History
WLTZ began broadcasting on October 29, 1970 as WYEA and aired an analog signal on UHF channel 38. WYEA was originally owned by Huntsville, Alabama broadcaster Charles Grisham and his company, Gala Broadcasting. Later in the 1970s, Grisham sold WYEA to locally based insurer AFLAC, making channel 38 the flagship of AFLAC's broadcast division. In 1981, AFLAC sold the station to J. Curtis Lewis, owner of WJCL-TV-FM in Savannah, Georgia, WLTX and WNOK-FM in Columbia, South Carolina, and WSTZ-FM-AM in Jackson, Mississippi; on August 31 of that year, the station changed its calls to the current WLTZ. Lewis kept WLTZ until 2007, when it was sold to SagamoreHill Broadcasting.
Specialties
WLTZ is the NBC affiliate in the Columbus, Georgia/Opelika, Alabama area. WLTZ First News airs weekdays from 5am to 7am, at 6pm, and at 11pm ET.