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WSAW-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Wausau, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with CBS and The CW Plus. It is owned by Gray Media alongside low-power Fox affiliate WZAW-LD (channel 33). The two stations share studios on Grand Avenue/US 51 in Wausau; WSAW-TV's transmitter is located on Rib Mountain.
To serve the Northwoods area of Northern Wisconsin, it operates a digital fill-in translator in Sayner ( W21DS-D) that also covers Eagle River. This station broadcasts on UHF channel 21 (also mapping to virtual channel 7) from a transmitter on Razorback Road in unincorporated Vilas County (north of Sayner). The low-power repeater also serves the western portion of Michigan's Upper Peninsula although the broadcasting radius is limited to Marenisco and Watersmeet.
The Plumer Mansion's castle-like exterior and a suit of armor displayed in the mansion inspired the station's graphic designer, Sid Kyler, to design a medieval-style blackletter "7" logo along with an accompanying cartoon mascot, the fully armored knight "Sir Seven". The logo and mascot served as representations of the station for several decades. Wisconsin Valley expanded with WMTV in Madison and radio station WJOK in Kaukauna. In 1965, Wisconsin Valley purchased its first media holding outside of the state, KCAU-TV in Sioux City, Iowa; as a consequence of doing business in other states, the firm renamed itself Forward Communications in January 1967.
Forward sold off WSAU and WIFC radio in 1980. Since the radio station retained the WSAU call sign, Forward immediately applied to change channel 7's call sign to the similar-sounding WSAW-TV. The WSAW-TV call sign became effective on March 8, 1981. (Guide to reading History Cards)
It has been affiliated with CBS since its beginning although the station did have secondary affiliations with DuMont (until that network expired in 1956), ABC (until WAOW signed-on in 1965), and NBC (until WAEO now launched in 1966). On September 5, 2006, WSAW added MyNetworkTV to a second digital subchannel.
WSAW-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 7, at 11:55 pm on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009); the station concluded its analog broadcasts with a sign-off message from Sir Seven.Archived at the
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Wayback Machine: The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 40 to its analog era VHF channel 7. On April 2, 2011, WSAW became the first station in the media market to broadcast local newscast in high definition. With the switch to HD came a revamp of their news set and new graphics, along with a return of Sir Seven as the station's mascot in a newly CGI-rendered form.
On July 1, 2015, Gray bought the non-license assets of the market's Fox affiliate WFXS-DT (channel 55, owned by Davis Television, LLC). Due to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ownership restrictions, a new low-power station (WZAW-LD, channel 33) was established to become the area's Fox affiliate. All of WFXS's program streams including WFXS's existing virtual channel numbering were then moved to the low-power outlet. Subsequently, WFXS ceased broadcasting after nearly sixteen years on-the-air and its studios on North 3rd Street in Wausau were shut down.
In consenting to the interference that would be caused by WZAW operating under special temporary authority on channel 31 (the same RF channel as WFXS) rather than its licensed channel 33, Davis Television stated that it would return the WFXS license to the FCC for cancellation following the sale. In August 2015, WSAW launched a prime time newscast on the Fox outlet known as WZAW News at 9. This half-hour broadcast offers direct competition to WAOW's thirty-minute, weeknight-only news airing at the same time on its The CW digital subchannel (which aired on WFXS before July 1, 2015).
On October 1, 2015, the station began using its new studio. It was the first upgrade in a decade and took months to finish. The new studio includes two new state-of-the art sets: one each for WSAW and WZAW. Eventually, the WZAW-LD simulcast on WSAW's third subchannel was upgraded to high definition to provide full-market access to Fox programming in HD.
On February 1, 2021, Gray announced that they would purchase Quincy Media's radio and TV properties for $925 million. At the time, Quincy owned WAOW in the market, so Gray had agreed to divest WAOW and its Wisconsin sister stations to Allen Media Group for $380 million on April 29 in order to satisfy FCC requirements. WSAW added The CW as a subchannel on August 2, 2021.
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