WJWB

WJWB is a WB affiliate serving Jacksonville, Florida, and the Jacksonville area. Broadcasting on channel 17, WJWB is owned and operated by Flinn Broadcasting. The station started as WJKS and being an NBC affiliate. WJKS left NBC in 1988 and became an independent. In 1996, WJKS became an affiliate of The WB, and they changed their call letters to WJWB.

As a major network affiliate
The station first signed on the air on February 19, 1966 as WJKS-TV. Founded by Rust Craft, it originally operated as an NBC affiliate; prior to its sign-on. Jacksonville had to wait longer to gain full-time affiliates of all three major networks than other cities of its size because the surrounding suburbs and rural areas are smaller than the city itself. In March 1979, the Ziff Corporation bought Rust Craft's broadcasting assets, including WJKS, for $89.4 million. Media General acquired WJKS from the Ziff Corporation for $18 million in October 1982. In 1988, WJKS left NBC and became an independent.

Independence, then WB affiliation
On April 3, 1988, WJKS lost their affiliation when NBC decided that they were done with WJKS' low ratings in the market. So WJKS became an independent and started running a general independent schedule of children's programming in the morning, off-network syndication in the afternoon, and movies throughout the night. On February 3, 1996, they became an affiliate of The WB and changed their call letters to WJWB.

Having been on the air for over 30 years at the time of the affiliation switch, WJWB was one of the few stations to switch from a "big three" network to The WB, which had started operations in January 1995. Under normal circumstances, the switch could have spelled trouble for channel 17. Not only had it languished in the ratings as an independent, but it now faced having to acquire an additional 16 hours of programming per day – a significant amount even for an owner with resources like those available to Media General. However, it thrived during its tenure as a WB affiliate and for most of its run with the network, had consistently ranked as one of The WB's highest-rated affiliates. On October 29, 2007, Media General announced that the company was exploring the sale of WJWB. On January 28, 2009, Flinn Broadcasting announced that it had reached an agreement to purchase WJWB. The deal was finalized on May 1, 2009. In 2010, WJWB relaunched their newscast for the first time since leaving NBC in 1988.