The station began broadcasting on November 30, 1984, as the
market's first
independent outlet. It was also the first television station in Mississippi to not be affiliated with a network. Jackson Family Television, originally consisting of
Nashville housewife and communications student Brenda Harrison and
Cleveland, Tennessee, businessman H. Bernard Dixon, owned the station while Media Central, Inc. of
Chattanooga, Tennessee, operated it under a
local marketing agreement (LMA). Two months after it signed on, Harrison sold her interest in the station to Dixon, and in October 1985, Media Central took over ownership of the station. On July 6, 1987, WDBD became the area's first Fox affiliate, although the fourth broadcast network had launched back in October 1986. For the first nine months of the network's existence, the network's only affiliate in Mississippi was
Gulfport-based
WXXV-TV, which had signed on the air in February 1987 and had a decent signal that was able to cover most of southern Mississippi, but not the city of Jackson. As a result, Fox programming was not available in a large part of Mississippi for the network's first four months of operations, although WDBD did air an episode of
The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers featuring the cheerleading team of
Delta State University. In 1988, while Media Central was in
Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings,
Act III Broadcasting tried to acquire WDBD and sister station
WZDX in
Huntsville, Alabama, but the deal had fallen through. In 1989, the station was sold to Donatelli & Klein of
Bethesda, Maryland, making it a sister station to
WDSI in Chattanooga. Pegasus Broadcasting brought out Donatelli & Klein in 1993. On October 7, 2001, due to a payment dispute between Pegasus and Fox, WDBD became an affiliate of
The WB, leaving Jackson without an over-the-air Fox affiliate for the next 23 months; sister station
WPXT in
Portland, Maine, also made the switch at the same time as Pegasus and Fox failed to agree on an affiliation agreement for the two stations. It would not be until September 2003 when WUFX (now sister station WLOO) signed-on in nearby Vicksburg and became the area's second Fox affiliate. In the interim, programming from the network was provided on cable via
WNTZ-TV for those who lived in the
Natchez area and via
Foxnet for those living in the Jackson–Vicksburg area. In January and February 2006, respectively, it was announced that
UPN and The WB would merge and form
The CW while
News Corporation (owner of Fox) made public another new programming service called MyNetworkTV would start up as well. UPN affiliate
WRBJ was announced as Jackson's CW affiliate while WUFX eventually joined MyNetworkTV. In advance of switching to the latter network, WUFX and WDBD swapped affiliations. On July 3, 2006, the former picked up The WB but began identifying itself on-air as "My 35" in anticipation of joining the new service. Meanwhile, WDBD rejoined Fox and became known as "Fox 40". WDBD and WUFX were sold by previous owner Jackson Television, who began operating the two stations and
WXMS-LP in 2003, to Roundtable Broadcasting in early 2010. However, its licensee listing with the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) still said Jackson Television. Fellow Fox affiliate WNTZ-TV in nearby Natchez technically serves the
Alexandria, Louisiana, market (through a
low-power repeater) but shares some of its coverage territory with WDBD. WNTZ also maintains a secondary MyNetworkTV affiliation and therefore encroaches on WUFX's home territory as well. Roundtable Broadcasting filed to sell WDBD and WXMS-LP to American Spirit Media in July 2012. As part of the deal, the station's operations were taken over by Raycom Media, owner of WLBT, under a shared services agreement; American Spirit also acquired WUFX and
WBMS-CA from Vicksburg Broadcasting, but spun off the WUFX license to
Tougaloo College (though it operates that station under a joint sales agreement). The transaction was consummated on November 13.
2017–18 American Spirit Media/DirecTV and AT&T U-verse dispute WDBD's parent company, American Spirit Media, failed to renew its retransmission contract with
DirecTV/
AT&T U-verse upon its expiration on August 31, 2017. After a three-week extension period passed with both parties failing to agree on a new contract, American Spirit Media withdrew permission for DirecTV/AT&T U-verse to retransmit the signals of its stations as of 11:59 p.m. EDT on September 21. This dispute was resolved in January 2018. ==News operation==