WBAY-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Green Bay, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Gray Media. The station's studios are located on South Jefferson Street in downtown Green Bay (across from the historic Brown County Courthouse), with a Fox Cities news bureau on College Avenue on the west side of Appleton, just south of Fox River Mall; its transmitter is located in Ledgeview, Wisconsin.
History As a CBS affiliate (1953–1992) The only television station broadcasting in Wisconsin prior to the FCC's 1948 freeze on television licenses was WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee. After the FCC's freeze ended in 1952, WBAY-TV became the second television station on the air in the state, on March 17, 1953. WBAY-TV was originally owned by the Norbertine Order of Priests, whose abbey is in nearby De Pere. The priests run St. Norbert College in De Pere, and already operated WBAY radio (1360 AM, now WTAQ) in Green Bay and WHBY radio in Appleton. Like WTMJ when that station started in 1947 – as the only station in the market – WBAY originally carried programming from all four networks of the day – channel 2 was a primary CBS affiliate with secondary affiliations with NBC, ABC and DuMont.
ABC moved to WNAM-TV (channel 42, now WFRV-TV on channel 5) in Neenah when it started up in January 1954. Then, NBC moved to Marinette's WMBV-TV (channel 11, now Fox affiliate WLUK-TV) when it signed on in September of that year. With the shutdown of DuMont in August 1956, WBAY was left as an exclusive CBS affiliate. The station upgraded its transmitter and began broadcasting network programming in color in the fall of 1956. WBAY-TV would remain the only station licensed to Green Bay proper until the 1959 relocation of WLUK to the city. Locally produced programs were broadcast in color starting in 1966.
The station's studios in downtown Green Bay were built in 1924 as a former Knights of Columbus clubhouse and later was turned into a private Roman Catholic high school during the Great Depression when the Norbertines took over the building. The former gymnasium/auditorium is now called the WBAY Auditorium and is used as the studio for the station's cerebral palsy telethon. During the early years of WBAY, it served as the main studio until 1954 when an addition was built behind the main building. The auditorium has also been used for local theatrical productions. The station's newsroom is in the basement of the building in an area that originally held a swimming pool and bowling alley. The WBAY building also served as the home of the WBAY radio stations (now WTAQ and WIXX), which were later purchased by Midwest Communications in the late 1970s, but remained in the building until Midwest built a combined Green Bay operations facility/company headquarters in 2007 and a news-weather sharing agreement was maintained between WBAY-TV and its former radio sisters for many years before it was discontinued in favor of an agreement with WLUK-TV.
As a CBS affiliate, WBAY-TV benefited from that network's coverage of National Football League games, primarily those of the Green Bay Packers. The station carried its first Packers game a few months after signing on, and continued to air most Packers games until 1991 by virtue of CBS holding the rights to the Packers' conference, the National Football Conference (for the 1992 and 1993 seasons, Packers games moved to WFRV when that station switched to CBS). Packers games drew up to a 90 percent share of the audience during the team's championship era of the 1960s under Vince Lombardi (including the team's first two Super Bowl triumphs in Super Bowl I and Super Bowl II, the former of which was also carried by then-NBC affiliate WFRV), and the station carried the team's coaches' show The Vince Lombardi Show. The station also originated the team's exhibition game coverage from the 1960s to 2002, with some exceptions. Main anchor Bill Jartz has been Lambeau Field's PA system announcer since the start of the 2005–2006 season. Jartz retired from the station in May 2025, but continues to serve his role as PA announcer with the Packers. The station continued to air Monday Night Football Packer games originating from ESPN beginning with the move of MNF to cable starting with the 2006 until the 2015 season. For the 2016 season, WLUK-TV, the Packers' primary home by virtue of Fox presently holding the rights to the NFC, acquired the syndication rights to the ESPN games under a multi-year agreement. It was the first time that WBAY did not broadcast a Packers game during an NFL season in its 63-year history, and the station would not carry another Packers game until December 19, 2022, a home matchup with the Los Angeles Rams, as ABC began to simulcast select Monday Night Football games with ESPN.
In 1974, WBAY was sold to Nationwide Communications, which operated the station until 1993, when it was sold to Young Broadcasting along with its two ABC-affiliated sisters WATE-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee, and WRIC-TV in Richmond, Virginia.
As an ABC affiliate (1992–present) In 1991, CBS purchased the assets of Midwest Television to acquire its long-dominant affiliate in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, WCCO-TV. Midwest also owned channel 2's longtime competitor, WFRV. CBS considered WBAY a strong affiliate, and tried to sell WFRV and their Escanaba, Michigan–based satellite station, WJMN-TV, after the deal with Midwest closed. However, after FCC rules were relaxed at the time to allow one company to own more stations, the network decided to keep the two stations as a result and switched WFRV/WJMN to CBS in 1992 (CBS sold WFRV/WJMN to Liberty Media in 2007, which in turn sold the stations to Nexstar Media Group in 2011, Nexstar sold WJMN to Sullivan's Landing in 2024 and that station is now operated by Morgan Murphy Media and again an ABC affiliate as the satellite of WBUP).
After it was announced that WFRV would join CBS, channel 2 then decided to take WFRV/WJMN's ABC affiliation; WBAY management insisted that the change take place on or near the anniversary of its sign-on date, March 17. Since that date fell on a Tuesday in 1992, WFRV and WBAY swapped networks on March 15, which fell on a Sunday. This brought WBAY-TV's ABC affiliation in line with sister stations WATE-TV in Knoxville and WRIC-TV in Richmond, which had recently renewed their ABC relationships.
The station formerly preempted the first hour of the ABC lineup (7–8 pm Central) on Tuesday evenings during the football season to carry the local program Tuesday Night Touchback, which was formerly known as Monday Night Countdown before it was moved in 2007 because of Dancing with the Stars and the departure of Monday Night Football from ABC (for most of the 2000s, the slot was among the lowest-rated on ABC's prime time schedule, as was the case with the pre-MNF timeslot). Programs normally seen during that hour then aired later on early Wednesday morning after Jimmy Kimmel Live! during the football season. However, in November 2009, this was changed temporarily due to viewer feedback involving the preemption of the series premiere of V, which forced that program to be aired after the Saturday 10 pm newscast; for the remainder of November, V aired at 7 pm, while Tuesday Night Touchback preempted The Insider and aired before prime time in a truncated half-hour format. The station's football coverage eventually was merged into the station's newscasts, along with occasional special coverage which is usually contained to Friday evenings and preempts Shark Tank.
On December 1, 2004, WBAY launched their first permanent digital subchannel service, an internally-run full-time weather feed known then as "Stormcenter 2 24/7", now "First Alert Weather 24/7", featuring a four-pane display of rolling weather conditions, forecasts, traffic reports and advertisements; a seven-day outlook; current radar; and real-time current observations from the regional network of WeatherBug reporting stations. It has never been associated with a national weather network and is run and maintained by the station's meteorologists. It simulcasts the main WBAY channel and goes into a commercial-free format during severe weather events.
Previously, WBAY-DT2 had been activated in the summer of 2004, carrying ABC News Now during the Republican and Democratic conventions, along with that year's presidential election. It also broke format in the spring and summer of 2006 to carry gavel-to-gavel coverage of Steven Avery's trial for the murder of Teresa Halbach, and until the move of special coverage to a secondary webfeed, did so for other trials of interest.
WBAY was one of seven Young-owned stations whose management and operations were handled by Gray Television as part of a proposed takeover of Young Broadcasting by its secured creditors (a plan tentatively approved by a New York bankruptcy judge on July 22, 2009; it was approved in late April 2010). Under Gray management, this made it a semi-sister station in Wisconsin to NBC affiliates WMTV in Madison and WEAU in Eau Claire, and CBS affiliate WSAW-TV in Wausau. The Gray management agreement ended in 2012 as Young returned to some financial stability and the pursuit of a sale partner.
In late January 2010, the station stopped signing off during the early morning hours on Saturdays and Sundays, after a major transmitter problem forced the station to reconsider this mode of operation. WBAY was the last commercial station in the state to start broadcasting 24 hours a day daily, the former off-hours on WBAY's main signal are now taken up by a simulcast of WBAY-DT2.
Sale to Media General, then Nexstar and resale to Gray Television (2013–present) On June 6, 2013, Young Broadcasting announced that it would merge with Media General. The sale was approved on November 8, and consummated on November 12. At that time it became both Media General's first station in Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest, and the company's northernmost asset.
On March 21, 2014, LIN Media entered into an agreement to merge with Media General in a $1.6 billion deal. Because LIN already owned WLUK-TV and CW affiliate WCWF (channel 14), with WBAY and WLUK ranking among the four highest-rated stations in the Green Bay market in total day viewership, the companies were required to sell either WBAY or WLUK to another station owner to comply with FCC ownership rules as well as planned changes to those rules regarding same-market television stations which would prohibit sharing agreements.TV Station Mega Merger: Media General, LIN Set $1.6 Billion Deal from Variety (March 21, 2014)Media General acquiring LIN Media for $1.6 billion, Los Angeles Times, March 21, 2014.Media Gen/LIN To Sell/Swap In Five Markets, TVNewsCheck, March 21, 2014. On August 20, 2014, Media General announced that it would retain WBAY, trading WLUK and WCWF to Sinclair Broadcast Group as part of several exchanges between other broadcast groups.
On January 27, 2016, Media General announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Nexstar Broadcasting Group. Because Nexstar already owned WFRV, it was required to sell that station or WBAY to another owner, though with the financial outlay Nexstar had invested into WFRV since its 2011 purchase, a swap for WBAY was unlikely despite the latter's first-place market ranking.