WNTZ-TV (channel 48) is a television station licensed to Natchez, Mississippi, United States (which is technically part of the Jackson television market), but serving the Alexandria, Louisiana area as an affiliate of Fox and MyNetworkTV. The station is owned by Nexstar Media Group, and has studios on Parliament Drive in Alexandria. Its main transmitter is located near Jonesville, Louisiana, with two low-power translators in Alexandria and Leesville.
WNTZ's master control operation was located in Lafayette at the studios of then-sister stations KADN-TV and KLAF-LD from 1991 until July 2015. It was then moved to the Baton Rouge studios of NBC affiliate WVLA-TV, fellow Fox affiliate WGMB-TV, CW affiliate WBRL-CD and independent station KZUP-CD.
History
First incarnation of WNTZ
WNTZ was granted its license to Louisiana state senator Bill Atkins of Jonesville, via his company MSLA Broadcasting, on January 31, 1985, and signed on the air on November 16.
WNTZ began as an independent station, with a special on The Honeymooners serving as its inaugural program. Advertised as "Your Channel by the River", WNTZ's original programming consisted of local and syndicated programming exclusively to the Miss-Lou area, which covered a larger broadcasting footprint into Mississippi than exists today. The station originally had only news updates but was broadcasting full scheduled newscasts by 1988 at 5:30 and 10:00 p.m. Its original studios were located at 26 Colonel John Pitchford Parkway (then 625 Beltline Highway) in Natchez, Mississippi.
WNTZ's fortunes quickly eroded, and it was placed in bankruptcy for the first time around 1986. During the bankruptcy proceedings, there were unsuccessful attempts to sell the station to new owners. In 1987, the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) seized the Sunbelt Federal Bank of Baton Rouge, which had foreclosed on a loan to Atkins and had held the station's assets. After a yearlong attempt to sell channel 48 failed, the FSLIC took it dark on April 8, 1988. The station remained silent for three years until 1991 when the station's license was sold to businessman Charles Chatelain and his company, Delta Media Corporation, both based in Lafayette, Louisiana.
WNTZ returns under Delta Media ownership and Fox affiliation
Under Delta Media ownership, the goal was to give the Alexandria market a full Fox network affiliation. However, a few challenges were ahead. WNTZ's license is designated to Natchez, Mississippi, where its transmitter and tower are located behind the station's original studios. Executives at Fox were concerned about giving WNTZ its affiliation because they did not want to grant a second affiliation in the Jackson, Mississippi media market (DMA). To alleviate this problem, the original transmitter and broadcast equipment was sold to future WNTZ owner Communications Corporation of America and moved to sign on WGMB-TV in Baton Rouge. This was done in order to build a new tower and transmitter site in the small farming community of Frogmore, in neighboring Concordia Parish, Louisiana. Fox in turn granted WNTZ the Fox affiliation for the Alexandria market.
Also, WNTZ's broadcasting operation would be relocated to Lafayette, Louisiana, housed at its sister station, KADN-TV. The license would remain in Natchez, even though its tower and transmitter site were moved across to the Louisiana side of the Mississippi River and its base of operation would also move. In 1991, Delta Media Corporation moved administrative, sales and marketing operations to Pineville, Louisiana, to have its main base of operation within the footprint of the Alexandria DMA. Later in 1996, Delta Media purchased office space and moved operations to Jackson Street in Alexandria's Garden District, with the intent to move the station's broadcast capability from its sister station KADN in Lafayette to the newly purchased building. Although administrative, sales, and marketing moved to Alexandria, broadcasting WNTZ's signal from the building never materialized because Delta Media sold the station's operation in 1997 to White Knight Broadcasting (transferred ten years later to parent company Communications Corporation of America).
The original tower which transmitted WNTZ's signal in 1985 remains behind its original studio building in Natchez, but it now only relays a live microwave transmission signal to the main transmitter tower in Frogmore for Emergency Alert System (EAS) broadcasts, per FCC requirement. WQNZ 95.1 and WKSO 97.3 also use the tower to broadcast their signal.