WTVO (channel 17) is a television station in Rockford, Illinois, United States, affiliated with ABC and MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains joint sales and shared services agreements (JSA/SSA) with Nexstar Media Group, owner of Fox affiliate WQRF-TV (channel 39), for the provision of certain services. Both stations share studios on North Meridian Road in Rockford, where WTVO's transmitter is also located. History The station signed on May 3, 1953, as the market's first television outlet and is the oldest continuously operating UHF station in the northern portion of Illinois. It originally aired an analog signal on UHF channel 39 but moved to channel 17 in 1967. WQRF has operated from channel 39 since first signed on in November 1978. WTVO was originally a primary NBC affiliate and shared secondary ABC status with WREX-TV (channel 13). When WCEE-TV (channel 23, now WIFR) signed on in 1965, it took the CBS affiliation, sending ABC to WREX and leaving WTVO with just NBC. The station was owned by Winnebago Television (the station's call sign stands for "Winnebago Television Organization"), which was partially owned by the H & E Balaban Corporation (which later became Balaban Stations), until 1988 when Young Broadcasting of New York State purchased it. After a 42-year run as the local NBC station, it swapped network affiliations with WREX, taking the ABC affiliation on August 14, 1995. According to Variety, ABC pulled its programming from WREX not long after Quincy Newspapers bought the station. ABC was perturbed at Quincy's decision to switch the affiliation of its South Bend station WSJV from ABC to Fox earlier that year. The replacement ABC affiliate for South Bend, W58BT (now WBND-LD), began broadcasting on October 18, two months after WTVO affiliated with ABC. The deal may also have been facilitated by the fact that ABC had bought a minority stake in Young the year before. Another ownership change came on November 22, 2004, when Mission Broadcasting (a de facto subsidiary of Irving, Texas–based Nexstar Broadcasting) bought WTVO from Young for $21 million. This made the station a sister to Nexstar-owned WQRF. Although WQRF was nominally the senior partner of the agreement, the combined operation was based at WTVO's studio, and WTVO produces programming for WQRF. The same was completed in January 2005. Shortly before the sale was completed, WTVO was one of the Young-owned stations who preempted an uninterrupted Veterans Day