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WFMJ-TV (channel 21) is a television station in Youngstown, Ohio, United States, affiliated with NBC and The CW. The station is locally owned by the Maag family. WFMJ-TV's studios are located on West Boardman Street in downtown Youngstown, and its transmitter is based in the city's Lansingville neighborhood.
From its inception until 2019, the station was owned by the Vindicator Printing Company, former publisher of Youngstown's lone newspaper, The Vindicator. On September 1, 2019; the Maags sold The Vindicator to Ogden Newspapers, which now operates it as an edition of the Tribune Chronicle in Warren. The Maags retained WFMJ-TV.
From its sign-on until 1957, WFMJ-TV served as the NBC affiliate for the far northern portion of the Pittsburgh market, mainly areas not covered by WJAC-TV in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and WTRF-TV in Wheeling, West Virginia, for NBC programming (the latter station is now affiliated with CBS). This ended when Pittsburgh got its own NBC affiliate, WIIC-TV (now WPXI), in September 1957. In addition to its main service area of extreme northeastern Ohio and northwestern Pennsylvania, WFMJ-TV can be seen as far as the eastern and southern suburbs of Cleveland with a good antenna, which allowed access to NBC programming pre-empted by KYW-TV from 1956 until 1965, when Cleveland's channel 3 was owned by Westinghouse Broadcasting, before the sale was undone and it returned to NBC ownership as WKYC.
WFMJ-TV has been the only locally owned and operated station in the market since CBS affiliate WKBN-TV (channel 27) was sold off in 1997. In fact, it is one of the few stations left in the country that is still locally owned and operated and one of two in Ohio, with the other being WCPO-TV in Cincinnati, with WBNS-TV in Columbus, WHIZ-TV in Zanesville, and WBNX-TV in Akron having been sold off in recent years to Tegna Inc., Marquee Broadcasting, and Nexstar Media Group respectively. Channel 21 points out often in advertisements noting that it is the "only locally-owned station in Youngstown". As a result, WFMJ has been a ratings juggernaut in Youngstown for several years.
WFMJ is the Youngstown market's carrier station for the Ohio Lottery and its weekly game show, Cash Explosion Double Play. In October 2010, WFMJ began carrying syndicated programs, and commercials in high definition whenever available in the format. In April 2011, the station started broadcasting Cash Explosion in HD.
In 2006, WFMJ opened a satellite studio at the Eastwood Mall in Niles, Ohio. Officially known as the Eastwood Mall Bureau, its primary focus is to cover news stories in Trumbull County, Ohio. It also features a retail store where people can buy WFMJ souvenirs, such as embroidered with the WFMJ and/or WBCB logos.
On July 6, 2012, Dish Network subscribers within the Youngstown market temporarily lost access to WFMJ-TV, the result of a breakdown in negotiations between the satellite provider and owner Vindicator Printing Company to renew the station's carriage agreement with Dish.
Most of the market received WB network programming via "WBWO", a cable-only WB affiliate of The WB 100+ Station Group out of the Wheeling–Steubenville market, with systems owned and operated by Time Warner Cable (the largest cable provider in Youngstown) only receiving it during prime time hours, otherwise sharing channel space with MTV2. Comcast and Armstrong Cable both offered both MTV2 and WBWO 24 hours on their own channel space. The "WBCB" calls date back to the station's WB affiliation (affiliates of The WB 100+ Station Group commonly utilized fictional callsigns).
On January 24, 2006, UPN and The WB announced the two networks would cease broadcasting and merge to form The CW. "WBCB" would be chosen by default as the market's CW affiliate and for unknown reasons, the artificial call sign "WBCB" was kept after the subchannel affiliated with The CW in September 2006. With digital subchannels more common by this point, ABC affiliate WYTV launched a second digital subchannel affiliated with MyNetworkTV (under the branding "MY-YTV") that fall.
WFMJ's newscasts typically garner higher ratings than its competitors combined in the morning, 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. timeslots. The station founded the market's first Friday night high school football program with The Overtime Report in the 1990s. On October 29, 2009, beginning with the 6 p.m. newscast, the station upgraded its weather graphics to Weather Central's 3D:LIVE system. On October 26, 2013, WFMJ launched the area's first weekend morning news with WFMJ Weekend Today. The newscasts air on Saturdays from 6 to 7 a.m. and 9 to 10 a.m. and on Sundays from 7 to 8 a.m. and 9 to 10:30 a.m. WFMJ To Launch Weekend Morning Shows TVNewsCheck, October 14, 2013.
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