WAKT

WAKT is an NBC affiliate serving Panama City, Florida as well as the Emerald Coast area in Florida. Broadcasting on channel 7, WAKT is owned and operated by Island Television. Launched in 1953, WAKT is the oldest station in Panama City, FL. In addition to running WAKT, Island Television also runs FOX affiliate WVAS. WAKT also runs two subchannels: 7.2 (for Trio Sports Network) and 7.3 (for This TV).

History
WAKT was founded on December 1, 1953 as WJDM-TV as was owned by local businessmanJ.D. Manley. It became known by many people as "Wait Just A Darn Minute" (a play on its call letters) because it would frequently go off-the-air with technical problems.

At first, the station aired local programming such as church services and wrestling and went as an Independent outlet for a short period of time before securing a primary affiliation with NBC and secondary affiliations with CBS and ABC. Mel Wheeler purchased the station in 1957, and in 1960, James Harrison Gray (the founder of Gray Communications) bought the station and changed the call letters to WAKT.

WAKT dropped CBS in the 1960s after WEFS signed on and became the default CBS affiliate for Panama City. In 1973, WAKT became an exclusive ABC affiliate when WQSU signed-on taking the NBC affiliation. In 1982, WQSU and WAKT switched networks with this station going back to NBC.

In 2002, the Perry family decided to sell WAKT to Island Television.