On October 29, 2009, WPGA owner Register Communications announced it would drop ABC and become an independent station effective January 1, 2010. The company cited that ABC had aired programming that was not "family-friendly", specifically including homosexual content, that conflicted with the station's programming focus as its reason for dropping the network. Shortly afterward, WGXA entered into a long-term agreement with ABC to carry the network's programming on a new second digital subchannel. In effect, this resulted in the station rejoining the network after fourteen years.