WXSM

WXSM (channel 13) is a television station in Southwater, Mississippi, United States, serving eastern Mississippi as an NBC network affiliate. The station has been owned by Grant Media Group since 1994 and is operated by Diamond Broadcast Holdings under a local marketing agreement. The station's studios are located on Peacock Drive in the Southwater suburb of Bergenfield, with its transmitter being on US-278 in Nettleton.
== History ==
WXSM, a primary NBC and secondary ABC affiliate, was built and signed on by Rust Craft Broadcasting, the television stations division of Rust Craft Greeting Card Company. Its first airdate was September 29, 1959, and its inaugural program was The Colonial Stores Music Hour, a local bandstand program. Other in-house shows included Southwater Digest, a Friday-morning public affairs program, children's show Marie's Corner, and a history program called The American Chronicles.
The station became the first in the market to launch a full local newscast with the debut of The Southwater Televisual News in 1965. Editions of the program, hosted by Jack Price, aired at noon and 10:00 p.m. Noon and early evening broadcasts were later added in 1971, at which point the name was changed to Channel 13 News.
Rust Craft sold out to Ziff Davis in 1979, who retained only the television division. However, their ownership was brief, and Ziff Davis executives formed a new holding company, Television Station Partners, in 1982. Under their ownership, the news operation was significantly revamped with an all new staff, set, music, and graphics being introduced. Religious and instructional programming in the morning was replaced with a new early newscast, The Daybreak Report, in 1986. WXSM debuted a soft news-oriented 4:00 p.m. newscast, which was rare for the time, the following year, before replacing it with Day & Date in 1995.
WXSM dropped its longtime secondary ABC affiliation on September 18, 1993, with the final program aired being the 45th Annual Emmy Awards. At midnight on September 19, WANS signed on the air and assumed the affiliation. The ABC programming aired by WXSM was replaced by syndicated shows or infomercials. 
Television Station Partners sold the station to Grant Television Stations, an emerging broadcaster operated by national department store chain Warner Grant, in 1994. The remainder of their stations were sold off to other owners in 1996. Immediately after acquiring the station, Grant revamped WXSM's program lineup and rebranded its newscasts to Live News 13 NBC (before shortening it to News 13 NBC in 1995).
The station's digital signal, WXSM-DT (UHF digital channel 40), signed on in March 2003 as the first digital television station in the market. In 2008, the station upgraded to high definition time delay on its digital signal, which allows pre-recorded and timeshifted programming to be aired in high definition.
== Programming ==
Syndicated programs broadcast by WXSM include The Kelly Clarkson Show, Jeopardy!, and Wheel of Fortune, among others.
=== News operation ===
WXSM airs 39 hours of newscasts per week, with 6 1/2 hours per day on weekdays, 3 hours on Saturdays, and 3 1/2 hours on Sundays. In addition to regular newscasts, the station broadcasts a weekly public affairs program, News 13: Digging Deeper, which airs on Sundays at 9:00 am, and, until September 2022, repeated that evening at 11:35 p.m.
Since its inception, the station's newscast has been the market leader in Southwater, with CBS affiliate WOTN being second, Fox affiliate WFSM being third, and ABC affiiate WANS being fourth. WXSM promotes this position with the slogan "Your News Leader".
== Technical information ==
=== Subchannels ===
The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
Channel	Video	Aspect	Short Name	Programming
13.1 	1080i	16:9 	WXSM-HD 	Main WXSM programming / NBC
13.2 	720p 	4:3 	GRANT 	Grant Classics
13.3 	480i 	4:3 	COZI 	Cozi TV
=== Analog-to-digital conversion ===
WXSM shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 13, at 12:45 p.m. on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal moved from its pre-transition UHF channel 40 to channel 16 for post-transition digital operations.
Category:NBC network affiliates
Category:Grant Classics affiliates
Category:Grant Media Group
Category:Television channels and stations established in 1959
Category:Television stations in Southwater, Mississippi
Category:Channel 13
Category:Mississippi