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| Channels | |
| Branding | Local 5 |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| History | |
| Founded | January 26, 1954 |
First air date | May 20, 1955 |
Former call signs | WNAM-TV (1954–1955) |
Former channel number(s) |
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Call sign meaning | "Wonderful Fox River Valley"[1] |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 9635 |
| ERP | 1,000 kW |
| HAAT | 363.9 m (1,194 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 44°20′0.1″N 87°58′55.7″W / 44.333361°N 87.982139°W |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
WFRV-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Green Bay, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with CBS. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, the station maintains studios on East Mason Street in Green Bay, and its transmitter is located north of Morrison, Wisconsin.
WFRV-TV traces its history to WNAM-TV, a station that broadcast beginning in January 1954 from studios in Neenah. Owned by the Neenah-Menasha Broadcasting Company, it was the only ultra high frequency (UHF) outlet in northeastern Wisconsin at a time when UHF stations faced severe technical and economic handicaps against very high frequency (VHF) stations. At the end of 1954, WNAM-TV suspended operations and merged with the Valley Telecasting Company, a consortium of area investors that had obtained the construction permit for channel 5 in Green Bay. The new station, WFRV-TV, debuted on May 20, 1955, from the former WNAM-TV studios in Neenah and was ultimately owned entirely by Neenah-Menasha. In January 1957, the station opened its present studios in Green Bay. Originally an affiliate of the ABC network, the station switched to NBC in 1959.
From 1960 to 1980, WFRV-TV was owned by the Morton and Norton families of Louisville, Kentucky, under the aegis of what eventually became known as Orion Broadcasting. In 1969, the company opened WJMN-TV (channel 3) in Escanaba, Michigan, which served as a semi-satellite of WFRV for the central Upper Peninsula of Michigan. When Orion Broadcasting and Cosmos Broadcasting merged, WFRV and WJMN were divested to Midwest Radio and Television, which owned WCCO-TV in Minneapolis. Midwest switched the station's affiliation back to ABC in 1983 and invested in the news department. Midwest was acquired by CBS in 1991. This resulted in another affiliation switch in Green Bay on March 15, 1992, with ABC moving to WBAY-TV (channel 2). CBS continued to own WFRV-TV until 2007, when it traded the Green Bay and Escanaba stations to Liberty Media in exchange for shares of its stock.
Nexstar acquired WFRV and WJMN in 2011. WFRV added several new newscasts and a lifestyle show in the years following the purchase. WJMN was also given more local news programming; that station lost its CBS affiliation in January 2022 and was sold by Nexstar in 2024.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
callswas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Facility Technical Data for WFRV-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.