Outlet profile

QCNews

U.S. center / least biased

Owned byNexstar Media Group, Inc. (publicly traded, NYSE: NXST), which acquired WJZY from Fox Corporation in March 2020 as part of a station swap

FundingCommercial advertising revenue; Nexstar is a publicly traded, for-profit broadcast corporation

On the administrationmostly neutral

Background

WJZY signed on the air March 9, 1987, as an independent UHF station on channel 46, initially owned by Raleigh-based Capitol Broadcasting Company. The station went through several ownership changes before Fox Corporation held it for a period. In March 2020, Fox swapped WJZY to Nexstar Media Group in exchange for Nexstar stations in Milwaukee and the Seattle-Tacoma market. Under Nexstar, station leadership recognized that viewers often confused the station's on-air news brand with the national Fox News Channel, undermining its local identity. In December 2021, Nexstar announced the station's newscasts would rebrand as 'Queen City News' — a reference to Charlotte's historical nickname — effective January 10, 2022, with the tagline 'Carolinas' Own.' The rebrand coincided with a significant investment in local news production, pushing the station to the top of the Charlotte market in local newscast hours. Nexstar, as a company, has been described by some analysts as having a center-right corporate orientation, but WJZY/Queen City News itself has been independently rated as balanced in its news coverage, drawing on Nexstar Media Wire and the Associated Press for national and international stories. No major editorial controversies specific to the station have been widely reported.

Sources

Profile compiled 2026-08-04; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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