Early history After a string of delays, channel 49 first signed on the air on March 19, 1989, as WCCL; it originally operated as an
independent station with a general entertainment format, along with numerous
CBS programs preempted by
WWL-TV (channel 4), including
CBS This Morning. Owned by Black woman Barbara Lamont, WCCL failed to show in the ratings with poor programming and a lack of cable carriage. By the end of 1989, it had filed
Chapter 11 bankruptcy due to a hostile creditor that sought to evict it from its tower at Algiers. The station had begun work on its own tower at Bywater which would prevent blockage of channel 49's signal by passing ships on the
Mississippi River, but a battle with neighbors who wanted its height reduced left the site unfinished and unusable by the station. The hostile creditor—Lodestar Towers—was successful in obtaining an order to repossess WCCL's equipment, forcing the station off the air on May 23, 1990. While Lamont spent two years trying to rebuild the station's transmitter facility elsewhere, she gave up in May 1992, when her Chapter 11 reorganization case was converted to
Chapter 7 liquidation. Flinn Broadcasting Corporation purchased the station's
license out of bankruptcy and returned channel 49 to the air on May 25, 1994, carrying programming from the
Home Shopping Network. The station changed its call letters to WPXL-TV on August 31, 1998; that same day, the station became a charter affiliate of the family-oriented network Pax TV (now Ion Television). As part of the affiliation deal with Pax TV, Flinn Broadcasting entered into a
time brokerage agreement with Pax TV owner Paxson Communications to operate the station. On July 30, 2001. Paxson entered into a joint sales agreement with Hearst-Argyle Television (now
Hearst Television), owner of
NBC affiliate
WDSU (channel 6), to provide advertising and marketing services for WPXL.
Hurricane Katrina In early September 2005, shortly after
Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southern Louisiana, WPXL partnered with WDSU, whose transmitter building in
Chalmette was damaged due to flooding caused by the storm, to simulcast channel 6's programming. The station also added programming from
The Worship Network and the signals of the
Tribune Broadcasting-owned
duopoly of
ABC affiliate
WGNO (channel 26) and
CW affiliate
WNOL-TV (channel 38) as
subchannels on its digital signal for New Orleans area residents that had television sets with built-in
digital tuners. On March 29, 2008, almost a month after WGNO and WNOL resumed digital transmissions over WNOL's digital allocation on UHF channel 15, WPXL began to carry the Ion-owned children's network
Qubo and lifestyle network
Ion Life on digital channels 49.2 and 49.3; both networks had launched a year-and-a-half after Katrina hit the area.
Sale to Ion Media On August 21, 2007, Ion Media announced that it would purchase WPXL-TV and
Memphis sister station WPXX from Flinn Broadcasting outright for $18 million. The sale was completed on January 2, 2008, with WPXL becoming an Ion owned-and-operated station. ==Newscasts==