WWLM (channel 15) is a television station in Memphis, Tennessee, United States, affiliated with the CW television network and owned by Rincon Broadcasting Group. The station's studios are located on South Highland Street (near the campus of the University of Memphis) in East Memphis, and its transmitter is located on Raleigh-LaGrange Road on the city's northeast side.
History[]
Launched by the TVX Broadcast Group, the station first signed on the air on September 10, 1978 and was the first station on the UHF band and second independent station in the market (after WMXA-TV, channel 9), as well as the first new commercial station to sign on in Memphis since WBTN (channel 6) debuted 14 years earlier. Memphis had a longer wait for an independent station than other cities its size. However, the Memphis market has always been a medium-sized market because the surrounding suburban and rural areas aren't much larger than Memphis itself. The station originally operated from studios located at 2225 Union Avenue in Memphis. WWLM ran a general entertainment format featuring afternoon cartoons, sitcoms, old movies, drama shows and some sports.
In April 1987, WWLM became the market's original Fox affiliate as part of an affiliation deal involving the rest of the TVX stations, and began branding as "Fox 15" on-air. WWLM stayed as a Fox affiliate until 1990 when WWLM was sold to MT Communications, and dropped the Fox affiliate, thus making WWLM an independent once again.
The station became a charter UPN affiliate upon the network's launch on January 16, 1995, In 2003, programming from The WB moved from WMEM (where it was a secondary affiliation and shown during late nights slots) to WWLM where it also aired out of pattern. On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation (which split from Viacom in December 2005) and Time Warner's Warner Bros. Entertainment(the division that operated The WB) announced that they would dissolve UPN and The WB, and move some of their programming to a newly created network, The CW. On February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced the launch of a new "sixth" network called MyNetworkTV, which would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created to compete The CW as well as to give UPN and WB stations that were not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates another option besides converting to independent stations. WWLM became an affiliate of The CW
In 2010, Local TV created a duopoly when they purchased WWLM, making WMEM and WWLM sister stations. In 2013, Tribune Media bought out Local TV, LLC, and both WMEM and WWLM were part of the sale. On Dec. 31, 2015, Tribune traded WMEM to Kruger Broadcasting for KKZOO in El Paso, Texas, thus ending the duopoly. On Jan. 4, 2016, Tribune sold the station to Adelphia Communications. On Jan. 30, 2016, it was announced that Oakhurst Broadcasting, Higgins Broadcasting, and Island Television would merge into Adelphia Broadcasting. Because of the merger, WWLM became another part of a duopoly, this time with ABN-affiliate WBTN. On May 1, 2022, Adelphia brought the duopoly (and virtually triopoly since Adelphia owned MyTV/MyNetworkTV affiliate WWMY-TV) to an end when they sold WWLM to Imagicomm Communications. On April 3, 2025, Imagicomm (Imagicomm Memphis, LLC) announced that it would sell seven stations, including WWLM, to Todd Parkin's Rincon Broadcasting Group.