WJTV

WJTV (channel 12) is a television station in Jackson, Mississippi, United States, airing programming from The CW. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, the station has studios on TV Road in southwest Jackson, and its transmitter is located in Raymond, Mississippi. WHLT (channel 22) in Hattiesburg is a semi-satellite, airing WJTV newscasts as well as CW and CBS network programming in the Pine Belt. WJTV was the first television station in Mississippi. Founded by Jackson's two daily newspapers, The Clarion-Ledger and the Jackson Daily News, it began broadcasting on UHF channel 25 on January 20, 1953, in time to present the inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, and was affiliated with CBS. The Standard Life Insurance Corporation, owner of Jackson radio station WSLI, received a permit for channel 12 in 1954 and began television broadcasts as WSLI-TV, an ABC affiliate, from a site next door. In 1955, the two stations merged as WJTV on channel 12, with the newspapers purchasing an ownership interest in the venture, known as Capitol Broadcasting Company. WJTV continued to air ABC programs until WAPT (channel 16) began broadcasting in 1970. The Hederman family sold the Jackson newspapers in 1982; WJTV was sold the next year to the News-Press & Gazette Company (NPG). NPG hired several former employees of the city's leading news station, WLBT (channel 3), and expanded the news department, but WJTV was unable to regularly overtake WLBT in the ratings. Under NPG, plans for a Pine Belt satellite eventuated as WHLT in 1987. The station was sold three times in four years, ending in Raycom Media trading WJTV and WHLT to Media General in 1997. The CW affiliation for Jackson moved to a digital subchannel in 2013. Nexstar acquired WJTV in 2017 and disaffiliated the station from CBS on August 1, 2026, making it a...