WUGA TV Back on the Air as WGTA TV Out of Toccoa

WUGA TV is back on the air under the new call letters WGTA TV and with new owners but an old location – back in Toccoa.

Marquee Broadcasting bought the former WUGA TV from the University of Georgia in April for $2.5 million and went on the air July 1 as a commercial station.

According to a report in the Athens-Banner Herald, the Company has also moved its operations from the WUGA building on the UGA campus back to the station’s original studios in Toccoa.

WGTA is broadcasting on channel 32 and is so far, is only being picked up by TruVista Cable in Toccoa.

But according to WGTA General Manager Patricia Lane, the station will soon be picked up by other cable and satellite TV providers with plans to broadcast from Greenville, SC to Athens, GA.

WGTA is airing family friendly programming from Chicago’s Weigel Broadcasting, which provides programming such as Movies!, Heros & Icons, and Decades.

Marquee Broadcasting also owns TV stations in Delaware and Maryland.

Originally operating as WNEG TV in Toccoa for decades, Media General sold WNEG TV in 2008 to the University of Georgia Research Foundation.

Since then, the station has undergone several incarnations.

In 2008, the call letters were changed from WNEG to WUGA.

However, after a failed attempt to operate the TV station as a commercial enterprise as part of its Grady School of Journalism program, UGA entered into an operating agreement with Georgia Public Broadcasting which operated the station for the University as part of its public broadcasting network until last week.