WJXT

Key takeaways

WJXT belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect WJXT to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of WJXT from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

WJXT (channel 4) is an independent television station in Jacksonville, Florida, United States. It is owned by Graham Media Group alongside CW affiliate WCWJ (channel 17). The two stations share studios at 4 Broadcast Place on the south bank of the St. Johns River in Jacksonville; WJXT's transmitter is located on Anders Boulevard in the city's Killarney Shores section.

History

As a CBS affiliate WJXT originally signed on the air on October 16, 1949, as WMBR-TV. It was Jacksonville's first television station, the second television station in Florida and a primary CBS affiliate on VHF channel 4 after WTVJ (also on channel 4, now an NBC owned-and-operated station on channel 6) in Miami–Fort Lauderdale. The station was co-owned alongside WMBR radio (1460 AM, now WQOP; and 96.1 FM, now WEJZ). Though the station was originally a primary CBS affiliate, it also maintained secondary affiliations with NBC, ABC and the DuMont Television Network. In 1953, the WMBR stations were purchased by The Washington Post Company. In 1954, the station began to broadcast color programming and was the first in the state. WMBR-TV dropped the DuMont affiliation in 1955, less than a year before the network ceased operations. Since its only competition in the Jacksonville market came from UHF station WJHP-TV (which signed on in 1953 and went dark three years later), channel 4 had a virtual television monopoly in northern Florida until September 1957, when it lost the NBC affiliation to upstart WFGA (channel 12, now WTLV). The Washington Post Company sold WMBR-AM-FM in July 1958, while it kept the television station, whose callsign it changed to the current WJXT. WJXT remained a primary CBS and secondary ABC affiliate until WJKS-TV (channel 17, now CW sister station WCWJ) took the ABC affiliation upon its sign-on in February 1966, leaving WJXT exclusively with CBS. For much of its tenure as a CBS affiliate, WJXT was the only station affiliated with the network that was located between Savannah, Georgia, and Orlando, Florida, and was thus carried on many cable systems between Jacksonville and Orlando. In 1973, WJXT's FCC license renewal was challenged by supporters of President Richard Nixon following the Watergate coverage of his administration by The Washington Post, whose parent company owned the station. Robert W. Schellenberg, WJXT's general manager, successfully led the effort to defeat the opposition. In 2001, WJXT was awarded the local broadcast rights to Jacksonville Jaguars preseason football games, replacing WTLV as the official station for the NFL franchise (WTLV had carried preseason games and Jaguars-related programs starting with the team's 1995 inaugural season); the deal also included carriage of the team's coaches show and other Jaguars-related television programs. The station had already been airing Jaguars games since 1998, when CBS gained the national broadcast rights to football games from the NFL's American Football Conference division. That year, speculation arose that WJXT would become an independent station after it had reached only a one-year affiliation renewal with the network, instead of a four to eight-year affiliation agreement that stations usually obtain from the major broadcast networks.

Independence During negotiations between Post-Newsweek Stations and CBS on a new affiliation agreement in early 2002, CBS supplied Post-Newsweek with a list of demands that would have resulted in WJXT no longer receiving monetary compensation for the carriage of the network's programming (CBS was moving toward a reverse compensation model for its affiliates during this time) and would have required the station to run the entire CBS network schedule in pattern without preemptions, except for extended local breaking news and severe weather coverage. Station and Post-Newsweek company management believed these stipulations would come at the expense of local programming. Rather than give in to CBS' demands, Post-Newsweek Stations announced on April 3, 2002, that it would not renew channel 4's affiliation agreement with CBS, which was set to expire on July 10. UPN affiliate WTEV-TV (channel 47, now WJAX-TV)—at that time owned by Clear Channel Communications—subsequently signed an agreement with CBS to become the network's new Jacksonville affiliate two weeks after WJXT's disaffiliation announcement on April 23, 2002. The affiliation switch became official at 5 a.m. on July 15, 2002, ending WJXT's 53-year association with CBS. This also triggered an affiliation switch in Gainesville where WGFL became a CBS affiliate; that station was a primary affiliate of The WB at the time. As an independent, WJXT expanded its news programming and began filling daytime, prime time and late night timeslots that were formerly occupied by CBS programs with additional syndicated programming, as well as replacing network sports coverage with SEC college football and basketball telecasts from the syndicated sports provider Jefferson Pilot Sports (later Raycom Sports). WJXT retained rights to Jaguars preseason games for one additional year following the switch, despite the fact that the AFC regular season and playoff football games had moved to WTEV due to national broadcast rights held by CBS and a contract stipulation that reserved the team the right to move local broadcasts of preseason games and other Jaguars programs to another station if WJXT changed its network affiliation. The team cut ties with WJXT after the 2002 NFL preseason and moved its preseason games to WTEV-TV in 2003. WJXT does not entirely follow the same "Local" branding scheme as its Graham Media sister stations, although it uses the on-air slogan "The Local Station", and in 2014, the station adopted a slanted logo similar to Detroit NBC affiliate WDIV-TV, but with elements of its previous boxed 4, alongside changing its news branding to News4JAX. On May 27, 2016, it was announced that CW affiliate WCWJ, along with WSLS-TV in Roanoke, Virginia, would be sold to Graham Media for $120 million as part of the station divestitures required as a result of the pending merger of the Nexstar Broadcasting Group, then-owners of WCWJ, and WCWJ's former owner Media General. The sale was approved by the FCC on January 11, 2017, and completed January 17, making WJXT part of a duopoly (Graham Media's first) with WCWJ. In 2025, WJXT announced an agreement with Sporting Club Jacksonville of the USL Super League to broadcast seven matches.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with WJXT

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what WJXT claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to WJXT before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about WJXT ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of WJXT

In research: WJXT appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses WJXT in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: WJXT is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1949 establishments in Florida, ATSC 3.0 television stations, Dabl affiliates, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for WJXT outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study WJXT in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what WJXT means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain WJXT out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is WJXT in simple terms?

WJXT (channel 4) is an independent television station in Jacksonville, Florida, United States. It is owned by Graham Media Group alongside CW affiliate WCWJ (channel 17).

Why does WJXT matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study WJXT?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on WJXT.