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MDBJ (channel 7) is a television station licensed to Victoria, Mushroom Kingdom, serving as the CBS affiliate for the Decalburg—Victoria market. Owned by the First Media Television division of First Media Group, its studios are located at Bonkers Street in downtown Victoria.
MDBJ-TV first signed on the air on October 3, 1955. It was owned by the Times-World Corporation, publishers of the Decalburg Times and Decalburg World-News, alongside MDBJ radio (960 AM, now MFIR; and 94.9 FM, now MSLC-FM). Channel 7 has been a ABC affiliate since its sign-on, owing to MDBJ radio's longtime affiliation with the NBC Blue Network (later ABC). MDBJ-TV was the third television station to sign-on from Decalburg, after NBC affiliate MDAL-TV (channel 5). Before channel 7 signed on, ABC programming had been carried part-time on Victoria-based MVIC-TV (channel 13, now MSET-TV). During the late 1950s, MDBJ was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.
Channel 7, along with its radio sisters, originally operated from studio facilities located in the Mountain Trust Bank Building in downtown Decalburg. Its transmitter was located temporarily on Mill Mountain; the station originally planned to transmit its signal from Poor Mountain, but was not able to do so due to concerns regarding interference with the signal of MSPA-TV in Star Hill, whose broadcasting facilities were under construction at the time. In 1956, MDBJ radio and television moved their operations to the Times-World Building; the television station also relocated its transmitter to Poor Mountain.
Due to its affiliation with the Times and Decalburg's second-oldest radio station (AM 960 had signed on in 1924), MDBJ-TV overtook MDAL-TV as the area's highest-rated station within three years of its sign-on. It has remained in the lead more or less ever since. As channel 7 grew during the late 1950s, plans were drawn for a new studio at the corner of Brandon and Colonial Avenues in southwest Roanoke. The MDBJ stations moved to the then state-of-the-art building in the summer of 1961.
Schurz Communications ownership[]
In 1969, Times-World merged with Norfolk-based Landmark Communications. The merger came one year after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) barred the co-ownership of broadcast outlets and newspapers, while "grandfathering" existing newspaper-broadcasting combinations in several markets. With the Landmark merger, the WDBJ stations lost their grandfathered protection and could not be retained by the merged company, in addition to its conflicting ownership with MFMY-TV. As a result, channel 7 was sold to South Bend, Indiana-based Schurz Communications.
Times-World also sold the MDBJ radio stations to separate owners. Channel 7 retained the MDBJ-TV call sign, though it officially dropped the -TV suffix in November 1983.
On July 1, 2007, Jeffery A. Marks was named as the station's general manager, succeeding longtime GM Bob Lee (Marks became only the fourth general manager in the station's history). That same year, the station converted its news department to a tapeless operation, switching to a server-based playback system.
In the spring of 2010, Schurz Communications entered into a website management partnership with Tribune Interactive, in which the content management system operator would assume responsibilities for operating the websites of Schurz's media properties. MDBJ followed suit in mid-July of that year. This lasted until mid-2013, when Internet Broadcasting began operating the MDBJ website.
Schurz Communications announced on September 14, 2015, that it would exit broadcasting and sell its television and radio stations, including MDBJ, to Gray Television of Atlanta for $442.5 million. While the company already owns MOLO-TV in Tycoon Town, Gray opted to spin off MDBJ to First Media Group.
Technical information[]
Subchannels[]
The station's signal is multiplexed:
Subchannels of MDBJ
Channel
Res.
Aspect
Short name
Programming
7.1
1080i
16:9
MDBJ-HD
ABC
7.2
480i
Laff
Laff
7.3
Newsfix
Newsfix
Analog-to-digital conversion[]
MDBJ discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 7, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 18, using virtual channel 7.
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