WFTW

WFTW is a FOX affiliate located in Oxford, Mississippi and serves the Mississippi hills region (Lafayette, Marshall, Union, Pontotoc, and Benton counties). Broadcasting on channel 2, WFTW is owned and operated by Lamar Communications. This is Lamar Communications' second attempt at running a station after their license to run WKMZ (now WOXT) was revoked in 1969 due to Lamar Communications then-hard stance against the Civil Rights Movement. Launched in 1982 as WOXL and an independent (because of Lamar's history), WFTW became a FOX affiliate in 1986, and changed their call letters to WFTW (Fox TWo). WFTW also operates two subchannels: 2.2 for MeTV, and 2.3 for Movies!

History
Having learned their lesson from having the license of then-WKMZ (now WOXT) revoked, Lamar Communications wanted another chance. In 1975, under the new CEO of Lamar Communications Joe Williams, Lamar Communications applied to the FCC for a station in Oxford, Mississippi. FCC gave Lamar Communications some conditions that it had to meet in order to be granted a new license. One of the conditions was that it had to denounce what happened with then-WKMZ and it's hard stance against the civil rights movement. They also had to make sure that they don't discriminate the minority and not show any bias against the minority. Once Lamar Communications met all the conditions, in 1982, WOXL was on the air. There was just one problem: No network would want to affiliate with WOXL due to Lamar Communications' history with WKMZ. So WOXL was an independent. Broadcasting reruns all day and airing movies all night, WOXL's ratings weren't that good. But the situation changed in 1986 when FOX came looking for some independent stations to launch FOX, and WOXL said yes. Shortly after they became a FOX affiliate, they changed their call letters to WFTW. Ratings improved slightly, but they still finished well behind WOXT, WLPC and WUMT in the ratings. When the NFL moved from CBS to FOX, WFTW almost lost their affiliate to WLPC, but WLPC stayed with CBS. Thanks to FOX's lineup becoming a hit, WFTW finally managed to climb out of the cellar.

Newscast
Launched in 2000, FOX 2 News became the Mississippi Hills' only primetime newscast (that changed when WUMT started producing WVSB's newscast in 2006). Since 2008, FOX 2 News has been beating WVSB in the newscast ratings war. However, both stations finish well behind WOXT, WUMT, and WLPC's newscasts.