WHOT-TV
television station in Opelika, Alabama
WHOT-TV (channel 66) is a television station licensed to Opelika, Alabama, United States. Owned by CNZ Communications, the station broadcasts from a two-site distributed transmission system, with transmitters at Cusseta and Warm Springs, Georgia.
Channel 66 was allocated to Opelika in the early 1978 and went on air as WSWS-TV in 1982. It was an independent station for its first two years before airing the programs of the Christian Television Network for a decade. The station returned to secular programming in 1995 as an affiliate of The WB; the network moved its programming to a cable channel in the Columbus, Georgia, market in 1998, leaving channel 66 an independent again until then-owner Pappas Telecasting affiliated some of its stations with UPN in 1999. In 2005, the transmitter was moved from near Opelika to Cusseta, Georgia, and the station relaunched as WLGA. After The WB and UPN merged into The CW in 2006, channel 66 was an affiliate of that network until a sudden affiliation move in April 2009, amidst the bankruptcy of Pappas. The station was off the air for most of the period from June 2010 to June 2012 and was the last broadcast property held by a liquidating trust for Pappas, finally being sold in 2016 to CNZ Communications. CNZ built the Warm Springs transmitter, placing sufficient signal over parts of the Atlanta metropolitan area to seek must-carry status on cable within the far larger Atlanta market. It became WGBP-TV in 2020 and WHOT-TV in 2025, with a succession of digital multicast television networks on its primary subchannel.
History
In Opelika: Early years
At the petition of Wardean, Inc., the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allocated channel 66 to Opelika, Alabama, in 1978.
The public source identifies “WHOT-TV” as television station in Opelika, Alabama. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around WHOT-TV, television and station.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “WHOT-TV”, the useful work is to connect “television station in Opelika, Alabama” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
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 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7952221. Authority coordinates are 32.324, -84.779. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1978, 1982, 1995 and 1998.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. 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 “WHOT-TV”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow WHOT-TV primary sources, WHOT-TV archive and WHOT-TV 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 “WHOT-TV”?
- 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 “WHOT-TV” 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.