Major Changes To TV In West Alabama Could Impact Football Season

This news could upset many sports fans as we head into the 2026 football season.

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August 1 is the date that could mark these big changes. What we know as CBS/42 will be going away. According to The Desk, Paramount and Nexstar Media Group are making major changes to their stations' programming due to a new broadcasting pact. WVTM-TV (Channel 13) is the NBC programming affiliate for West Alabama. Soon, they will begin airing some CBS programming.

What happens to the NBC programming? Who knows? No official word has been given by the powers that be. Nexstar says it wants to expand local news in West Alabama as the owner of WIAT-TV (Channel 42). This is not happening exclusively in our region. A spokesperson says they are making changes like this in over 30 cities in the US.

Channel 42 will be affiliated with the CW network after this change. One possibility is that the "distribution" of CBS programming would move to a digital side or sub-channel of WVTM-TV. That could make CBS programming difficult to find for many local viewers. In 2025, CBS lost the vast majority of college football games; that package now belongs to the SEC Network.

However, they did sign an agreement with a couple of Power 5 conferences to air a few select games in 2026. Let's hope that doesn't include any Alabama games. In addition, CBS owns the AFC contract with the NFL for 2026 and beyond. Those sporting events, as well as any CBS programming viewers enjoyed, could be hard to locate after August 1.