WBFF signed on on April 11, 1971, founded by what was then called Chesapeake Television Corporation, which was controlled by Julian Sinclair Smith. At once, it was Baltimore's second commercial UHF station and second independent station, signing-on four years after WMET-TV (channel 24) began operations. Both stations aired general-entertainment programming, but WMET's owners experienced financial problems and were forced to take their station off the air in 1972.
Even without direct competition, and operating on a small budget, WBFF still struggled for programming during the 1970s as Baltimore's network affiliates (WBAL-TV, WJZ-TV, andWMAR-TV) continued to acquire syndicated, off-network programs during this period. Channel 45 did find an advantage in having a decent library of movies and sitcoms at its disposal. Like other independent stations of that era, WBFF also ran network programs pre-empted by the local afflilates, local public-affairs programs, and played cartoons in the afternoon in a show hosted by Captain Chesapeake (played by George Lewis), who was a fixture on WBFF until 1990.
This WBFF logo dates to the early 1980s. The "C" in the logo is for Sinclair Broadcast Group's forerunner, Chesapeake Television.
In 1985, Julian Smith merged his companies and renamed them as the Sinclair Broadcast Group, and around this time one of his sons, David D. Smith, took a prominent role in the operations of the three stations. In 1986 Sinclair agreed to affiliate WBFF and WTTE with the fledgling Fox Broadcasting Company. The growth and rise of Fox coincided with that of Sinclair Broadcast Group, which expanded its reach during the 1990s. But first, Sinclair attempted to exand the reach of its flagship station in a big way.
Despite its financial restraints, WBFF became enough of a profitable operation that Julian Smith decided to expand his broadcast interests. Through a Chesapeake Television subsidiary, Commercial Radio Institute, Smith launched a new independent station in Pittsburgh, WPTT (now WPMY), in 1978. In 1984, Commercial Radio Institute signed-on Smith's third station, independent WTTE in Columbus, Ohio. That same year, WBFF received local competition again when WNUV-TV, then a two-year-old subscription television outlet, began to adopt a general-entertainment schedule.
In early 1991 Sinclair announced plans to purchase WMAR-TV with the intent to move WBFF into WMAR's channel 2 allocation, and subsequently selling the channel 45 license. However, those plans never materialized, and WMAR-TV (then affiliated with NBC) was sold to the E.W. Scripps Company instead. Stuck on channel 45, Sinclair refocused on strengthening that station, and in June 1991 opened up WBFF's news department with Baltimore's first 10:00 p.m. newscast.
WBFF and WNUV's combined studio and office facility, in Baltimore's Woodberry neighborhood.
While WBFF entered the new century thriving as both locally and as a Fox affiliate, its network partner threatened the station's immediate future. In 2001 Fox's parent company, the News Corporation, became the new owner of Baltimore's UPN affiliate WUTB (the former WMET-TV) through its purchase of Chris-Craft Industries. Rumors abounded that Fox was considering moving its programming from WBFF to WUTB. In a move made clearly to protect its home interests, Sinclair persuaded Fox to sign a longterm contract to keep WBFF with the network.Sinclair purchased Abry Communications, owner of WNUV, in 1994. As duopolies weren't allowed at the time, channel 54 was spun off to Glencairn Ltd., a company owned by former Sinclair executive Edwin Edwards. However, Glencairn's stock was almost entirely owned by the
FOX 45 former logo from 2000 to 2006
Smith family. In effect, Sinclair now had a duopoly in Baltimore—and had emasculated its major rival in its hometown. Sinclair further circumvented the rules by taking over WNUV under a local marketing agreement, with WBFF as senior partner. Sinclair tried to buy Glencairn outright in 2001, but was unable to buy WNUV because the Baltimore market has only seven full-power stations, too few to legally permit a duopoly. Glencairn changed its name to Cunningham Broadcasting and retained ownership of WNUV. However, nearly all of Cunningham's stock is held in trusts owned by the Smiths. This de facto duopoly continues to this day, while the larger one between Sinclair and Glencairn/Cunningham has led to claims that Cunningham is merely a corporate shell Sinclair uses to evade FCC ownership restrictions.
The same threat re-emerged in January 2006, when WUTB lost its status as a UPN affiliate when UPN and the WB Television Networkannounced their merger. However, WBFF breathed a sigh of relief when Fox announced that WUTB would become an affiliate of their newMyNetworkTV service.
On May 2, 2006, the same day Sinclair committed its eight remaining WB and independent stations to the CW, Sinclair and Fox agreed to a six-year affiliation extension for Sinclair's 19 Fox affiliates. As a result, Fox will remain on WBFF at least through the 2011-2012 television season. WBFF remains the only Baltimore television station that has never changed its network affiliation.
On May 1, 2006, WBFF launched a new service on its second digital subchannel (45.2) originally called WBFF-2. It was later renamed Good TV. This digital-only channel featured classic television programms like Magnum, P.I., Mission: Impossible, All in the Family, Sanford and Son, In the Heat of the Night, and Good Times. In addition, "Good TV" offered expanded coverage of church services on Sunday mornings, local events, syndicated shows, and paid programming. This channel ceased broadcasting on or around September 30, 2008, to make way for a new service.
Jeff Barnd and Jennifer Gilbert anchor weeknights at 5:30 and 10.
Jeff Barnd, a WBFF news anchor, also hosts and provides commentary for the syndicated Sinclair news program American Crossroads. WBFF was featured in an episode during the third season of The Simple Life. On that episode, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie took control of the station's weekday morning newscast. The two read the weather forecast and messed with the teleprompter.Tony Harris, later a CNN anchor, was once WBFF's lead anchor.
WBFF launched a 10 p.m. newscast on June 3, 1991. The station added a weekday morning newscast in March 2000. In February 2003, it added a weeknight 11 o'clock newscast that broadcasted from Sinclair's now-defunct centralized news service, News Central, located in Hunt Valley. Newscasts at 5:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. were subsequently added to the schedule in January 2005. On June 2, 2008, WBFF became the first Baltimore television station to broadcast their local newscast in high definition.
Every Wednesday morning during the regular school year, a randomly selected child nominated by his or her teacher is selected to help meteorologist Steve Fertig during the 6:30 and 6:40 a.m. forecast segments. The child usually helps with the weather report, gets a tour of WBFF, and receives a video copy of their performance. The segment is called "Weather Kid Wednesday".
On January 24, 2011; WBFF expanded their morning news from 5-9 a.m. to 5-10 a.m. weekdays with the 9 a.m edition called "Fox 45 Good Day Baltimore". That is now a total of over 7 hours of news a day.
