WFFF TV: Фокс-канал Бёрлингтона и региона Шамплейнская долина

Fox affiliate in Burlington, Vermont

WFFF TV (channel 44) is a television station licensed to Burlington, Vermont, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for the Burlington, Vermont–Plattsburgh, New York market. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which provides certain services to ABC affiliate WVNY (channel 22, also licensed to Burlington) under a shared services agreement (SSA) with Mission Broadcasting. The two stations share studios on Mountain View Drive in Colchester, Vermont; WFFF TV's transmitter is located on Vermont's highest peak, Mount Mansfield. Like other network stations serving Burlington and Plattsburgh, WFFF TV has a large audience in southern Quebec, Canada. This includes Montreal, a city that is 10 times more populous than the station's entire U. S. viewing area, as well as the Montérégie region. Most Vidéotron systems in southern Quebec carry WFFF TV as their Fox affiliate.

WFFF TV signed on August 31, 1997. Prior to the station's launch, the Champlain Valley was the last top 100 television market without a primary Fox affiliate; CBS affiliate WCAX TV aired Fox Sports and Fox Kids programming, while the network's full schedule was available on cable systems in most of Vermont via Foxnet; the extreme southern portion of the Champlain Valley (corresponding to the Glens Falls metropolitan area) was well served by Albany Fox affiliate WXXA TV, which was not receivable at all in northern New York or southern Quebec. Cable systems in northeastern New York had imported network flagship WNYW from New York City, while Canadian cable systems carried WUTV from Buffalo or WUHF from Rochester. Between 1995 and 2001, Fox programming was available over the air in northern New Hampshire via WMUR LP, a repeater of ABC affiliate WMUR TV. WFFF TV was originally owned by Champlain Valley Telecasting, but was operated by Heritage Media, owner of NBC affiliate WPTZ, through an LMA. WFFF TV, along with the other Burlington–Plattsburgh stations, were able to sign their digital signals on the air from Mount Mansfield in 2006, but its analog signal remained on Terry Mountain until 2009. Shortly before WFFF TV began broadcasting, Heritage Media announced the sale of its broadcasting properties, including WPTZ and the LMA with WFFF TV, to Sinclair Broadcast Group; soon afterward, the station began to operate independently of WPTZ. Smith bought WFFF TV outright a year later. In February 1999, WFFF TV began airing thirty second daily vignettes called Vermont's Most Wanted along with sister program Citizen's Patrol. The efforts were produced in cooperation with local law enforcement and the Champlain Valley branch of the national Crimestoppers non profit organization.

The station added a secondary affiliation with The WB in 1999, after WBVT LP (now WGMU LP) dropped that network in favor of UPN. For a time, the two hours of prime time programming from The WB aired in separate two hour long blocks weeknights at 5 and 10. In 2002, WFFF TV moved the entire two hours of programming to a delayed basis at 10 p. m. after Fox prime time in continuous block named "The WB Time". WFFF TV also cleared the Kids' WB blocks (as well as the Daytime WB block that replaced the weekday block in early 2006), in addition to Fox's own children's programming. Despite the secondary affiliation, area cable systems continued to carry WPIX, New York City's WB affiliate. The death of Bob Smith (head of family owned Smith Broadcasting) in 2003 led to the family's decision in 2004 to sell its group of stations to an investment group called Smith Media, LLC. After researching markets where the company now had ownership in, it was discovered WVNY was up for sale. Finding a way to satisfy FCC ownership rules, Smith Media partnered with Lambert Broadcasting and became the senior partner in a local marketing agreement with WVNY. Smith Media shut down that station's longtime facilities in South Burlington (which housed a news department between August 1999 and September 2003), reduced redundant staff, and relocated its operations into WFFF TV's Colchester facilities. This arrangement placed WFFF TV in the unusual position of being the senior partner as a Fox affiliated station in a virtual duopoly with an ABC affiliate (most virtual or legal duopolies involving a Fox affiliate and a Big Three affiliated station result in the Fox affiliate serving as the junior partner).

When The WB and UPN were shut down to create The CW in September 2006, WFFF TV became a secondary affiliate of the new network, airing its prime time programming in the same block that formerly housed WB programming. CW programming moved to a new subchannel of WFFF TV on September 27, 2007; the subchannel immediately replaced WPIX on Comcast's Vermont systems, with Charter Communications in New York State following suit on December 31. The subchannel continued to carry CW programming until March 4, 2013, when WPTZ's subchannel assumed the CW affiliation for the Burlington/Plattsburgh market, leaving WFFF TV's subchannel with only syndicated programming until October 1, 2013, when it shut down and was replaced over the air with a standard definition feed of the main channel. The station became digital only effective February 17, 2009. As a result, some parts of the viewing area were left without a full powered Fox affiliate including Enosburg in Franklin County, Vermont as well as parts of Franklin and Essex Counties in New York State. Due to an ongoing retransmission dispute, Time Warner Cable replaced WFFF TV with WNYF CD from Watertown and Massena, New York, on December 16, 2010. Its CW subchannel was also dropped, though the network remained available through WPIX. Sister station WVNY was simultaneously replaced with future sister station WUTR from Utica, New York. On the same date, sister station WKTV, the NBC affiliate in Utica, was replaced by another of WFFF TV's future sister stations, WBRE TV from Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, and its CW affiliated subchannel with HBO Family for the same reason. WFFF TV was restored on January 8, 2011, after a new deal (the terms of which both sides refused to reveal) was reached with Time Warner.

Smith Media agreed to sell WFFF TV to Nexstar Broadcasting Group on November 5, 2012. Concurrently, Lambert Broadcasting sold WVNY to Mission Broadcasting, whose stations are all operated by Nexstar through shared services agreements. On February 5, 2013, The FCC approved the sale of WFFF TV. The transaction was completed on March 1, leaving Utica NBC affiliate WKTV as Smith Media's only remaining television station property. On January 27, 2016, it was announced that Nexstar would buy Media General for $4.6 billion. WFFF and WVNY became part of "Nexstar Media Group", joining a cluster of television stations Nexstar owns in New England, including ABC affiliate WTNH in New Haven, Connecticut, CBS affiliate WPRI TV in Providence, Rhode Island, and NBC affiliate WWLP in Springfield, Massachusetts. In addition, WFFF and WVNY also became sisters with fellow Fox and ABC affiliates WXXA TV and WTEN, respectively, in Albany, New York. These stations also serve Bennington County, Vermont, making Nexstar responsible for Fox and ABC programming throughout the entire state of Vermont since 2022, when Windham County was moved into the Burlington Plattsburgh market from the Boston television market. On June 15, 2016, Nexstar announced that it has entered into an affiliation agreement with Katz Broadcasting for the Escape, Laff, Grit, and Bounce TV networks (the last one of which is owned by Bounce Media LLC, whose COO Jonathan Katz is president/CEO of Katz Broadcasting), bringing one or more of the four networks to 81 stations owned and/or operated by Nexstar, including WFFF TV and WVNY. WFFF TV eventually solved the problem by adding a second daily airing of That '70s Show, giving it access to a second strip of programming from the distributor which was available only to stations carrying a full hour of the program. It would then flip the two airings so the exclusive strip was shown in the shared time slot, meaning CJNT could no longer simsub the program since WFFF TV was not airing the same episode.

WFFF TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 44, 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 43, using virtual channel 44. As a part of the repacking process following the 2016–2017 FCC incentive auction, WFFF TV relocated to UHF channel 16 on July 3, 2020.