WOGN

**WOGN** (digital channel 17, virtual channel 68) is the MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station for the Orlando/Daytona Beach market. WOGN is licensed to Leesburg.

## History

A permit for channel 68 in the Orlando market was originally owned by the Central Florida Publishing company. Their station was supposed to be on the air by 1969, but financial problems prevented this from happening. The permit was later deleted by the FCC. In the mid-70's, Miami-based Tropical Telecasters (then-owner of that market's WTLX) got a new construction permit for channel 68 in Orlando and got to work once again.

WOGN first went to air on May 28, 1978 as an independent station. The station's studios, offices, and transmitter all shared one location in Leesburg. Due to the location of the stations transmitter, WOGN also doubled as an independent station for the Ocala/Gainesville area. WOGN ran a lineup of both classic and contemporary cartoons, westerns, comedies, dramas, movies, and game shows. With the rise in popularity of music video channels on cable in the 1980s, WOGN added music videos to the stations schedule. These were removed by 1996. Tropical Telecasters sold the station to Central Florida Radio Company in 1988.

In 1993, WOGN affiliated with the Prime Time Entertainment Network (PTEN). Around this time, Central Florida Radio began facing huge financial challenges. The station could no longer afford to pay program syndicators, so the station began removing its syndicated programming and replacing them with barter religious programming. Throughout this time, cartoons remained strangely unaffected.

In 1995, WOGN became Orlando's affiliate for the United Paramount Network (UPN). To reflect this, the station changed its callsigns to **WUPO** at the same time. The station's weak programming offerings outside of network hours heavily affected viewership and advertising support, which in turn affected ratings. Because of this, UPN became unhappy with WUPO's performance and moved the affiliation to the stronger WDBO (channel 27) in 1999.

After returning to independence, the station's schedule was split half-and-half between cartoons (which aired in both morning and afternoon slots all seven days a week) and barter religious shows (airing during mid-days and evening hours). By the 2000s, cartoons were dropped and replaced by paid programming during the week. On weekends, movies made a return to the schedule.

In 2003, WUPO was purchased by Roanoke, Virginia based Atlantic South Communications after Central Florida Radio applied for chapter 11 bankruptcy. Under this new ownership, barter religious programs and infomercials started to be reduced, and replaced by some off-network sitcom and drama reruns. In 2006, WUPO was named Orlando's MyNetworkTV affiliate. Around this time, the station restored its previous WOGN call letters.

## Digital Television

 68.2
 68.3
 68.4
 68.5

On August 15, WOGN moved Azteca America programming from its second to a new third digital subchannel. WOGN-DT3 became Orlando's affiliate for XTV once that network launched on September 17. WOGN added Court TV and Heroes & Icons on February 1, 2019.

WOGN's broadcasts are digital only as of June 11, 2009.