WCWJ

WCWJ (channel 17) is a television station in Jacksonville, Florida, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is owned by Graham Media Group alongside independent station WJXT (channel 4). The two stations share studios at 4 Broadcast Place on the south bank of the St. Johns River in Jacksonville; WCWJ's transmitter is located on Anders Boulevard in the city's Killarney Shores section.

Built by Rust Craft Broadcasting, channel 17 began broadcasting as WJKS-TV on February 19, 1966. It was Jacksonville's ABC affiliate; previously, the city was the largest with only two commercial TV stations and had no exclusive ABC affiliate. From the outset, the station was a weak network affiliate that struggled to develop local news programming; it did not broadcast an early-evening local newscast until 1978. When ABC became the number-one network in the late 1970s, ABC moved to replace it with WTLV (channel 12), previously the NBC affiliate, setting up an affiliation switch that occurred in 1980. Media General, then primarily a newspaper publisher, acquired the station and in 1983 relaunched the news department with weekend reports and increased production values. In spite of the improvements, the station only briefly posed a ratings challenge to dominant WJXT or WTLV. The latter station suffered under its ABC affiliation and, after being acquired by Gannett, induced an affiliation switch back to NBC in 1988. Ratings for WJKS-TV slumped and remained in third place; its most-watched newscast by 1996 was the 10 p.m. news it produced for Jacksonville's Fox affiliate, WAWS.

Allbritton Communications agreed to buy WBSG-TV in Brunswick, Georgia, in February 1996 and simultaneously obtained ABC affiliation for it, replacing WJKS-TV, in a group deal. Media General fought the change for months but gave up, shutting down the news department at the end of 1996. WJKS affiliated with The WB, and its preemption of more than half of ABC's prime time lineup prompted the affiliation switch to WBSG and WJXX to be hurried forward to February 9, 1997. Channel 17 changed its call sign to WJWB and emerged as one of The WB's strongest affiliates. When The WB and UPN merged in 2006, channel 17 became an affiliate of The CW and adopted its present WCWJ call sign. Nexstar Broadcasting Group bought the station in 2009, experimenting with several original local programs; Graham acquired WCWJ in 2017 as part of Nexstar's purchase of Media General.