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| WDSI-TV,WFLI-TV | |
| History | |
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Last air date | December 1957 (1957-12) (in Rome, Georgia) |
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Former channel numbers |
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Call sign meaning | Television Chattanooga |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 22590 |
| ERP | 90 kW |
| HAAT | 316 m (1,037 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 35°9′38.7″N85°19′5.8″W / 35.160750°N 85.318278°W /35.160750; -85.318278 |
| Translator(s) | WPDP-CD 25Cleveland |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | |
WTVC (channel 9) is atelevision station inChattanooga, Tennessee, United States, affiliated withABC andFox. It is owned bySinclair Broadcast Group alongsideCleveland-licensed dualCW/MyNetworkTV affiliateWFLI-TV (channel 53). The two stations share studios on Benton Drive in Chattanooga; WTVC's transmitter is located onSignal Mountain in the town ofWalden.
Sinclair also provides some engineering functions for Chattanooga-licensedTrue Crime Network/Comet affiliateWDSI-TV (channel 61) under alocal marketing agreement (LMA) with New Age Media.[2]
In addition to its main digital signal, WTVC can be seen off-air on alow-power,Class Arepeater,WPDP-CD (channel 25). Licensed to Cleveland and owned by New Age Media, this station has a transmitter onOswald Dome in unincorporatedPolk County (northeast ofBenton) in theCherokee National Forest.[3]
Although parts of the Chattanoogamarket are in theCentral Time Zone, all schedules are listed inEastern Time.
The station signed on the air on June 15, 1953, as WROM-TV, anNBC affiliate licensed toRome, Georgia, with signal coverage that generally favored Chattanooga. It transmitted an analog signal on VHF channel 9 at 98,000watts from a tower onHorseleg Mountain west of Rome. WROM-TV also had secondary affiliations withCBS, ABC, and theDuMont Television Network. The station lost CBS whenWDEF-TV signed on in 1954. WROM-TV then carried NBC, ABC, and DuMont until 1956 when Dumont went off the air and WRGP-TV (nowWRCB-TV) signed on and took the NBC affiliation. At that time, ABC opted to end its affiliate relationship with WROM-TV and secure secondary affiliations with WDEF and WRGP because WROM-TV's signal, now reduced to 31,000 watts visual, only reached the south suburbs of Chattanooga.
WROM-TV continued as anindependent station until late 1957. During its tenure as a Rome station, it claimed to be "Dixie's Largest Independent." The station ran a late-afternoon and prime-time schedule of old movies,"hillbilly" music performances (which were common on Southern TV stations in the 1950s) and occasionally, ABC TV network fare such asOmnibus.
Martin Theaters (forerunner ofCarmike Cinemas) bought the station in 1957 and in December of that year, took it off the air to move the transmitter 70 miles (110 km) north to Chattanooga, and prepare it to operate at full power. Martin Theaters had petitioned the FCC for permission to move its also recently purchased WDAK-TV on Channel 28 inColumbus, Georgia, to channel 9, but FCC rules mandated a certain amount of separation for stations on thesame channel, and Channel 9 in Rome provided a strong grade B signal to Columbus. Additionally, the FCC normally did not allowcommon ownership of two stations with overlapping signals, and found that the overlap between the Channel 9 in WROM and the proposed Channel 9 in Columbus would have been too great. The move to Chattanooga by WROM-TV would satisfy the co-channel restriction.
The Chattanooga–Columbus channel reallocation was part of the last huge FCC national analog channel reallocation that saw stations in the Southeast switch frequencies not only in Chattanooga and Columbus, but also inDothan andMontgomery, Alabama;Greenwood,Tupelo, andLaurel, Mississippi;Florence, South Carolina; andHigh Point, North Carolina.
Ironically, Rome lost a second television frequency 40 years later, when WZGA (UHF channel 14, nowIon TelevisionO&OWPXA-TV) moved its operations toAtlanta after several years of operation. However, unlike WROM-TV, channel 14 still has its license in Rome.WROM is still on the air on AM 710. WPXA (now carried on digital channel 31, but still virtually mapped to 14) is still licensed to Rome, while a digital fill-in translator forWSB-TV from Atlanta is licensed to Rome on digital channel 14, but mapped virtually to channel 2.
Channel 9 signed on from Chattanooga as full-power ABC affiliate WTVC on February 11, 1958. It still operates under the original license for WROM-TV. Chattanooga also became one of the smallest television markets in the country to have three VHF stations. WTVC is the only station in Chattanooga to have never had a secondary affiliation with another network.
WTVC developed a strong reputation for local programming in its early years. Among the shows that WTVC pioneered was the children's educational showFuntime with Marcia Kling.Shock Theater which aired on Saturday nights developed a cult following with WTVC programming director Tommy Reynolds dressed up asDracula with the moniker "Doctor Shock" alongside his irreverent sidekick "Dingbat".The Bob Brandy Show which aired in the afternoons featuredcartoons and kids activities hosted by WTVC advertising executive Bob Brandy, his wife Ingrid, and their horse Rebel.
In 1969, Martin Theaters was sold toJ. B. Fuqua, a businessman fromAugusta, Georgia. Fuqua also ownedWJBF-TV in Augusta,WTVW inEvansville, Indiana, and KTHI-TV (nowKVLY-TV) inFargo, North Dakota. Over the next few years each station was sold with WTVC being purchased in 1980 by theBelo Corporation ofDallas, Texas. In 1984,Freedom Communications bought the station along withKFDM inBeaumont, marking the newspaper chain's second television acquisition. Belo put WTVC and KFDM on the market after it announced plans to purchase Corinthian Broadcasting fromDun & Bradstreet so that the company could comply with the FCC-mandated ownership limit of five VHF television stations which was in effect at the time.
When WTVC moved its operations to Chattanooga in 1958, it opened a studio at its transmitter onSignal Mountain. In 1966, it moved to new facilities in the Golden Gateway Shopping Center in downtown Chattanooga next to aZayre department store. Over the years, however, the station outgrew the building. In January 2000, WTVC moved into a new digitally-equipped 26,000-square-foot (2,400 m2) studio located adjacent to theHighway 58 /Highway 153 interchange.[4]
After filing forChapter 11 bankruptcy, Freedom announced on November 2, 2011, that it would sell its stations, including WTVC, toSinclair Broadcast Group.[5] The group deal closed on April 2, 2012.
Following the purchase of non-license assets from Fox affiliateWDSI-TV by Sinclair, its Fox affiliation and programming moved to WTVC's second digital subchannel.
During a transition process that was completed onOctober 31, 2015, WTVC's second digital channel simulcast WDSI. On that date, when Sinclair launched their new networkComet, the Fox schedule and the intellectual unit for WDSI's main signal moved permanently to WTVC-DT2 under the on-air moniker "Fox Chattanooga". The programming onThis TV which had been on WTVC-DT2 moved to WDSI's main signal, with Comet launching on WDSI-DT2; theMyNetworkTV subchannel was moved to WFLI-DT2, with theMeTV signal which had been carried on that slot moved to WFLI-DT3. Cable, satellite, andEPB viewers saw no change, as WTVC-DT2 took over the former channel slots for WDSI's main signal.
As of August 2024, WTVC presently broadcasts 47 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 8 hours each weekday and3+1⁄2 hours each on Saturdays and Sundays). In the event of special sports coverage overlapping news time, the station streams a live newscast on its website. The station also airs apublic affairs show,This-N-That, which is produced separately from the news department, but does have news updates when necessary. Longtime personality Don Welch hosted the show until his retirement in 2014. James Howard now hosts the show that airs at 12:30 weekdays, which does has a weather segment.
Through the late-1960s and mid-1970s, WTVC branded its newscasts under theEyewitness News label. In 1975, this switched toAction News. In the late-1980s, it was one of the first stations in the country to adopt theNewsChannel branding.
In the early 1990s, WTVC produced a 10 p.m. newscast for then-independent WFLI-TV, which was eventually canceled. In 1994, the station began airing a nightly 10 o'clock broadcast on Fox affiliate WDSI-TV using station meteorologists, sports anchors, news reporters and news video, while WDSI provided separate news anchors. In 2000, that station launched its own news department and aired local news on weekday mornings, weekday afternoons at 4, and nightly at 10. In 2004, the news department at WDSI closed down and a news share agreement with WTVC was re-established. Since then, this station has been producingFox 61 First at 10 on WDSI. With the acquisition of WDSI-TV's non-license assets and Fox programming, the 10 p.m. newscast is now brandedFirst at 10 on Fox Chattanooga.
From the 1960s through the 1970s, WTVC newscasts were usually in last place, but it was not until new ownersBelo took over, that the ratings began to favor WTVC. Since the mid-1980s, WTVC had waged a spirited battle with WRCB for first place in the local news ratings weekdays, while WDEF has usually trailed both stations. On March 1, 2014, WTVC launched the area's second-only weekend morning newscast. NamedGood Morning Chattanooga Weekend, the broadcasts air from 6 to 7 a.m. and from 8 to 9 a.m. The weekend editions ofGood Morning America are aired between the newscasts at 7 a.m.[6]
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9.1 | 720p | 16:9 | ABC | ABC |
| 9.2 | FOX | Fox | ||
| 9.3 | 480i | ROAR | Roar |
On December 16, 2014, WTVC added a 24/7 local weather channel, affiliated withWeatherNation TV on digital channel 9.3.[8] WeatherNation was dropped in favor of TBD (now Roar) on June 1, 2017.
WTVC shut down its analog signal, overVHF channel 9, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United Statestransitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transitionUHF channel 35 to VHF channel 9 for post-transition operations.[9]
Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the state ofTennessee | ||
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Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Tennessee | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent | ||
| PBS | ||
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| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the U.S. state ofGeorgia | ||
|---|---|---|
Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Georgia | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent | ||
| PBS | ||
| Religious | ||
| Spanish | ||
| Other | ||
| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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