). The interstitials featured information and contests to viewers in several vignettes each weekday covering topics such as science, biology, conservation, music, and pet care.

From 2015 to 2019, WBXX has broadcast Atlantic Coast Conference football and men's basketball games syndicated from the Raycom Sports-operated ACC Network, some of which were shared with the main channel of CBS affiliate WVLT-TV. Those games were previously broadcast on MyNetworkTV affiliate WVLT-DT2 from 2009 until the end of the 2014–2015 season.

On October 1, 2015, Gray Television announced that it would acquire WBXX-TV from Lockwood. The purchase was made as part of Gray's acquisition of the broadcasting assets of Schurz Communications; as part of the deal, Lockwood received KAKE in Wichita, Kansas (which Gray put up for sale following the deal with Schurz) and paid $11.2 million to Gray.[16] Gray (through WVLT-TV, Inc.) took the operations of the station via Local Marketing Agreement.[17] The sale was completed on February 1, 2016.[18]

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

WBXX-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 20, 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 relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 50 to channel 20.[20]