WVFX
WVFX is a television station licensed to Clarksburg, West Virginia, United States, serving North-Central West Virginia as an affiliate of Fox and The CW Plus. It is owned by Gray Media alongside Weston-licensed CBS affiliate WDTV. The two stations share studios on Television Drive in Bridgeport ; WVFX's transmitter is located in an unincorporated area between Clarksburg and Arlington, [Harrison County, West Virginia|Arlington].
History
The station signed on February 8, 1981, and aired an analog signal on UHF channel 46. It was a religious independent station using the calls WLYJ. Much of the programming consisted of national religious evangelicals and local fund-raising appeals to continue operation of the station. In 1998, WLYJ was sold to Davis Television and converted to a full commercial operation, also becoming the area's first Fox affiliate and changing their call letters to WVFX to match. Prior to WVFX's affiliation with Fox, the network's programming was only available on cable via Pittsburgh affiliate WPGH-TV; as the market's primary NFL team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, only featured two home games on Fox as part of the network's NFC-specific package, the network's priority of affiliating with a station in the market had been low before Withers picked up the affiliation.Davis Television sold WVFX to Withers Broadcasting in 2007. Since the Clarksburg–Weston–Fairmont market has only five full-power stations, this amount is too few to allow a duopoly under normal Federal Communications Commission guidelines, but Withers was able to acquire WVFX under a failed station waiver issued by the FCC, as it was able to demonstrate that due to the market's conditions and channel 46's struggles to remain on the air as WLYJ and under Davis's ownership, that independent ownership was unlikely to turn WVFX around as a going concern. Withers initially maintained WVFX's on West Pike Street/SR 20 in downtown Clarksburg, merging its full operations into the WDTV facility over time. Before the digital transition and the relocation of its transmitter to WDTV's site north of Clarksburg, WVFX struggled with reception over-the-air across the market, since much of the region is a rugged dissected plateau. Most stations in the market depend primarily on multichannel video programming distributors for most of their viewership. After moving to the WDTV transmitter site with the digital transition, it began to use its new VHF channel 10 for its on-air branding, and withdrew all mention of channel 46.
Fairmont is technically the market's largest city because Morgantown has the largest population of any city in the geographic area but it is part of the Pittsburgh market. Locations around Morgantown are within reach of over-the-air signals from Pittsburgh stations. Over time, availability of WPGH-TV has been withdrawn in the market in preference to WVFX due to Fox's 'one to a market' carriage policies in retransmission consent negotiations.
On May 13, 2016, Withers sold WVFX and WDTV to Gray Television for $26.5 million to complete its withdrawal from the television industry. Gray was approved to continue owning WVFX with WDTV under the 2007 failing station waiver originally sought by Withers, and assumed operational control of the stations through a local marketing agreement on June 1. The sale was completed on May 1, 2017.
Newscast
WDTV has carried a 10 p.m. primetime newscast on WVFX-DT1 since late 2010.Technical information
Subchannels
The station's digital signal is multiplexed:| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
| 10.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | WVFX-DT | Fox |
| 10.2 | 1080i | 16:9 | CW | The CW Plus |
| 10.3 | 480i | 16:9 | StartTV | Start TV |
| 10.4 | 480i | 16:9 | WVFXCBS | CBS in SD |
| 10.5 | 480i | 16:9 | Grit | Grit |
| 10.6 | 480i | 16:9 | Oxygen | Oxygen |