Channel 24 will be back on the air in Roanoke next month, nearly two years after the religious and family-focused station went dark following a legal dispute.
Gregory Jones, president and CEO of Jones Broadcasting of Woodstock, confirmed that he bought the station formerly known as WDRL-TV and is moving its studios and his company's headquarters to a 22,000-square-foot space in the old movie theater at Crossroads Mall.
The station will remain on channel 24, but its call letters will change to WEFC. Jones said the station will carry religious programming, family-friendly shows, local and national sports and gospel music.
'Three things we do not do,' Jones said, 'are to show anythingthat is sexually degrading or explicit, anything that promotesprofanity or anything that glorifies criminality.'
Jones Broadcasting also has produced gospel music videos. Jones said he would like to bring performers to Roanoke for a music show he wants to produce.
He expects the station to be back on-air with a full lineup by mid-August.
'We are acquiring the station and we're doing it up big,' said Jones, who already has moved to Roanoke from the Shenandoah Valley. 'It's going to be a multifunction television complex with multiple stations in the Roanoke area.'
Industry website Radio & Television Business Report reported thatChannel 24's sale price was $1 million. The new call letters were once used by Channel 38 in Roanoke, which is now WPXR. Jones would not elaborate on the switch to WEFC.
Jones, a Lynchburg native who started Jones Broadcasting in the late 1980s, owns 13 stations, including WAZT in Woodstock. That station's religious programming is retransmitted throughout the Shenandoah Valley on four other channels as part of Jones' Family Entertainment Network.
Those stations will now be based at Crossroads, along with WEFC.
Jones Broadcasting's plan for Channel 24 sounds similar to WDRL'sprogramming lineup, which was heavy with local church services, high school and college sports and classic programming such as 'Lassie' and 'The Rifleman.'
WDRL was forced off the air and into court-ordered receivershipin July 2010 after a federal judge upheld a $1.1 million judgment against then-owners Mel and Nele Eleazer in a copyright dispute with Charter Communications that lasted six years. The Eleazers lost the station and eight employees lost their jobs.
The Eleazers had made two attempts to sell the station - first toLiberty University for $6 million in 2007, then to Living Faith Ministries of Abingdon for $5.3 million - but both deals fell through.
WDRL's demise angered many leaders in Roanoke's black community. The station targeted black audiences with its religious and community programs. Local black preachers had their own shows, and the Roanoke branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People hosted a community affairs talk show.
Jones Broadcasting's purchase of Channel 24 gives the Roanoke Valley a rarity in the American television industry: an owner who is a minority.
Jones said that he is the 'largest African-American television station in the United States now,' a claim that could not be verified Friday because messages left for the Federal Communications Commission were not returned.
However, according to FCC data from 2006, minorities owned just46 television stations in the United States, a number that hadfallen more than 25 percent since the late 1990s.
Jones said he plans to feature community faces on WEFC.
'We have a keen interest in local ministries and faith-based communities,' Jones said. 'We are going to focus on local programming.'
