Malrite sold channel 30 to Clear Channel Communications in 1989 and was the first television station that Clear Channel ever owned.
1990–1996[]
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In 1995, Clear Channel began managing channel 47—later to become WNFT—under a local marketing agreement; the two stations pooled programming and resources, while running the strongest syndicated programs on WAWS. Clear Channel purchased channel 47, which by that point had become UPN affiliate WTEV-TV, outright in 2000, creating the second television duopoly in the Jacksonville market.
1996–2001[]
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2001–2009[]
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After WTEV took the CBS affiliation from longtime affiliate WJXT (VHF channel 4), which dropped the network after it demanded that Post-Newsweek Stations reverse compensate CBS to carry its programming and run the entire network schedule in pattern—only allowing pre-emptions for extended local breaking news and severe weather coverage,WAWS took over the local rights to the UPN affiliation on July 15, 2002, airing the network's evening programming on a secondary basis each weeknight from 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. following the station's prime time newscast, as well as its children's program block Disney's One Too, which it aired on Sunday through Friday mornings in addition to its existing carriage of Fox's competing children's block, FoxBox (later known as 4Kids TV), on Saturdays. On April 20, 2007, Clear Channel entered into an agreement to sell its television stations to Newport Television, a newly formed television station group controlled by private equity firm Providence Equity Partners.
2009–2010[]
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2010–2014[]
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On July 19, 2012, Newport Television announced the sale of WAWS and WTEV-TV to the Cox Media Group, in a four-station deal that also involved the sister duopoly of Fox affiliate KOKI-TV and MyNetworkTV affiliate KMYT-TV in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
On August 26, 2014, Cox announced its intention to change WAWS' call letters to WFOX-TV, contingent on FCC approval, through a request made to the agency on July 30. In an email to The Florida Times-Union, general manager Jim Zerwekh stated that the change would better reflect the station's status as one of Fox's ten strongest affiliates. The WFOX callsigns were not used by the network's flagship station WNYW in New York City.
