WSFA
U.S. center
Background
WSFA-TV signed on December 25, 1954, founded by Gordon Persons, a former governor of Alabama, making it one of the state's earliest television stations. Within two months of launch, Persons sold the station to the Oklahoma Publishing Company in February 1955. In 1959 it passed to the Broadcasting Company of the South, a subsidiary of Liberty Life Insurance Company of South Carolina, whose parent entity rebranded over the decades as Cosmos Broadcasting and eventually Liberty Corporation. In 2006, Liberty Corporation merged with Raycom Media — a Montgomery-based broadcaster — in a $987 million deal, and WSFA became a flagship Raycom property given Raycom's home market location. Gray Television, an Atlanta-based broadcast group, announced a $3.6 billion acquisition of Raycom in June 2018; the deal closed January 2, 2019, bringing WSFA under Gray's ownership, now branded Gray Media. Gray Media is publicly traded on the NYSE and is the nation's largest local-station group by market count, reaching roughly 36 percent of U.S. TV households. WSFA has maintained an NBC network affiliation throughout most of its history and focuses heavily on central Alabama local news; independent media bias assessors consistently place it in the center category with high marks for factual reporting and minimal editorializing.
Sources
- WSFA – Wikipedia
- History of WSFA-TV (WSFA.com)
- Gray Television completes acquisition of Raycom Media – Yellowhammer News
- WSFA – Montgomery Bias and Credibility – Media Bias/Fact Check
- WSFA 12 Media Bias – AllSides
- Gray Media Strategy and Business Model – Umbrex
- Raycom Media – Wikipedia
Profile compiled 2026-08-12; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.