CAPE CORAL, Fla. — WFTX-TV has been entertaining and informing Southwest Florida since 1985.
We signed on for the very first time on October 15, 1985, under the ownership of Florida Family Broadcasting, Ltd.
Broadcasting from the start on Channel 36, we also began a long association with Channel 4 on local cable systems. While branded "Fox 4" on-air, denoting how most viewers receive our channel, we remain on Channel 36 over-the-air.
WFTX was the first independent television station in the market. Within a year of our initial sign-on, we not only changed ownership (to Indiana-based Wabash Valley Broadcasting), but we also became a charter affiliate with the new and innovative Fox Broadcasting Company. We began broadcasting Fox programming on October 9, 1986 — just days shy of our first anniversary.
The station would change hands a few more times over the next two decades — from Emmis Communications (1998) to Journal Broadcast Group (2005). During those years WFTX began building a local news operation, with our first broadcast taking place October 10, 1993.
In July 2014, the E.W. Scripps Company announced it would absorb the assets of Journal Broadcast Group, owning WFTX-TV outright. The deal was approved by regulators the following year.
Under Scripps' ownership, WFTX has expanded its news output on-air as and into the digital realm; we have also expanded our entertainment options with several specialty networks broadcast on our digital subchannels.
