INDEPENDENT STATIONS WHO'VE ALWAYS BEEN INDEPENDENT (FULL POWER)

[Markxxx]

WJYS, a true waste of a TV station , channel 62 (RF 36), in Chicago (licensed to Hammond, IN) has always been independent.

 

[ding12]

And a couple more infomercial-heavy perpetual indies in the Philly market: WTVE 51 Reading and WMCN 44 (ex-WWAC 53) Atlantic City.

WTVE once had Telemundo affiliation, and was Philly's outlet after WTGI (Ch.61). Telemundo lost coverage in Philly for maybe 4 or so years, until WWSI 100 miles east of WTVE signed on to become Philly's Telemundo. WWAC once had ValueVision/ShopNBC affiliation but was operated as mostly an indy but had ValueVision in the daytime/morning.

Similarly WBPH has a loose FamilyNet affiliation. It carries "Your Health" but doesn't carry majority of its schedule.

 

[Poledo]

Consider the journey of WJTC-TV 44 (Pensacola, FL/Mobile, AL). It signed on as an independent on Christmas Eve 1984, and it served as the Mobile-Pensacola market's UPN station from 1995-2006. It never secured an agreement to affiliate with The CW or MyNetworkTV. It opted for a independent life again under 'UTV 44' branding, which is still has today.

Way back in the beginning... In the good old days of WJTC they did pick up secondary affiliation with CBS for daytime game shows and such that WKRG did not have time to air.
Another cool thing about the original WJTC was their low budget attempt at putting on a local nightly news cast. The host was my kindergarten teacher's husband. I do believe he has since committed suicide.
I never liked that lady either. I know she didn't like me, I was smarter than she was. She got mad when I refused to take tests and (she) through hissy fits over it. Those test were lame... "draw a circle"... no thanks, I'd rather take a nap. I can't remember if she was one of my former grade school teachers that got caught up in the "Operation Sandshaker" cocaine ring or not. I know the PE lady did the blow.

 

[vchimpanzee]

WHKY-TV 14 (RF 40) in Hickory, NC, has been independent since its debut on Valentine's Day, 1968, as has Manteo-licensed WSKY-TV 4 (RF 9), though it's targeted at Hampton Roads, Virginia and is only ten years old. Kannapolis-licensed but Charlotte-targeted WAXN-TV 64 (RF 50) has never had a formal network affiliation, though it did air some programming from the former PAX network from 1998-2000. Other than that, the 14 North Carolina full-power TV stations not affiliated with the "Big 4" or PBS--and not mentioned above-- air CW, MyNet, ion, Univision, or TCT (Marion, Illinois-based Christian broadcaster).

You forgot WLXI-TV 61 (RF 43) in Greensboro, which has always been religious. Also WRAY-TV 30 (RF 42) in the Raleigh market, which is currently religious but was a shopping channel.

Wait, they did air some Fox programming on WRAY, according to Wikipedia. And in fact, the shopping channel was a network too.

 

[RadioDaze]

I purposely excluded them due to their affiliation with the Tri-State Christian Television (TCT) network.

WLXI-TV/Greensboro, eary on in their existence, aired music videos, and later (I think) Trinity Broadcasting Network programming, but has long been with TCT. Interestingly, they now ID with their RF channel, 43, and no longer their virtual channel, 61.

WRAY-TV/Wilson was once paired with Fayetteville's then-WFAY-TV FOX 62, but only aired non-network programming due to then-Fox affiliate WLFL-TV 22 (we had two Fox affiliates in the Raleigh-Durham market for a brief time in the 1990s). It later was a Shop At Home affiliate before TCT bought it two or three years ago.

 

[Joey1986]

Re: INDEPENDENT STATIONS WHO'VE ALWAYS BEEN INDEPENDENT (FULL POWER)

KWHY-22 Los Angeles has always been an indie unless you count their dabble as the Selec-TV LA outlet in the 70's and early 80's. Also KSCI-18 Long Beach/Los Angeles.

In the L.A. market, other indies that always have been indies include KXLA (physical 51, virtual 44) Rancho Palos Verdes/Los Angeles (which signed on in December 2000 as KRPA, changing its call letters to the current KXLA on 8/1/01), is infomercials by day, and multicultural programming by night; KVMD (physical 23, virtual 31) Twentynine Palms, which started broadcasting on 12/1/97 and was the first station in the country to go digital only in 2003; and KHIZ (physical 44, virtual 64) Barstow (all three of whose programming schedules are similar to the aforementioned KSCI); and KBBC channel 20 Bishop (yes, for those who don't know, Inyo County is included in the L.A. market), which went on the air on 8/21/07 as a Spanish-language indie (most of its broadcast day is filled by... wait for it... INFOMERCIALS!); this station has a repeater based in L.A. proper on KNLA-CD (physical 50, virtual 20). The programming premiered on what used to be the -LP when it was analog KNLA-LP channel 27 (not sure if the analog is still on the air or not) before adding the full-power KBBC, at which time KNLA became a repeater, and later changing its license from an -LP to an -LD, and then to a -CD.