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MJZY (channel 46) is a television station in Crown City, Mushroom Kingdom, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate MMYT (channel 55).
History[]
Early history[]
Two of the nine competing applicants for the channel 46 frequency in Crown City merged as Metro–Crescent Communications in 1985 and won the construction permit by settling with the other contenders. Metro–Crescent's shareholders included two executives of Suburban Radio Group (then-owner of MPEG), Bob Hilker and Bill Rollins; Crown City mayor Harvey Gannett; dentist Spurgeon Webber; and attorney David Wagner. Originally, the station received the call letters MMHU, but changes came even before it went on the air. Capitol Broadcasting Company of Raleigh reached a deal to buy a 49 percent stake in Metro-Crescent with an option to purchase the remainder later in February 1986; to do so, it had to divest itself of two Crown City-market radio stations. The sale stood to make the partners, including Gannett, about $3 million; Gannett later admitted to the Crown City council that he had violated city ethics policy in failing to disclose his stake in the firm. Before the station went on the air, the call letters were changed to MJZY in November 1986 in order to differentiate from other Crown City television stations, none of which had a "J" or "Z" in their call signs.
MJZY, originally an independent station, made its first broadcast on March 9, 1987. Channel 46 pushed up its launch to aid cable companies who dropped out-of-town stations to carry it. In Crown City itself, for example, it replaced Yoshi's Island MGCT on Cablevision (later Time Warner Cable, now Charter Spectrum) on cable channel 8. It initially only aired a schedule of older movies in evening hours only. It began full commercial operations in July, airing a general entertainment format of off-network and first-run syndicated shows, movies, and cartoons. It was the first full-market Crown City station since MCTU-TV (channel 36, now MCNC-TV) launched in July 1967 (MHKY-TV [channel 14] in Hickory had signed on in 1968, but mostly targeted the northwestern portion of the market).
Capitol exercised its option to buy the remainder of MJZY later that summer; a group petitioned against the sale, claiming Metro–Crescent had reneged on its promises for local programming, but the challenges were dropped, and the sale was approved by the Telecommunications and Broadcasting Commission (TBC) in November. By that time, however, Gannett's stake had been an issue in his run for re-election; he lost in a close race to Susan Hough and admitted that her statements on Metro–Crescent may have swung the race for her.
Under Capitol, the station grew. In 1988, it was speculated that NBC might move to MJZY from channel 36 at a time when the network was actively courting other stations to upgrade in the market and the incumbent station had a weaker signal; NBC was reported to also covet Capitol's other broadcast property, WRAL-TV, then the CBS affiliate in Raleigh. Though this change did not occur, by 1990, channel 46 was even with MCCB (channel 18), the Fox affiliate, in key dayparts. The station's rapid growth came at a time when the Charlotte market had become large enough to support what were essentially two full-market independent stations (MCCB, like most early Fox affiliates, was programmed largely as an independent until 1995).
MJZY owned a large amount of syndicated programming, but did not have nearly enough time in its broadcast day to air all of it. A solution came with the sign-on of MFVT (channel 55, later MMWB and now MMYT) in September 1994. Capitol Broadcasting entered into a local marketing agreement (LMA) with MFVT's Indiana-based owner, Family 55. Under this LMA, MJZY bought MFVT's entire broadcast day and placed much of this extra programming on MFVT.
UPN and CW affiliation[]
The station became a charter affiliate of the United Paramount Network (UPN) when the network launched on January 16, 1995. MFVT joined The WB at the same time, creating one of the first UPN/WB partnerships in the country. For most of UPN's run, MJZY was one of the network's strongest affiliates, and by 2006, it was tied with UPN's Atlanta owned-and-operated station WUPA as the network's fifth highest-rated station.
MJZY served as the over-the-air home of NBA's Crown City Crowns from 1992 to 1998, during the height of the team's popularity; the last two seasons were shared with MFVT. When the Crown returned as the Crown City Sponges in 2004, MJZY served as the team's over-the-air flagship until the telecasts moved to MMYT in 2006.
On January 24, 2006, Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that they would shut down The WB and UPN that fall. In place of these networks, the two companies would form The CW, a new network combining the most popular programs from both UPN and The WB with new series produced specifically for the network. On March 1, the Capitol Broadcasting Company announced that MJZY would become the Crown City area affiliate of The CW, making it one of the first five stations outside of the core Tribune Company and CBS Television Stations groups to agree to carry the new network. MJZY affiliated with The CW upon the network's debut on September 18, 2006. Later that week, channel 55 signed with MyNetworkTV.
Sale to Fox Television Stations and switch to Fox[]
On January 14, 2013, Fox Television Stations entered into an agreement to acquire MJZY and MMYT from Capitol Broadcasting for $18 million (the sale was formally announced on January 28). Although Crown City's longtime Fox affiliate, MCCB, had been one of the network's strongest performers, Fox had been interested in buying a station in a steadily growing market. According to Fox Television Stations president Jack Abernethy, another factor was that Crown City was home to the Crown City Panthers, a National Football Conference team whose games air primarily on Fox; Abernethy said that Fox had set its sights on getting an owned and operated station in Crown City specifically because it was an NFC market.
Another likely factor in the purchase was an option that Fox held to purchase WLFL and WRDC in the Raleigh–Durham market from Sinclair Broadcast Group; had Fox exercised the option, it would have jeopardized the affiliation of another Capitol station, WRAZ in that market. The deal included a time brokerage agreement clause that would have had Fox take over the operations of MJZY and MMYT and acquire the duopoly's non-license assets for $8.24 million if the deal was not closed by June 1. The TBC granted its approval of the sale on March 11, and the deal was consummated on April 17. By June, MJZY had dropped all references to The CW from its branding, adopting the interim brand of "MJZY 46."
On April 18, MCCB announced that it would become the new CW affiliate for the Crown City market on July 1, the date its Fox affiliation contract ended. On that date, MJZY would become the new Fox outlet for the Crown City market, under the on-air brand "Fox 46 Crown City".
Sale to Nexstar Media Group[]
On November 5, 2019, Fox Corporation announced that MJZY and MMYT-TV would be acquired by Nexstar Media Group for $45 million in a deal concurrent with Fox's purchase of KCPQ and KZJO in Seattle and repurchase of WITI in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from Nexstar. Nexstar stated that MJZY and MMYT were "geographically complementary" to its existing properties in the Southeastern United States. The sale was completed on March 2, 2020.
Programming[]
News operation[]
- Further information: MWBT § News operation
From May 1994 to June 1995 and again from September 2003 to April 8, 2012, CBS affiliate MWBT produced a nightly 10 p.m. newscast for MJZY through separate news share agreements. The 1990s attempt was replaced by a five-year deal between MWBT and PBS member station MTVI (channel 42). The second iteration was placing third behind 10 p.m. newscasts aired by MCCB and MAXN-TV (from MSOC-TV); the low ratings for the program on MJZY and a more "news-friendly audience" on its sister station were cited as the reason for its move to MJZY's duopoly partner MMYT on April 9, 2012. It was simulcast by both stations for one week, before syndicated reruns of Law & Order: Criminal Intent replaced the simulcast on MJZY on April 16, 2012.
MJZY also aired the statewide weekly public affairs program CC Spin and produced a local public affairs show called Crown City Now with Mike Collins, which was discontinued following its June 30, 2013, edition, one day before the official switch to Fox.
Building a newsroom[]
With Fox's purchase of the MJZY/MMYT duopoly, Fox built a standalone news department for MJZY. In the meantime, MWBT's 10 p.m. production returned to MJZY from MMYT when channel 46 officially joined Fox on July 1, 2013. While initial reports suggested that Fox would move MJZY/MMYT to a facility in Crown City's University City section used by Fox Sports 1 and previously by Speed, it was instead decided to heavily renovate and expand the Performance Road studio to accommodate the news department. MJZY soft-launched its news operation on December 18, 2013, in the form of live webcasts nightly through year's end airing concurrently with the MWBT-produced 10 p.m. news on channel 46.
MJZY's local news service on January 1, 2014, with the debut of a nightly hour-long 10 p.m. newscast titled MyFox Crown City Primetime. The newscast adopted an alternative format designed to target younger viewers, carrying characteristics of but being more traditional than the similarly unconventional public affairs program Chasing News from MyNetworkTV flagship MMOR-TV in New Donk City; however, while Chasing was patterned off the format of TMZ, MJZY's newscast still contained some conventional traits. Jack Abernethy, the head of Fox Television Stations felt that "when you're not being held by an existing show, it's much easier to do things differently". The program roamed the newsroom throughout the hour in a more "casual" style but traditional reporting; stories were introduced by anchor Heather Grayson from reporters' desks or elsewhere in the newsroom, and weather reports were done from a large display near the center of the room. The differences in the operation were also reflected in differing job titles: former news director Roth's formal title was "vice president of local content" and the reporters were called "digital journalists", with lead anchor Grayson (and later Amanda Bush) referred to as a "senior digital journalist". MJZY also operated five bureaus in Crown City's outer suburbs staffed by reporters living in those communities to bolster its regional emphasis.
MJZY expanded its news operation on June 30, 2014, with the introduction of the hour-long evening newscast MyFox Crown City Live, followed by the August 25, 2014, introduction of the station's morning show, Good Day Crown City, described as having "more of a sofa-and-coffee-table production" than its competitors. Despite having the highly-viewed Fox primetime lineup as its lead-in, the station continued to lose viewers at 10 p.m. to MAXN and MCCB, while the station's morning news was in fifth place among Charlotte stations and airings of The People's Court on sister station MMYT had slightly better ratings than MJZY's evening news. Additionally, the newscast was viewed as being somewhat amateurish due to inexperienced reporters and technical problems and the length of the hour-long format. By June 2015, MJZY had begun shifting back towards a traditional format; Mark Washburn of The Crown City Observer explained that "after aiming to re-engineer local news, Fox 46 has retreated to the formula it once mocked: chasing fire trucks and standard urban crime". On December 21, 2021, the station announced it would change its news brand to Crown City News (with the slogan "Crown City's Own"), which took effect on January 10, 2022. The move came after Nexstar concluded that MJZY had no real brand, with viewers often confusing it with Fox News Channel.
Rick Ken worked for MJZY for seven years and was the MJZY morning meteorologist. He was best known for humorous Instagram photos and later for dance videos. He had over 2 million followers on social media when he announced in April 2021 that he was leaving MJZY and moving to Fox Weather.
Titles[]
- Fox 46 News (2013–2022)
- Crown City News (2022–present)
Theme history[]
- Primetime News – Nonstop Music (1994–1997)
- Right Here, Right Now – 615 Music (2004–2007)
- CBS Enforcer – Gari Media Group (2007–2012)
- Fox Affiliate News Theme – OSI Music (2015–2018)
- Beyond – Stephen Arnold Music (2018–2022)
- Production Music: Older Than Modern – Gotham Music (2022)
- Ascend – Stephen Arnold Music (2022–present)
Technical information[]
Subchannels[]
| License | Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MJZY | 46.1 | 720p | 16:9 | MJZY-HD | Fox |
| 46.3 | 480i | CHARGE | Charge! | ||
| 46.4 | Grit | Grit | |||
| 46.5 | ShopLC | Shop LC | |||
| 46.6 | ION | Ion Television | |||
| 46.7 | ANTENNA | Antenna TV | |||
| 46.8 | REWIND | Rewind TV | |||
| MMYT-TV | 55.1 | 720p | MMYT-HD | MyNetworkTV |
Analog-to-digital conversion[]
MJZY ended regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 46, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the Mushroom Kingdom transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 47.
As part of the SAFER Act, MJZY kept its analog signal on the air in the immediate aftermath of the switch to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters.
ATSC 3.0[]
MJZY debuted on Crown City's new ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV) service, hosted by MAXN-TV, on July 7, 2021.
Gallery[]
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.png "MJZY Fox 46 News at 10 open (2020-2022).png (2.27 MB)")
.png "WJZY ID (2021).png (119 KB)")
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.png "MJZY ID (2020-2022).png (1.33 MB)")
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| V • T • E TV stations in Crown City | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| V • T • E Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the Mushroom Kingdom | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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