When was WGBA-TV station created?
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WLRE, which stood for station co-founder Lyle R. Evans, sought to be operational as early as December 1977. It delayed so that it could put its transmission tower on Scray's Hill near De Pere, the location of other Green Bay market transmitter towers. Ultimately the location was approved, but it meant ground was not broken on the studio and antenna location until June 1980. The station signed on the air on December 31, 1980, broadcasting an analog signal on UHF channel 26. It was the Green Bay market's second independent station, after the short-lived KFIZ-TV (channel 34) in Fond du Lac from 1968 to 1972. It was also the first new commercial station to sign-on in Green Bay itself since WFRV-TV (channel 5) signed on in May 1955. On November 12, 1982, WLRE was able to power up a new transmitter and had plans for further antenna power boosts.
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In the wake of a bankruptcy, Green Bay's original Fox affiliate WXGZ (channel 32) went dark on February 14, 1992. WGBA became the new affiliate the following day, changing its branding to "Fox 26". After Ace TV acquired the WXGZ license, WGBA helped to relaunch the station through a local marketing agreement in June 1994. That station became a charter affiliate of UPN and changed its call letters to WACY-TV in 1995. In 1994 during the first year of Fox's contract to broadcast NFL games, the station entered into a contract with ABC affiliate WBAY-TV (channel 2) to produce a pregame show to air before Green Bay Packers games since it lacked a local sports department.
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In early 1983, coinciding with the purchase of a licensing deal of approximately 1,000 movies and other syndicated programs, WRLE took on the tagline "The Great Entertainer", using station imaging shared with (at least) WPHL. In late 1984, the station's partnership was dissolved in a bankruptcy court in which investors lost money. In 1985, it was bought by Family Group Broadcasting Incorporated for only pennies on the dollar. On October 3 of that year, the station's call letters were changed to WGBA-TV. The station, then known on-air as "TV 26", was well known in its early years for children's program host "Cuddles the Clown", who stayed with the station until it switched to NBC, and moved to sister station WACY before retiring. The station's imaging was also shared with sister station WQRF-TV in Rockford, Illinois, WVFT-TV in Roanoke, Virginia, WPGX-TV in Panama City, Florida, WFGX-TV in Fort Walton Beach, Florida and WLAX-TV in La Crosse, Wisconsin, including its early 'diamond' logo.
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In early 1996, shortly after WGBA picked up the NBC affiliation, then-owner Aries Telecommunications announced plans to start a full-fledged news department for the station. On July 19, 1996, during the start of NBC's coverage of the 1996 Summer Olympics, WGBA debuted its local newscasts, with a half-hour early-evening newscast at 6:00 p.m. on Mondays through Saturdays (the initial broadcast of that program on July 19 ran a special one-hour broadcast, leading into NBC's coverage of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Atlanta) and a late evening newscast at 10:00 p.m. seven nights a week. Ted O'Connell was WGBA's first news director; he was succeeded by Ashley Webster (now a journalist with Fox Business Network), who also served as weeknight co-anchor alongside Heather Hays (presently a main anchor at Fox owned-and-operated station KDFW in Dallas-Fort Worth). Eventually as the operation grew, the station added newscasts on weekday mornings, weekdays at noon and at 5:00 p.m.
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In 1994, WLUK-TV (channel 11) and three other stations owned by Burnham Broadcasting were sold to SF Broadcasting (owned as a partnership between Savoy Communications and Fox). As part of the purchase and through Fox's ownership of the group, SF signed a group affiliation deal to switch its stations to Fox; this enabled WLUK to become the Packers' unofficial "home" station as Fox had acquired the television contract to the NFL's National Football Conference. On August 28, 1995, WGBA-TV switched its affiliation to NBC (and changed its on-air branding to "NBC 26"); the Fox affiliation moved to former NBC affiliate WLUK. As an NBC affiliate, it struggled to find a constant identity. Green Bay's other three stations have been on-the-air since the 1950s and had loyal audiences. Relief did not come until October 2004, when the Journal Broadcast Group bought it for $43.2 million after Aries Telecommunications sold the station. Journal had long wanted a station in Northeastern Wisconsin alongside its flagship station, WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee, that market's NBC affiliate and long-dominant news station.
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The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
WGBA launched a new second digital subchannel in November 2010 carrying TheCoolTV (an automated music video network) which had aired on the WTMJ's second subchannel since the summer of 2009. The establishment of WGBA-DT2 made it the second commercial station in the market to launch a subchannel service after WBAY-TV. On September 7, 2011, Journal and Weigel Broadcasting announced that WGBA would carry the classic television network MeTV beginning on October 1, 2011. MeTV replaced TheCoolTV on 26.2 on that date, as Journal brought a lawsuit against TheCoolTV's parent company Cool Music Network, LLC for non-payment of services; WTMJ-TV, along with Journal's other stations dropped the network on October 1, 2011 to carry Live Well Network or MeTV, depending on the market. Sometime in the summer of 2016, 26.2 was converted to a widescreen presentation in line with Weigel converting their networks to that format.
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On April 7, 2009, WTMJ became the first station in Milwaukee to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition. However, until April 2012, the pre-taped nightly sports and weekend weather segments originating from WTMJ were broadcast in standard definition. On July 24, it was announced that WGBA would eliminate some of its reporting and photojournalist positions, with the remaining staff being retrained to act as "one-man band" videojournalists handling reporting, camera work, and editing stories themselves. In September 2009, reporter Bonnie Kirschman, the final employee to remain with WGBA's news operation since its 1996 launch, left the station.
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On July 14, 2008, due to low ratings and inconsistent viewership, WGBA discontinued its weekday morning and noon newscasts, while laying off some of its staff. In place of those shows, the station began simulcasting WTMJ's morning and midday newscasts "Live at Daybreak" and "Live at Noon", interspersed with local weather cut-ins presented by a meteorologist from WGBA's Green Bay studios (again, recorded in advance since WTMJ was already live in its own market), but with no regard to coverage of Fox Valley and Green Bay news. Due to the latter issue, in January 2009, the weekday morning simulcast was dropped and turned into a WGBA-produced rolling weather block called "Non-Stop Weather". WTMJ's weekday noon broadcast was later moved to WACY and replaced in that timeslot on WGBA by paid programming, which for a time in 2008, filled some of the station's early afternoon schedule due to an unusual number of syndicated program cancellations in that year. The midday news simulcast on WACY and paid programming on WGBA were eventually dropped as well.
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In addition to its main signal, WGBA operates two translators to extend the station's coverage northward. The translators are a remnant of the analog era when it was Green Bay's only major UHF commercial television station. The station in fact kept a post office box address open for years to allow responses to an offer through a station promo of a free pamphlet describing the installation of a UHF television antenna to interested viewers until the early 1990s. During that period, residents of Northern Door County and the southern portion of Michigan's Upper Peninsula could easily receive the three Green Bay network stations on VHF and WFRV semi-satellite WJMN-TV from Escanaba, Michigan, along with PBS member station WNMU from Marquette, Michigan, but not WGBA and Wisconsin Public Television's WPNE-TV (channel 38).
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On April 7, 2012, WGBA upgraded its local newscasts to widescreen standard definition. It became the last station in the market to convert to full high-definition operations on January 23, 2016, with the unveiling of a new chyron-heavy "virtual" set, the first major change to the station's newsroom and set since the station began carrying newscasts in 1996 and the newsroom and anchor sets were split off in the early 2000s via an opaque partition. The station began to use the default Scripps graphics package/news music package in October 2016.
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