WAGA-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, serving as the market's Fox network outlet.

The station was originally owned by the Toledo, Ohio–based Fort Industry Company, which also operated WAGA radio (AM 590, now WDWD; and WAGA-FM 103.3, now WVEE), all colloquially called "Wagga".

[5][6] The studio resembles an antebellum Southern mansion, a type of Colonial Revival architecture that was typical for Storer's broadcasting facilities.

[7] While this design was somewhat out of place in most of Storer's other markets (which also included Toledo, Detroit, Cleveland and Milwaukee), it was a perfect fit for Atlanta.

In 1985, WAGA-TV and the other Storer stations were sold into a group deal to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), a New York-based private equity firm.

SCI Television also missed repayment of $162 million in bank loans before a June 30 deadline; as a consequence of its financial difficulties, Gillett/SCI decided to sell its broadcast holdings.

The purchase was finalized on May 25, at which point, the film and television production company folded WAGA and its six sister stations—fellow CBS affiliates WTVT, WJW-TV in Cleveland, WJBK-TV in Detroit, and WITI-TV in Milwaukee; NBC affiliate KNSD in San Diego; and then-independent WSBK-TV in Boston—into a new broadcasting subsidiary, New World Communications.

[9][10][11] On May 23, 1994, as part of a broad deal that also saw News Corporation acquire a 20% equity interest in the company, New World Communications signed a long-term agreement to affiliate its nine CBS-, ABC- or NBC-affiliated television stations with Fox, which sought to strengthen its affiliate portfolio after the National Football League (NFL) accepted the network's $1.58 billion bid for the television rights to the National Football Conference (NFC) – a four-year contract that began with the 1994 NFL season – on December 18, 1993.

(The agreement would subsequently be amended to include four additional stations that New World acquired later that month from Argyle Television Holdings.

With only a few months before WAGA was set to switch to Fox, CBS needed to find a new affiliate in what had become the nation's 10th largest media market.

WSB-TV was later eliminated as an option as its Atlanta-based owner, Cox Enterprises, would reach a new long-term agreement with ABC to retain its affiliation with that network.

[18] By September 1994, with only a little more than two months left before channel 5 was slated to join Fox, CBS faced the prospect of having to pipe in WRBL in Columbus, WMAZ-TV in Macon, WSPA-TV in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and WDEF-TV in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for Atlanta-area cable customers until it found a new affiliate in the market.

[22][23][24][25] The last CBS network program to air on WAGA was a first-run episode of Walker, Texas Ranger at 10 p.m. Eastern Time on December 10; this led into a message by then-station president and general manager Jack Sander shortly before the start of that evening's edition of Channel 5 Eyewitness News at 11:00 (which was relaunched as an hour-long prime time newscast at 10 p.m. two days later), informing viewers about the pending network changes.

(The affiliation switch involving WAGA, WGNX and WATL was originally slated to occur on November 27, but was delayed two weeks to allow Fox, New World and CBS to iron out the final details.

WGNX concurrently took over the CBS affiliation, which necessitated the shift of a large number of the syndicated cartoons, drama series and sitcoms in its inventory over to WVEU – which had become a UPN affiliate when that network launched on January 16, 1995 – as channel 46 could not continue to accommodate many of these shows due to CBS's network-dominated programming lineup; as a result, WGNX became the only Atlanta television station that did not retain its entire existing syndicated programming lineup following the switch.

Despite its five million-watt analog signal, WGNX did not penetrate nearly as far into this area as WAGA did because of the relatively mountainous terrain that is found in that part of northern Georgia.

(The paid programming block that replaced it in January 2009, Weekend Marketplace, currently airs on MyNetworkTV affiliate WATL.

Since Fox obtained the partial (now exclusive) over-the-air network television rights to Major League Baseball in 1996, WAGA has also carried certain Atlanta Braves games that have been regionally or nationally televised by the network during the league's regular season and postseason, including their appearance in the 1996 World Series and their victory in the 2021 World Series, which gave the city its first major sports championship since 1995.

In regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the highest newscast output among Georgia's broadcast television stations.

From the 1970s to early 2009, it had to fend off a spirited challenge from WXIA-TV, with the two stations regularly trading the number-two position in the market behind longtime leader WSB-TV.

[38] On March 16, 2009, WAGA became the last major network station in the market (behind WGCL-TV, WSB and WXIA) to begin broadcasting its locally produced newscasts in high-definition.

On September 14, 2009, WAGA expanded its weekday morning newscast to five hours from 5 to 10 a.m. along with the addition of an hour-long 9 a.m. extension of the program called Good Day Xtra.

On September 14, 2015, the station extended its 11 p.m. newscast to one hour with the addition of a half-hour News Edge at 11:30; this made WAGA among the very few stations to extend its late newscast to midnight, and one of three Fox affiliates (Kansas City's WDAF-TV and Washington, D.C.'s WTTG being the others) to air a two-hour late local news block.

The station's first chief broadcast engineer from 1949, Paul B. Cram (age 99 at the time), was given the duty of permanently turning off the analog transmitter live on the air at 12:30 p.m. on June 12.

[48][citation needed] WAGA also had significant carriage on Storer and Liberty cable systems (later TCI, now Mediacom) in South Georgia during that same timeframe.