WNCN (channel 17) is a television station licensed to Goldsboro, North Carolina, United States, serving the Research Triangle area as an affiliate of CBS. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, the station maintains studios on Front Street in north Raleigh, and its transmitter is located in Auburn, North Carolina. Built in 1988 as a second-tier independent station operating from studios in Clayton, North Carolina, under the call sign WYED, channel 17 was purchased by Outlet Communications in 1994 and replaced the anemic WRDC (channel 28) as the market's NBC affiliate in 1995, which included the establishment of a local newsroom and the adoption of the present WNCN call letters. NBC owned the station for more than a decade before spinning it off in 2006. WNCN became the new CBS affiliate for the Triangle market on February 29, 2016, switching with longtime CBS affiliate WRAL-TV, which had announced it would become the new NBC affiliate for the region. History Early history In 1983, three parties applied to build channel 17 in Goldsboro: Group H Broadcasting, owned by Randall Harvey; Wayne Telecasters Inc., owned by radio station owner George Beasley alongside the Beasley Broadcasting Group; and Friendship Broadcasting of Elizabeth City. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave the nod to Group H in 1984. The station first signed on the air on April 11, 1988, as WYED on UHF analog channel 17. It operated as a small station that primarily carried programming from the Home Shopping Network (HSN), along with some religious and hunting/fishing shows that aired on weekends. Three months after going on air, WYED was sold to Beasley, becoming the large national radio chain's first—and only—television property (George Beasley had started his company with the 1961 sign-on of WPYB (1130 AM) in nearby Benson). Channel 17's original studios were located at 622 South Barbour Street in Clayton, with a transmitter tower located nearby, broadcasting with 2.6 million watts of power. The station had limited cable carriage, mainly on smaller providers in the eastern part of the state. Another source of programming for channel 17 was the short-lived Star Television Network, for which it signed on as an affiliate. WYED was almost sold two years after it started to Elvin Feltner's Krypton Corporation; Feltner proposed a movie-heavy schedule for channel 17. However, a problem developed in another pending Krypton acquisition, of television station WTVX serving West Palm Beach, Florida, which delayed any