WAFB (Baton Rouge)
U.S. center — local broadcast news
Background
WAFB signed on April 19, 1953, as the first television station in Baton Rouge and only the second in Louisiana, launched by Modern Broadcasting of Baton Rouge. It has been a CBS affiliate since its founding. Ownership passed through several hands — Royal Street Corporation (1956), Guaranty Corporation (1964), and American Family Life Corporation (AFLAC) in 1988, whose initials gave the station its current call letters. Raycom Media acquired WAFB in 1997 as part of a $485 million, seven-station deal. In 2019, Gray Television completed its merger with Raycom, absorbing WAFB into what became Gray Media, now one of the three largest local TV station groups in the United States by station count. Gray Media does not have the ideological reputation of peers like Sinclair Broadcasting; its Washington, D.C., bureau, which supplies national political content to Gray stations including WAFB, is rated 'Least Biased' with high factual reporting by Media Bias/Fact Check. WAFB's coverage is primarily local in focus — crime, weather, community affairs — and carries no documented record of systematic editorial slant for or against any administration.
Sources
- WAFB — Wikipedia
- WAFB – Baton Rouge: Bias and Credibility — Media Bias/Fact Check
- Gray DC Bureau: Bias and Credibility — Media Bias/Fact Check
- Gray Television announces plans to buy WAFB, WVUE parent company — The Advocate
- Gray Media — Wikipedia
- Gray Media posts $3.1B 2025 revenue — StockTitan
- About WAFB — WAFB.com
Profile compiled 2026-07-03; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.