WAFB

WAFB is the CBS-affiliated television station for Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 9 from a transmitter southwest of Arlington. Owned by Raycom Media, WAFB is sister to Class A MyNetworkTV affiliate WBXH-CD. The two share studios on Government Street in downtown Baton Rouge. Syndicated programming on WAFB includes: Access Hollywood, Friends, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and The Dr. Oz Show. The station is seen via satellite through DirecTV, Dish Network and AT&T U-verse and on cable Cox Communications.

History

The station began broadcasting on April 19, 1953, as the second television station in the state of Louisiana. It launched as a television counterpart to local radio stations WAFB and WAFB-FM, which both signed on in 1948 and were affiliated with MBS. Louis S. Prejean and associates (Modern Broadcasting of Baton Rouge) were the first owners of the station, and they sold it to Royal Street Corporation of New Orleans in 1956. In 1957, they sold the radio stations, with the AM station changing its format to black music and the FM station going off the air until being relaunched in 1968. The sale of WAFB-TV to Royal Street Corporation made it a sister station to Louisiana's first television station, WDSU-TV. Royal Street owned the station until 1964, when it sold the station to locally based Guaranty Corporation. In 1965, the station moved its transmission tower from Zachary to south of LSU's campus, allowing viewers in a 90-mile radius to receive its signal; it was also in that year that the station started broadcasting in color.