WFMT

WFMT
City	Memphis, Tennessee, United States
Channels	Digital: 17 (UHF) Virtual: 17
Branding	Fox 17; Fox 17 News
Programming
Affiliations	17.1: Fox 17.2: Buzzr 17.3: Decades
Ownership
Owner	Cox Media Group (WFMT, LLC)
History
First air date	June 1, 1985
Former callsigns	WTMT (1985-1995)
Former affiliations	Independent (1985-1990)
Technical information
Licensing authority	FCC

WFMT (channel 17) is a television station licensed to Memphis, Tennessee, United States, serving as the market's Fox network affiliate. It is owned by Cox Media Group.

History

Taft Broadcasting decided to launch a new independent station for Memphis, Tennessee (about 7 years following WWLM's launch). Calling the station WTMT, the station quickly developed a rivalry with WWLM as both stations were independent and pretty much ran the same schedule of children's cartoons in the morning, court drama in the afternoon, and movies throughout the night. About year later, FOX Broadcasting debuted and they needed an affiliate. Since WWLM started earlier than WTMT, WWLM became a FOX affiliate in 1987 and WTMT remained an independent. However, in 1990, WWLM (which was bought by MT Communications) dropped their FOX affiliation, and WTMT became the market's new FOX affiliate. However, by 1993, Taft Broadcasting was in serious trouble and WTMT felt the pinch. WTMT was pretty much nothing more than just a satellite running the FOX schedule while having little to no local programming.

As a Fox owned-and-operated station

In late 1993, FOX shocked the world when they took the NFL package away from CBS. Because of the numerous affiliation switches happening, FOX attempted to switch affiliation as the WTMT became the lowest rated FOX affiliate in the South. FOX attempted to cause WMCT to leave NBC and became a FOX affiliate, but WMCT turned them down. Instead, FOX decided to buy WTMT from Taft Broadcasting in 1995. After the sale became final, WTMT changed their call letters to WFMT (FOX in Memphis, Tennessee), Thanks to the purchase, FOX 17's ratings started to improve. in 2014, FOX Broadcasting sold WFMT to Cox Media.

Newscast

Shortly after buying out Taft Broadcasting for WTMT, FOX Broadcasting decided to have WFMT launch their own prime time newscast. FOX 17 News became Memphis's prime-time newscast (WWLM tried in 1987, 1995, and 2006. Their current newscast launched in 2010). In 2011, WJEI became a Rainbow Dash affiliate and moved their newscast from 10 PM to prime-time at 9. FOX 11 News won the Prime-Time news race, but still finished in the middle of the overall news race, behind WMEM (News Channel 7), WBTN (News Ultra HD) and WINT (ABC 10 News).