WGNB-TV

''This article is about WGNB-TV, which originally held the WGA-TV call letters. For the television station in Gameria City using that callsign since 1999, see WGA-TV.''WGNB-TV, virtual channel 4 (UHF digital channel 14), is an NBC-affiliated television station licensed to Gameria City, Minecraftia. It is owned by the GamerCraft Broadcast Group subsidiary of GamerCraft, and is sister to WGA radio (970 AM and 88.3 FM) as well the GamerCraft broadcast flagships, ITV affiliate WNT-TV (channel 13) and the WNT radio stations (880 AM and 99.1 FM).

History
The station was launched on September 2, 1949 as WGA-TV. It was owned by Twin Cities Newspapers, a joint venture between the Minneapolis Tribune and the Saint Paul Pioneer Press-Dispatch in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. The station was initially a sister station to WGA radio, which Twin Cities Newspapers bought in 1943, along with WGXX radio in nearby Grassyville, which changed its callsign to WGVI.

It was Gameria City's first television station, tied with WGA's title of the city's first radio station. Twin Cities Newspapers sold off its broadcast holdings in 1952. Although sister stations WTCN-TV (now WCCO-TV) and WGVI-AM-FM-TV were sold to the Murphy and McNally families, forming Midwest Radio and Television to hold the broadcast stations, Twin Cities Newspapers and later, the Minnesota Television Service Corporation (headed by Saint Paul businessman Robert Butler) held on to WGA-AM-FM-TV until the stations were sold in 1961 to the The Grassyville Star newspaper, which owned WXB radio in Grassyville.

The station has always been an NBC affiliate since its inception, owing to WGA's affiliation with the NBC Red Network since 1935, but it had secondary affiliations with CBS (until WOPS-TV (channel 9) signed on in 1953), ABC (shared with WOPS-TV, until WGMR-TV (channel 20, now WGFX-TV) signed on in 1966) and DuMont (until the network closed in 1956). Both stations were de facto secondary DuMont affiliates in Grassyville as well, due to their good reception in the market, and because then-CBS affiliate and eventual sister station WXB-TV (now ABC affiliate WJKM-TV) declined to a secondary affiliation with DuMont when the station launched in 1955.

In 1975, following the death of Robert Williams, the family decided to close down their media empire. They sold the Star and its assets to motion picture executive and movie producer John K. Matthews, then-owner of Everest Pictures, in 1976. As a result of how the sale went through, the newspaper lost grandfathered protection from the Federal Communications Commission in Grassyville. To comply with the regulation, along with the concentration on common ownership of radio and television stations, Matthews sold WGA radio to Infinity Broadcasting Corporation. To comply with a now-repealed FCC rule that forbade TV and radio stations in the same market, but with different ownership from sharing the same callsigns, the station subsequently changed its call letters to WGNB-TV. A year later, he founded The Matthews Company to restructure his assets separate from Everest; in 1985, he later sold Everest to Philippines-based partner VGC, which owned WVGG-TV (channel 27) since 1980, and in 1999, the Star to the Gannett Company.

In 2002, WGNB-TV entered into a shared services agreement (SSA) with VGC and WVGG-TV to produce newscasts for the station, as VGC decided to shut down their news operations in Minecraftia and Mattula, as well as some VGC stations in Welter; the newscast of WVGM-TV in Grassyville was produced by sister station WJKM-TV,

In 2018, Lucasrio Media Group, which owns the current WGA-TV (channel 33, an LTV owned-and-operated station), decided to divest some radio stations.

In 2019, GamerCraft–which owned ITV affiliate WNT-TV (channel 13) since its sign-on in 1997–announced its intent to merge with The Matthews Company. The merger was completed on March 30, 2020.