WANF
Independent television station in Atlanta
WANF (channel 46), branded as Atlanta News First, is an independent television station in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It is the flagship property of locally based Gray Media and is co-owned with CW affiliate WPCH-TV (channel 17) and low-power, Class A Telemundo affiliate WKTB-CD (channel 47). WANF and WPCH-TV share studios on 14th Street Northwest in Atlanta's Home Park neighborhood, while WANF's transmitter is located in the city's Woodland Hills section.
The station was built in 1971 as WHAE-TV (later WANX-TV), owned by the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). Originally a nonprofit operation airing religious programs, the station gradually became a more commercially oriented independent station and broadened its programming to include older movies and family-friendly classic TV shows. CBN sold the station to Tribune Broadcasting in 1983, and the call sign was changed to WGNX in 1984. Tribune substantially built up the station, upgrading programming and turning it into Atlanta's top-rated local independent station; it also started a local newscast for the station in January 1989.
After a major switch of television affiliations in Atlanta in 1994, WGNX became Atlanta's new CBS affiliate and the only such station owned by Tribune. However, news was not seriously expanded until after Meredith Corporation acquired the station in 1999 as part of a purchase-and-trade with Tribune. The WGCL-TV call sign was adopted in 2000 as part of a major, but short-lived, rebrand of the station to "Clear TV" and its newscasts to Clear News.
“WANF” enters the record as independent television station in Atlanta. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what WANF, Independent and television can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“WANF” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, WANF, Independent and television provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7949690. Authority coordinates are 33.807, -84.339. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1971, 1983, 1984 and 1989.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “WANF”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow WANF primary sources, WANF archive and WANF research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “WANF”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “WANF” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.