| Semi-satellite of WOFL, Orlando, Florida | |
|---|---|
 | |
| |
| City | Ocala, Florida |
| Channels | |
| Branding | Fox 51 WOGX; Fox 51 News |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
|
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Fox Television Stations, LLC |
| WOFL, WRBW, WTVT | |
| History | |
First air date | November 1, 1983 |
Former call signs | WBSP-TV (1983–1987) |
Former channel number(s) | Analog: 51 (UHF, 1983–2009) |
| Independent (1983–1991) | |
Call sign meaning | "Ocala–Gainesville" plus an X to conform to other call signs of 1980s owner Wabash Valley Broadcasting |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 70651 |
| ERP | 500 kW |
| HAAT | 259 m (850 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 29°21′33.2″N 82°19′42.6″W / 29.359222°N 82.328500°W |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
WOGX (channel 51) is a television station licensed to Ocala, Florida, United States (in the Orlando television market), but primarily serving the Gainesville area as a Fox network outlet. Owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division, the station maintains an advertising sales office on Northwest 53rd Avenue in Gainesville and a transmitter in unincorporated Marion County, between Williston and Fairfield. It is considered a semi-satellite of WOFL (channel 35) in Orlando, which handles management and technical services and whose newscasts it simulcasts.
Efforts to build channel 51 in Ocala dated to the late 1960s, and for most of the 1970s, there was a serious effort to construct a station to be known as "WOCA". When that attempt fizzled after the Federal Communications Commission ruled they had spent too much time building the station, two interested parties formed Big Sun Television, which won the permit and put WBSP-TV on the air in October 1983. It operated as a conventional independent station with a range of movies and syndicated programs. Big Sun sold the station in 1986 to Indiana-based Wabash Valley Broadcasting, which changed the call sign to WOGX the next year and upgraded programming. Channel 51 joined the Fox network in May 1991, bringing the network to Gainesville for the first time.
The Meredith Corporation, then-owner of WOFL, bought WOGX-TV from Wabash Valley Broadcasting in January 1996 and immediately moved to consolidate operating functions with WOFL. The station debuted a local newscast in 1998, including an edition only seen in the Ocala–Gainesville market, though the latter lasted less than a year. WOFL and WOGX were traded to Fox Television Stations in 2002.
- ^ "Facility Technical Data for WOGX". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.