WRAZ, virtual channel 50 (UHF digital channel 49), branded on-air as Fox 50, is a Fox-affiliated television station licensed to Raleigh, North Carolina, United States and serving the Triangle region (Raleigh–Durham–Chapel Hill–Fayetteville). The station is owned by the Capitol Broadcasting Company, as part of a duopoly with NBC affiliate and company flagship WRAL-TV (channel 5, also licensed to Raleigh). The two stations share studios at Capitol Broadcasting Company headquarters on Western Boulevard in Raleigh; WRAZ's transmitter is located near Auburn, North Carolina. The station can also be seen on Charter Spectrum channel 13.
History[]
A construction permit to build a television station in Raleigh on UHF channel 50 was originally owned by The Reverend James Layton's Tar Heel Broadcasting. Layton entered the under-construction station, originally known as WACN, into a local marketing agreement (LMA) with the Capitol Broadcasting Company, under which the station would be run out of WRAL's studios with transmission facilities on the WRAL tower near Auburn.
On September 7, 1995, the station signed on as WRAZ (a variation of WRAL), taking over the WB affiliation after WNCN in Goldsboro switched to NBC. A subsequent rebranding occurred in 1996 to "WB 50" to reflect the network affiliation. On August 1, 1998, Fox announced it would not renew its contract with Raleigh's WLFL (channel 22), when the network got involved in a dispute with the station's owner, Sinclair Broadcast Group, over primetime newscast slots. Even though the network later relented, it still managed to seek a new affiliation with WRAZ leaving WLFL to pick up programming from The WB. Following the affiliation switch, reality and talk shows as well as first-run court shows were added to the lineup and cartoons were cut to Saturday mornings.
In 1998, WRAZ's main offices and master control relocated to the Diamond View office building in Downtown Durham next door to the Durham Bulls Athletic Park and the American Tobacco complex. Capitol Broadcasting would buy WRAZ outright in 2000. In most markets, such a duopoly would not have been allowed under Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules which forbid one company from owning two of the four largest stations in a single market. However, at the time WRAZ, as the Triangle's newest major station, was sixth in the ratings at the time. For this reason, the FCC allowed the sale. Unlike most new duopoly partners that start sharing the same studios elsewhere, its studios remained in Durham at the time. To this day, it is the largest Fox affiliate owned in a duopoly with a "Big Three" station.
In August 2012, WRAZ's master control merged with WRAL's in Raleigh. The office staff moved back to Raleigh over the next month.
| TV stations in North Carolina |
|---|
| WRAZ, Raleigh WJZY, Belmont |
| TV stations in North Carolina's Research Triangle region, including Raleigh, Durham, and Fayetteville |
|---|
| WUNC 4 (PBS) WRAL 5 (NBC) WAUG-LD 8 (AMGTV) WTVD 11 (ABC) WUBX-CD 13 (Ind) WNCB-LD 16 (ESTRELLA) WNCN 17 (CBS) WLFL 22 (CW) W24CP-D 24 (3ABN) WTNC-LD 26 (UNI) WIRP-LD 27 (ESTRELLA) WRDC 28 (MNTV) WRAY 30 (TCT) WHIG-CD 31 (Ind) WARZ-CD 34 (RTV) WUNP 36 (PBS) WUVC 40 (UNI) WNCR-LD 41 (Youtoo) WHFL-CD 43 (Rel) WYBE-CD 44 (Ind) W46EU-D 46 (HSN2) WRPX 47 (Ion) WRAZ 50 (Fox) WRTD-CD 54 (TLM) WFPX 62 (Court TV) WWIW-LD 66 (Daystar) |