The Fox Television Stations are a group of television stations located within the United States which are owned-and-operated by the Fox Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of the Fox Entertainment Group, part of the News Corporation. FTS also produces the Fox program COPS and overseees distribution wing 20th Television as well as myNetworkTV.

History

Fox Television Stations was formed in April 1986 after the acquisition of the Metromedia-owned independent stations by the 20th Century Fox film studio, at the time jointly owned by Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, and Denver-based billionaire Marvin Davis. These stations would later become the basis of the Fox television network, which launched in October 1986. Not long after the Metromedia deal was made, Murdoch purchased Davis's shares and News Corporation assumed complete control of 20th Century Fox.

Initially FTS was a semi-autonomous unit in which News Corporation owned over 99 percent of the equity but only 24 percent of the voting power; the balance was held personally by Murdoch. Federal Communications Commission regulations of that era prohibited foreign interests or non-American citizens from controlling more than 25 percent of an FCC-licensed broadcast station. Though News Corporation was still based in Australia, Murdoch had become a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1985, and the nominal transfer of a majority voting interest to Murdoch was sufficient to get around this hurdle. The quirk was removed permanently when News Corporation reincorporated in the U.S. in 2004. The Fox network itself and affiliated cable channels were not affected by these regulations.

Starting with the original six stations, Fox Television Stations gained the bulk of its group through two large transactions: the 1997 purchase of New World Communications, succeeding a 1993 business deal between the two companies which led to all of New World's stations switching from other networks to Fox during 1994-95; and the 2001 acquisition of the Chris-Craft/United group, which gave Fox ownership of several stations then affiliated with the UPN network, and also created several duopolies (two stations in the same market owned by the same company).

The Fox-owned UPN affiliates were not included in the UPN/WB merger , which was announced on January 24, 2006. Soon after, these stations removed references to UPN from their on-air branding and websites. On February 22, 2006, Fox Television Stations announced that all of their non-Fox outlets will be charter affiliates of a new service known as MyNetworkTV [105003], which commenced operations on September 5, 2006.

See also: U.S. television network affiliate switches of 1994, 2006 United States broadcast TV realignment

Partnerships with NBC Local Media, E. W. Scripps and CBS

On November 13, 2008 Fox Television Stations and NBC Local Media, the station division of NBC Universal, announced the formation of a partnership that will allow Fox-owned stations and NBC-owned stations to pool their news resources. The partnership is first being tested in the Philadelphia market, where Fox owns WTXF-TV and NBC operates WCAU-TV. The two stations are the first network affiliates in the nation to undertake the plan as an effective way to deal with rising in costs in news operations.

The service is scheduled to roll out later in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Dallas/Fort Worth and Washington, D.C., each a market in which Fox owns and operates two stations and NBC owns and operates an English-language station.

On April 1, 2009, Fox Television Stations announced a similar arrangement with the broadcast division of the E.W. Scripps Company, which covers markets where the two entities own stations: Detroit, Phoenix and Tampa/St. Petersburg. ( title)

On May 19, 2009, WFXT in Boston announced a video-sharing agreement with that city's CBS-owned station, WBZ-TV. The stations will share video for general market news, along with a helicopter for traffic reports and breaking news. ( title)

List of Fox owned-and-operated stations

Currently, a total of 27 stations, consisting of 17 Fox stations and 10 MyNetworkTV stations.

Notes:

1) '** -- Indicates an original Fox-owned station from the network's inception in 1986;
2) '++ -- Indicates a station owned by New World Communications prior to its acquisition by News Corporation in 1997;
3) '¤¤ -- Indicates a station owned by Chris-Craft Industries prior to its acquisition by News Corporation in 2001.

DMA#	City of license/Market	Station	Channel TV (RF)	Owned since	Affiliation
1.	New York City	WNYW **	5 (44)	1986	Fox
	Secaucus, New Jersey	WWOR-TV ¤¤	9 (38)	2001	MyNetworkTV
2.	Los Angeles	KTTV **	11 (11)	1986	Fox
		KCOP ¤¤	13 (13)	2001	MyNetworkTV
3.	Chicago	WFLD-TV **	32 (31)	1986	Fox
	Gary, Indiana	WPWR-TV	50 (51)	2002	MyNetworkTV
4.	Philadelphia	WTXF-TV	29 (42)	1995	Fox
5.	Dallas - Fort Worth	KDFW-TV ++	4 (35)	1997	Fox
		KDFI-TV	27 (36)	1998	MyNetworkTV
7.	Boston	WFXT	25 (31)	1995 (previously owned from 1987-91)	Fox
8.	Atlanta	WAGA-TV ++	5 (27)	1997	Fox
9.	Washington, D.C.	WTTG **	5 (36)	1986	Fox
		WDCA	20 (35)	2002	MyNetworkTV
10.	Houston	KTXH	20 (19)	2002	MyNetworkTV
		KRIV-TV **	26 (26)	1986	Fox
11.	Detroit	WJBK ++	2 (7)	1997	Fox
12.	Phoenix	KSAZ-TV ++	10 (10)	1997	Fox
		KUTP ¤¤	45 (26)	2001	MyNetworkTV
14.	Tampa - St. Petersburg	WTVT ++	13 (12)	1997	Fox
15.	Minneapolis - St. Paul	KMSP-TV ¤¤	9 (9)	2001	Fox
		WFTC	29 (21)	2002	MyNetworkTV
19.	Orlando - Daytona Beach	WOFL	35 (22)	2002	Fox
		WRBW ¤¤	65 (41)	2001	MyNetworkTV
27.	Baltimore	WUTB ¤¤	24 (41)	2001	MyNetworkTV
48.	Austin, Texas	KTBC-TV ++	7 (7)	1997	Fox
50.	Memphis	WHBQ-TV	13 (13)	1994	Fox
160.	Ocala - Gainesville, FL	WOGX (semi-satellite of WOFL)	51 (31)	2002	Fox

Footnotes

Former Fox-owned stations

DMA#	City of license/Market	Station	Channel TV / RF	Years owned	Current affiliation and ownership
5.	Dallas - Fort Worth	KDAF **	33 (32)	1986-1995	CW affiliate owned by Tribune Company
6.	San Francisco - Oakland - San Jose	KBHK-TV ¤¤ (now KBCW)	44 (45)	2001-2002	CW affiliate owned by CBS Corporation
7.	Boston	WCVB-TV **1	5 (20)	1986	ABC affiliate owned by Hearst-Argyle Television
8.	Atlanta	WATL	36 (25)	1993-1995	MyNetworkTV affiliate owned by Gannett Company
16.	Denver	KDVR	31 (32)	1993-2008	Fox affiliate owned by Local TV
	Fort Collins, Colorado	KFCT (satellite of KDVR)	22 (21)	1994-2008	Fox affiliate owned by Local TV
18.	Cleveland - Akron	WJW-TV ++	8 (8)	1997-2008	Fox affiliate owned by Local TV
21.	St. Louis	KTVI ++	2 (43)	1997-2008	Fox affiliate owned by Local TV
22.	Portland, Oregon	KPTV ¤¤	12 (12)	2001-2002	Fox affiliate owned by Meredith Corporation
31.	Salt Lake City	KSTU	13 (28)	1990-2008	Fox affiliate owned by Local TV
		KTVX ¤¤	4 (40)	2001	ABC affiliate owned by Newport Television
32.	Kansas City, Missouri	WDAF-TV ++	4 (34)	1997-2008	Fox affiliate owned by Local TV
35.	Milwaukee	WITI-TV ++	6 (33)	1997-2008	Fox affiliate owned by Local TV
37.	San Antonio	KMOL-TV ¤¤ (now WOAI-TV)	4 (40)	2001	NBC affiliate owned by High Plains Broadcasting (operated by Newport Television)
40.	Birmingham - Tuscaloosa - Anniston	WBRC-TV	6 (50)	1995-2008	Fox affiliate owned by Raycom Media
46.	High Point - Greensboro - Winston-Salem, N.C.	WGHP	8 (8)	1995-2008	Fox affiliate owned by Local TV

Footnotes:

• ¹ WCVB-TV was included in the original sale of the Metromedia stations to News Corporation, but was spun-off in a separate, concurrent deal to the Hearst Corporation as part of a right of first refusal related to that station's 1982 acquisition by Metromedia.

On a side note, in between the events of Fox acquiring its original charter affiliates and the New World affiliation agreement, only WTXF, WFXT, KDVR, WOFL, KSTU and WOGX were already affiliated with Fox when they were acquired much later on.

External links

• Official listing of FTSG stations