The station first signed on the air on April 28, 1957, as Charlotte's third television station, after
WBTV (channel 3) and WAYS-TV (channel 36, later WQMC-TV); it was also Charlotte's second station on the
VHF band. It operated from a temporary facility on Plaza Road Extension in what was then a rural portion of eastern Mecklenburg County. WSOC was originally locally owned by Carolina Broadcasting, operated by the Jones family, along with WSOC radio (1240 AM, now
WYFQ on 930 AM, and
103.7 FM). WSOC was the second radio station to sign on in Charlotte, having made its debut in 1929, seven years after the debut of
WBT (1110 AM). Channel 9 originally operated as a primary
NBC affiliate (owing to WSOC radio's affiliation with the
NBC Red Network), and maintained a secondary affiliation with ABC, sharing the network with WBTV. In 1959, Carolina Broadcasting merged with the Miami Valley Broadcasting Company, forerunner of Cox Enterprises. That same year, it dedicated its studios on North Tryon Street. Channel 36 went off the air in 1955. It operated as educational WUTV from 1961 to 1963, then returned to the air in November 1964 as
WCCB. WCCB moved to the stronger UHF channel 18 allocation in November 1966, but it continued to be at a competitive disadvantage because many Charlotte-area households did not yet have television sets with UHF tuning capability. As a result, ABC retained a secondary affiliation with WSOC and WBTV, while WCCB aired programs from all three networks (ABC, NBC and
CBS) that WSOC and WBTV declined to air. In 1967, WSOC became an exclusive NBC affiliate, while WCCB became a full-time ABC affiliate. By 1978, ABC had become the highest-rated broadcast television network in the United States for the first time; the network wanted a stronger affiliate in Charlotte than WCCB. WSOC switched its affiliation back to ABC on July 1, 1978, this time as a full-time affiliate. NBC programming was moved over to former independent station WRET (channel 36, now
WCNC-TV), due to a promise by then-owner
Ted Turner to make $2.5 million in upgrades to that station, including the planned launch of a news department and a more powerful transmitter. WCCB became an independent station by default, remaining so for the next nine years until it affiliated with
Fox when that network launched in October 1986. The WSOC radio stations were sold off in the early 1990s (the AM station, now WYFQ, is now owned by
Bible Broadcasting Network; WSOC-FM is currently owned by
Beasley Broadcast Group). By the mid-1990s, WSOC-TV had a problem. It owned the rights to a large amount of syndicated programming, but increased local news commitments left it without enough time in its broadcast day to air it all. In 1996, it found a solution in the form of a
joint sales agreement with independent station WKAY-TV (channel 64). As part of the deal, WKAY moved its operations to WSOC-TV's studios and changed its call letters to WAXN-TV. Under the JSA, channel 9 bought WAXN's entire broadcast day, using it to air much of channel 9's surplus inventory of syndicated programming. One of those programs was
The Andy Griffith Show; it had been a mainstay on channel 9 for decades on weekday afternoons at 5 p.m. before being bumped in favor of a 5 p.m. newscast. Cox purchased WAXN outright for $3 million in 1999, shortly after the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reversed its long-standing ban on television station
duopolies; the sale was officially approved by the FCC in 2000. WSOC-TV served as the Charlotte "Love Network" affiliate of the
Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon from 1975 to 2001; the program moved to WAXN thereafter, before returning to WSOC in 2013 (by this point, known as the
MDA Show of Strength) after the program abandoned its syndicated long-form
telethon format and became a shortened two-hour network telecast on ABC; the telecast was discontinued after 2014. On December 21, 2010, a distraught 51-year-old woman armed with a gun entered the WSOC-TV studios, forcing the station to temporarily go off the air just after the start of that evening's 5 p.m. newscast. After a one-hour standoff, the woman was taken into custody; it was later determined that the gun was not loaded. No injuries were reported in the incident. In February 2019, it was announced that
Apollo Global Management would acquire Cox Media Group and
Northwest Broadcasting's stations. Although the group planned to operate under the name Terrier Media, it was later announced in June 2019 that Apollo would also acquire Cox's radio and advertising businesses, and retain the Cox Media Group name. The sale was completed on December 17, 2019. During the
2024–25 season, the
Charlotte Hornets,
FanDuel Sports Network Southeast and Cox Media Group reached an agreement allowing CMG to simulcast five Hornets games on over-the-air stations. In Charlotte, two games will air on WSOC with the other three games on sister station WAXN. ==News operation==