UHF channel 61 was first assigned to Greensboro in the 1960s, but no application was made for it until 1979, when Consolidated Broadcasting Corporation filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), to build it.
[5] At that time, it was hoped that WLXI would be in service by midyear from a tower used by WQMG and studios that a decade earlier had housed WUBC (channel 48), a short-lived UHF outlet.
[6] Under this format, WLXI began broadcasting on March 5, 1984,[7] with an airstaff of local video jockeys (VJs); the first program manager left within a week of signing on.
[8] Despite difficulties attracting advertisers to the format and turnover of the entire initial staff (including on-air and sales employees), ownership claimed to have found stable footing by November.
[11] Another VJ resigned the next day, with Jay Johnson telling viewers he was leaving "because I feel like the station won't exist very much longer".
[13] The next day, Satterfield confirmed the station would gradually switch to an all-Christian format and that he had met with executives of the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN).
[18] Two years later, it sold WLXI to Tri-State Christian Television of Marion, Illinois, for $1.9 million, giving TCT its first station in the South.