WGBA-TV
WLRE, which stood for station co-founder Lyle R. Evans, sought to be operational as early as December 1977. It delayed so that it could put its transmission tower on Scray's Hill near De Pere, the location of other Green Bay market transmitter towers. Ultimately the location was approved, but it meant ground was not broken on the studio and antenna location until June 1980. The station signed on the air on December 31, 1980, broadcasting an analog signal on UHF channel 26. It was the Green Bay market's second independent station, after the short-lived KFIZ-TV (channel 34) in Fond du Lac from 1968 to 1972. It was also the first new commercial station to sign-on in Green Bay itself since WFRV-TV (channel 5) signed on in May 1955. On November 12, 1982, WLRE was able to power up a new transmitter and had plans for further antenna power boosts.
WSB-TV
At that time, its present channel 2 allocation was licensed to the "Journal's" rival newspaper "The Atlanta Constitution", who had a construction permit for WCON-TV there. In 1950, the two newspapers merged. At the time, the Federal Communications Commission did not allow one entity to own two television stations in the same market. As a result, WSB-TV and WCON-TV merged. The merged station operated under WSB-TV's license but used the stronger channel 2. This proved to be a fortunate decision, as the FCC later collapsed a large and mostly mountainous swath of northern Georgia into the Atlanta market. The channel 8 allocation was eventually given to WLWA as an ABC affiliate. When that station moved to channel 11 in 1953, channel 8 was reserved as a non-commercial educational allocation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and is now WGTV, a PBS affiliate, and also the flagship television station of Georgia Public Broadcasting.