Celebrating 37 years of WXXV-TV
We all know it’s Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday, but it’s also an important day here at WXXV as it is the station’s 37th anniversary.
WXXV’s Grant Chighizola takes a deeper dive into the history of the station and spoke to a few key team members about the anniversary and what’s in store for the next 37 years.
It was on this date back in 1987 that WXXV signed on the air full-time, serving as the region’s Fox affiliate, just months after that network was founded.
Carrying the full slate of Fox programming, the addition of WXXV to the local line up gave South Mississippi viewers another choice on the television dial.
WXXV Business Manager Donna Ingram has been with the station since 1989 and sat down to talk about what the early days were like at the studios in Lyman.
The end of the 1990s and start of the 20th Century brought more change to the station.
Our current owner, Morris Multimedia, bought WXXV in 1997.
An affiliation with MyNetworkTV was added in the 2000s, then in 2012, a major move was made with the addition of an NBC sub channel, followed by the addition of a CW subchannel in 2015.
The move to NBC gave WXXV affiliations with two of the four major broadcast networks here in the U.S. and it also prompted the resumption of local news broadcasts here at WXXV.
On September 30th, 2013, a little more than 10 years ago, the current incarnation of WXXV News 25 launched.
The news department has grown substantially over the past decade. Starting with just a handful of evening newscasts, the line up now includes a four-hour morning newscast, a noon newscast, and two Sunday night newscasts.
Chief Meteorologist Rob Knight is WXXV’s longest-tenured on-air personality and has seen first-hand the growth of the news department to this point.
Keeping up with the latest trends in media, along with a strong focus on community outreach are the biggest goals of WXXV as we look ahead to the next 37 years.
