WTVZ-TV

WTVZ-TV

Norfolk–Hampton Roads, Virginia United States
City	Norfolk, Virginia
Channels	Digital: 33 (UHF) Virtual: 33
Branding	MyTVZ
Programming
Affiliations	33.1: MyNetworkTV for others, see § Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	Sinclair Broadcast Group (WTVZ Licensee, LLC)
History
Founded	May 1978
First air date	September 24, 1979 (44 years ago) (1979-09-24)
Former call signs	WTVZ (1978–1982)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 33 (UHF, 1979–2009) Digital: 38 (UHF, 2006–2009)
Former affiliations	Independent (1979–1986) Fox (1986–1998) The WB (1998–2006)
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	40759
ERP	590 kW
HAAT	360.5 m (1,183 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	36°48′31.8″N 76°30′11.3″W / 36.808833°N 76.503139°W / 36.808833; -76.503139
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	mytvz.com

WTVZ-TV (channel 33) is a television station licensed to Norfolk, Virginia, United States, serving the Hampton Roads area as an affiliate of MyNetworkTV. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, the station maintains studios on Clearfield Avenue in Virginia Beach, and its transmitter is located in Suffolk, Virginia.

WTVZ signed on September 24, 1979, as the second independent station in the Hampton Roads area. It was owned by a consortium of local investors known as the Television Corporation of Virginia. The investors soon formed a station group: Television Corporation Stations, later TVX Broadcast Group, which was headquartered in Norfolk. WTVZ was immediately competitive in local ratings and battled with the more religiously oriented WYAH-TV throughout the 1980s. As with other TVX stations, it joined Fox at its launch in 1986.

TVX sold WTVZ to its general manager, Charles A. McFadden, in 1989; at the time, the company was selling smaller stations to reduce debt. McFadden's group, later known as Max Television, dallied with the possibility of producing a local newscast for the station throughout the early 1990s but never followed through. Sinclair acquired WTVZ in 1995; that year, Fox announced it would move its affiliation to WVBT (channel 43) in 1998 due to a business dispute with Sinclair. The station then joined The WB in 1998 and MyNetworkTV in 2006.