WPXX-TV

WPXX-TV, virtual channel 50 (UHF digital channel 51), is an Ion Television owned-and-operated television station located in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. The station is owned by Ion Media Networks. WPXX maintains studios and offices located at the Bartlett Corporate Park in Bartlett, and its transmitter is located in Ellendale.

History

The station first signed on the air on December 31, 1994, under the call letters WFBI; it was owned by Flinn Broadcasting, a company owned by Memphis businessman, radiologist (and later Shelby County commissioner) George Flinn. The station initially aired programming from the Home Shopping Network (sharing the affiliation with Holly Springs, Mississippi-based WBUY-TV, channel 40), until Paxson Communications (now Ion Media Networks) began operating the station under a local marketing agreement in 1998, when the station became a charter affiliate of the upstart Pax TV network (now Ion Television).

On February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced the launch of a new "sixth" network called MyNetworkTV, which would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created to compete against another upstart network that would launch at the same time that September, The CW (an amalgamated network that originally consisted primarily of UPN and The WB's higher-rated programs) as well as to give UPN and WB stations that were not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates another option besides converting to independent stations. Although WLMT (channel 30) had served as the market's UPN and WB affiliates, the MyNetworkTV affiliation instead went to WPXX, which officially joined the network (as a secondary affiliation) on September 5, 2006, branding itself as "My50 Memphis".