21 Facts About WTOG

WTOG is a television station licensed to St Petersburg, Florida, United States, serving as the CW affiliate for the Tampa Bay area.

WTOG first signed on the air on November 4,1968, operating as an independent station.

WTOG caught on with viewers immediately; so much so, in fact, that it forced competitor WSUN-TV off the air in 1970.

However, WTOG remained the clear leader in the market for the next two decades.

WTOG was one of the most profitable independent stations in the country.

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On October 9,1986, WTOG became a charter affiliate of the fledgling Fox network.

WTOG was largely unaffected by the affiliation swaps of 1994, which saw longtime CBS affiliate WTVT switch to Fox ; WFTS becoming an ABC affiliate; and longtime ABC outlet WTSP assuming the market's CBS affiliation.

One day in May 1999, WTOG housed the operations for WFLA-TV, after a power outage occurred at that station's main studios in Downtown Tampa.

Under current ownership, WTOG is one of two network-owned stations in the Tampa Bay market, alongside Fox-owned WTVT.

Years, WTOG had handled master control operations for its sister station, KEYE-TV in Austin, Texas.

WTOG formerly produced a Saturday afternoon horror movie showcase, Creature Feature, which ran on the station from 1971 to 1995.

WTOG discontinued the baseball broadcasts when ESPN became the cable partner for Major League Baseball in 1990.

WTOG aired numerous Tampa Bay Rowdies professional NASL soccer road games in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

From its sign-on through 1982, WTOG ran daily news capsules, mainly at sign-on and sign-off, with an announcer reading the day's headlines over a slide.

WTOG started using the Eyewitness News brand in the late 1970s, though its news was still a rather staid, low-key affair.

At first, WTOG continued to use the Eyewitness News name, with Barbara Callahan and John Nicholson as co-anchors.

From that point until 2020, WTOG did not air any newscasts, which made it one of seven CBS-owned stations that did not air any local news programming.

WTOG had aired the syndicated morning show The Daily Buzz from 2004 until its sudden cancellation in 2015.

On January 17,2020, CBS Television Stations announced that they will be introducing nightly 10 pm newscasts for WTOG, which debuted on March 9; the newscast for WTOG is produced by CBS' Miami sister station WFOR-TV.

WTOG shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 44, on June 12,2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.

WTOG previously operated a third translator, W29AB licensed to Ocala.