Балтимордағы WBFF телеарнасы: Fox және MyNetworkTV филиалы

Fox/MyNetworkTV affiliate in Baltimore

WBFF (channel 45) is a television station in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, affiliated with Fox and MyNetworkTV. It is one of two flagship stations of Sinclair Broadcast Group (based in nearby Hunt Valley), alongside ABC affiliate WJLA TV (channel 7) in Washington, D. C. Sinclair maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Cunningham Broadcasting, owner of CW affiliate WNUV (channel 54), and a shared services agreement (SSA) with Deerfield Media, owner of TBD affiliate WUTB (channel 24). The three stations share studios on 41st Street off the Jones Falls Expressway on "Television Hill" in the Woodberry neighborhood of north Baltimore. Through a channel sharing agreement, WBFF and WUTB transmit using the former station's spectrum from an antenna adjacent to the studios. The 1280 feet (390 m) tall tower stands near the earlier landmark "candelabra tower" from the late 1950s in use by the city's original three main VHF stations (WMAR TV, WBAL TV, and WJZ TV).

WBFF first came on the air on April 11, 1971, founded by what was then called the Chesapeake Television Corporation, which was controlled by Julian Sinclair Smith. It was Baltimore's second commercial UHF station and second independent station, signing on four years after WMET TV (channel 24, frequency now occupied by WUTB) began operations. Both stations aired general entertainment programming, but WMET's owners experienced financial problems and were forced to take channel 24 off the air in 1972. Even without direct competition, and operating on a small budget, WBFF still struggled for strong programming during the 1970s as Baltimore's network affiliates—WBAL TV, WJZ TV and WMAR TV—continued to acquire off network syndicated programs during this period. It did not help matters that Washington's WTTG and WDCA were readily available both over the air (Washington stations all provided a strong signal into Baltimore) and on cable. Channel 45 did find an advantage in having a decent library of movies, sitcoms

WBFF nearly lost its Fox affiliation in 1994 when Fox entered talks with WJZ TV, but it opted to affiliate with CBS instead. WBAL TV was also considered after the station dropped CBS, but opted to affiliate with NBC instead. In 1996, Channel 45 began airing Baltimore Ravens games via the NFL on Fox; the station is given at least two games a season to air (usually when the team plays host to an NFC team at M&T Bank Stadium); starting in 2014, when the NFL instituted its new 'cross flex' broadcast rules, games can be arbitrarily moved from WJZ TV to WBFF. Additionally, the station aired all Thursday Night Football games involving the Ravens from 2018 to 2021 through Fox's exclusive contract. Sinclair purchased Abry Communications, owner of WNUV, in 1994. As duopolies were not allowed at the time, channel 54 was spun off to Glencairn Ltd., a company owned by former Sinclair executive Edwin Edwards. However, Glencairn's stock was almost entirely owned by the Smith family. In effect, Sinclair now had a duopoly in Baltimore—and had emasculated its major rival in its hometown. Sinclair further circumvented the rules by taking over WNUV's operations under a local marketing agreement (LMA), with WBFF as senior partner. Sinclair tried to buy Glencairn outright in 2001, but was unable to buy WNUV due to the FCC's rules on duopolies. Despite its relatively large size, the Baltimore market has only seven full power stations (or six, if two stations licensed in the market that are operated by Maryland Public Television are treated as one)—two fewer than what FCC regulations allow to legally permit a duopoly (the FCC requires a market to have eight unique station owners once a duopoly is formed, effectively limiting duopolies to markets with at least nine full power stations). Glencairn changed its name to Cunningham Broadcasting and retained ownership of WNUV. However, nearly all of Cunningham's stock is held in trusts owned by the Smiths. This de facto duopoly continues to this day, while the close relationship between Sinclair and Glencairn/Cunningham has led to claims that Cunningham is merely a corporate shell that Sinclair uses in order to evade FCC ownership restrictions. While WBFF entered the new century thriving as both locally and as a Fox affiliate, its network partner threatened the station's immediate future. In 2001, Fox's parent company, the News Corporation, became the new owner of Baltimore's UPN affiliate WUTB (the former WMET TV) through its purchase of most of Chris Craft Industries' television holdings. Rumors abounded that Fox was considering moving its programming from WBFF to WUTB. In a move made clearly to protect its home interests, Sinclair persuaded Fox to sign a long term contract to keep WBFF with the network. The same threat re emerged in January 2006, when UPN owner CBS Corporation and Time Warner, owners of The WB Television Network, announced that those two networks would be shut down and replaced by the new CW Television Network. However, a month after The CW's formation, News Corporation announced that WUTB and its other UPN affiliates would become the nuclei of its new MyNetworkTV service. On May 1, 2006, the station launched its .2 digital channel with retro programming, the first non weather subchannel in the market. On May 15, 2012, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Fox agreed to a five year extension to the network's affiliation agreement with Sinclair's 19 Fox stations, including WBFF, that will run through 2017. This included an option (that was exercisable from July 1, 2012, to March 31, 2013) to allow Sinclair to purchase WUTB, resulting in the creation of a virtual triopoly with WBFF and WNUV; while giving Fox the option to buy any combination of six CW and MyNetworkTV affiliates (two of which were standalone stations affiliated with the latter service) owned by Sinclair in three of four markets: Raleigh (WLFL and WRDC), Las Vegas (KVCW and KVMY), Cincinnati (WSTR TV) and Norfolk (WTVZ). Under the agreement and the WUTB purchase option, Sinclair would pay $52.7 million to continue WBFF's affiliation with Fox; however, if Fox exercised the option to buy any of the Sinclair stations that were included in the option, the affiliation payments would decrease to $25 million. On November 29, 2012, Sinclair exercised its option to purchase WUTB through Deerfield Media for $2.7 million. Following the completion of the sale, WUTB began to be operated by Sinclair under a local marketing agreement, as with Deerfield's other stations. In January 2013, Fox announced that it would not exercise its option to buy any of the Sinclair stations included in the earlier purchase option. On May 6, 2013, the FCC granted its approval of WUTB to Deerfield Media. Sinclair officially took over the operations of WUTB eight days later, although the sale was not formally consummated until June 1. With the completion of the WUTB sale, this makes Baltimore the largest market where one company (outside of non commercial public television station groups) operates a virtual triopoly between full power stations. WBFF remains the only station in the Baltimore market never to change its primary network affiliate. On the afternoon of April 28, 2016, WBFF's studios were evacuated in response to a threat by a person wearing a hoax bomb; the suspect also allegedly set his vehicle on fire in the station's parking lot. The suspect was later shot and apprehended by police; besides a desire to share eschatological content with the station (a USB drive with videos was confiscated by a security guard), no specific motive for the incident was determined.

On May 1, 2006, WBFF launched a new service on its second digital subchannel (45.2) originally called WBFF 2, This digital only channel featured classic television programs' On January 20, 2013, WBFF debuted weekend morning newscasts, featuring a two hour Saturday morning newscast and three hours of newscasts on Sunday mornings (with the third hour of the Sunday newscast airing after Fox News Sunday).

On December 21, 2014, WBFF's news operation came under criticism for airing a video that some allege had misleading edits. The video was of a protest over police brutality in the aftermath of the killing of Eric Garner, where protesters, led by a Baltimore woman named Tawanda Jones, chanted "We won't stop. We can't stop till killer cops are in cellblocks." The video, as edited and shown on the station's 10 p. m. newscast, made it seem like protesters were chanting "kill a cop." A day after the video aired, WBFF issued an apology over the edited video online, saying the report reflected an "honest misunderstanding" of what the protesters were chanting, and that the report has been removed from the station's website. A news anchor for the station later made an in person apology to Jones, who appeared during the station's 5:30 p. m. newscast.

WBFF shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 45, on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal remained on its pre transition UHF channel 46, using virtual channel 45. WBFF announced in September 2015 that test broadcasts would begin in Baltimore and Washington, D. C., for ATSC 3.0 (dubbed "Futurecast") via a two transmitter SFN with one transmitter in each city on UHF 43 delivering 4K UHDTV and mobile feeds to viewers. This station, named WI9XXT, began experimental broadcasts on August 24, 2015, and the special temporary authority ended on February 25, 2016. WI9XXT's broadcasts were from WRC TV's tower in the northwest section of Washington, and from WBFF's tower in Woodberry, Baltimore. As a part of the repacking process following the 2016–2017 FCC incentive auction, WBFF relocated to UHF channel 26 in 2020.