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| City | Birmingham, Alabama |
| Channels | |
| Branding | WBRC 6 |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| WTBM-CD | |
| History | |
First air date | July 1, 1949 (76 years ago) (1949-07-01) |
Former call signs | WBRC-TV (1949–1999) |
Former channel numbers |
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Call sign meaning | Taken from WBRC radio[1] |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 71221 |
| ERP | 700 kW |
| HAAT | 420 m (1,378 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 33°29′19″N86°47′58″W / 33.48861°N 86.79944°W /33.48861; -86.79944 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
WBRC (channel 6) is atelevision station inBirmingham, Alabama, United States, affiliated with theFox network. It is owned byGray Media alongsidelow-power,Class ATelemundo affiliateWTBM-CD (channel 24). The two stations share studios and transmitter facilities atopRed Mountain (between Vulcan Trail and Valley View Drive) in southeastern Birmingham, next to the studios ofNBC affiliateWVTM (channel 13).
The station first signed on the air on July 1, 1949, originally broadcasting on VHF channel 4 as WBRC-TV (standing for Bell Radio Company, afterFountain Heights physician J. C. Bell, founder of radio stationWBRC (960 AM, now WERC);[1] the "-TV" suffix was dropped from the call sign in June 1999).[3] Although WBRC-TV was the first television station in Birmingham to be granted alicense by theFederal Communications Commission (FCC), it is the second-oldest television station in Alabama, signing on just over one month after WAFM-TV (channel 13, nowWVTM-TV), which debuted on May 29. It was originally owned by the Birmingham Broadcasting Company, run by Eloise D. Hanna, along with WBRC radio. Hanna's first husband, M. D. Smith, had bought WBRC radio from Bell in 1928. Her son, M. D. Smith III, who worked at the radio stations in advertising sales and was later promoted toprogram director and vice president, ran the television station as its operations manager. His son, M. D. Smith IV later organized Smith Broadcasting, which purchased WAFG-TV, Channel 31 in Huntsville, Alabama in 1963, with himself as operations manager. The call letters were immediately changed toWAAY-TV. M. D. Smith III is also named a remote general manager of WAAY-TV from Birmingham.
Originally broadcasting for three hours per day, it operated as a primaryNBC affiliate (earning the affiliation as a result of WBRC radio's longtime affiliation with theNBC Red Network), and also carried secondary affiliations withABC and theDuMont Television Network; during the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with theNTA Film Network.[4] WBRC-TV originally operated from WBRC radio's facilities on 19th Street and 2nd Avenue, near downtown Birmingham, which originally only housed business andmaster control operations; the station originally relied mainly on network and film content for much of the programming it broadcast. The station's transmitter was originally purposed as the transmitter facilities for radio station WBRC-FM (102.5, nowWBPT at 106.9 FM; original frequency now occupied byWDXB), which signed on in 1947 with the highest radiated power of any radio station worldwide, operating at 500,000 watts; after the FM station suspended operations in June 1948 due to continued revenue losses due to the lack of radios equipped with FM tuners, Hanna borrowed $150,000 to build a new studio facility and transmitter atop Red Mountain for the television station. In September 1950, WBRC established acoaxial cable link with fellow NBC-DuMont affiliateWRGB (now aCBS affiliate) inSchenectady, New York, allowing the station to broadcast NBC and DuMont network programs both live and live-to-air.
On February 19, 1953, WBRC-TV moved to channel 6 as part of a frequency realignment ordered by the FCC, resulting from theSixth Report and Order issued the year prior in 1952. This move was made to alleviate signal interference problems between WBRC and WSM-TV (now sister stationWSMV-TV) inNashville, which also transmitted on channel 4, that were present in portions of northern Alabama. Later that year, Hanna also sold the WBRC television and radio stations toStorer Broadcasting for $2.3 million—a handsome return on her first husband's purchase of WBRC radio 25 years earlier.[5] George B. Storer, the company's founder and chairman, was a member of the board of directors atCBS, and most of his television stations were affiliates of that network. Storer may have used his leverage to secure a primary CBS affiliation for WBRC-TV, which joined the network on July 4, 1954. NBC programming subsequently moved to channel 13 (by then, using the call sign WABT); both stations, however, retained a secondary affiliation with ABC.
On September 17 of that year, the WBRC stations moved to a new, much larger studio facility located on Red Mountain that was built by Storer, where channel 6 continues to operate from to this day. The building, like many of those built by Storer to serve as studios for its broadcast properties, resembled anantebellum mansion. While it may have been out of place in most of Storer's other markets (many of which were located outside of the Southern United States), it was a perfect fit for Birmingham. Unusual for a commercial broadcaster, Storer supportededucational television, and the company donated two transmitters and frequencies in the Birmingham market (channels 7 and 10, which were respectively occupied by WCIQ and WBIQ when both stations signed on in 1955) to Alabama Educational Television (nowAlabama Public Television). This also, however, may have been a move to forestall future commercial competition in the market; WBRC and WABT remained the only commercial stations in Birmingham, which would not get a third commercial broadcast television outlet until WBMG (nowWIAT) debuted in October 1965, on UHF channel 42, a signal considerably weaker than that of either channels 6 or 13, and a problem which hampered that station's progress until the early 2000s.
In 1957, Storer sold the WBRC stations to Radio Cincinnati Inc., the forerunner of what would becomeTaft Broadcasting, for $2.3 million.[6] Storer had to sell its broadcast holdings in Birmingham after it purchased radio station WIBG (nowWNTP) inPhiladelphia and its television sister, WPFH (laterWVUE) inWilmington, Delaware (whose frequency is now occupied byWHYY-TV), to comply with the FCC's ownership limits of that time period.
On March 1, 1961, WBRC-TV signed an agreement with ABC to become a full-time affiliate of the network.[7] This was very unusual for a market with only two commercial stations; usually, one or both stations carried ABC as a secondary affiliation, since that network would not be on anything resembling an equal footing with CBS and NBC until the 1970s. However, Taft had very good relations with ABC. The company's chairman was a personal friend of ABC's presidentLeonard Goldenson, and several of Taft's other stations, includingflagshipWKRC-TV inCincinnati (which would rejoin CBS in 1996), had recently switched to ABC. During the 1970s, ABC aired cartoons fromHanna-Barbera, whose studios were acquired by Taft in 1967. Taft later bought ABC's former syndication arm,Worldvision Enterprises, in 1979 (ABC spun off this division in 1973 as a result offin-syn laws, which have since been repealed). This also marked a significant turnaround for channel 6's relationship with the network, as during the later 1950s, the amount of ABC programming on WBRC had been dramatically reduced from about 50% of its schedule to only a very limited selection of shows, seemingly headed toward an exclusive CBS affiliation by 1960; even still, WBRC retained some of CBS' higher-rated soap operas on its daytime schedule until about 1968, when those programs moved to either WAPI-TV or WBMG.
Another factor, though supposedly not as important as the Taft-Goldenson relationship, wasCBS News' apparent strong support of theCivil Rights Movement, which did not sit well with many white viewers, a large segment of WBRC's audience. Anurban legend regarding the ABC affiliation agreement suggested that the switch was partly motivated by CBS' plans to airWho Speaks For Birmingham?, a controversialCBS Reports documentary focusing ondesegregation atBirmingham City Schools that later led to journalistHoward K. Smith's resignation from CBS News after he quoted an anti-desegregation statement by political scientistEdmund Burke in the closing narration, viewed by network presidentWilliam S. Paley as editorializing his views in support of school integration; however, the special aired on May 18 of that year, two months after the ABC agreement was signed. ABC had very few full-time affiliates south of Washington, D.C. at the time, but now it had the full benefit of one of the South's strongest signals, best antenna locations and largest coverage areas. WBRC-TV's signal provided at least secondary coverage as far north asDecatur and extending south to nearMontgomery, and from theMississippi border in the west to theGeorgia border in the east. In addition, althoughFM broadcasting was in its infancy at the time of the network switch, the advantage of channel 6's audio being heard at87.7 FM at the far end of the FM dial would be taken advantage of by WBRC in promotional advertising up until the2009 digital transition, allowing the station's audience to listen to the station and ABC network programming on both traditionalradio receivers andcar stereos. The station's weather department designed its presentations to relay information for both its traditional television and radio audiences in severe weather situations.
The station became exclusively affiliated with ABC on September 7, 1961; on that date, channel 13 (by then known as WAPI-TV) assumed rights to CBS and NBC programming, although WBRC continued to occasionally carry certain CBS shows that WAPI chose not to carry through 1965. In 1972, Taft sold the WBRC radio stations, which changed their call letters toWERC-AM andFM.[8]
In 1966, WBRC-TV began broadcasting local programming incolor, after the station purchased two color cameras; among the first local programs to be produced in color was theAlabama Crimson Tide football coaches' program,The Bear Bryant Show (originated from CBS affiliateWCOV-TV (now also a Fox affiliate) in Montgomery, the first television station in the state to begin color broadcasts), which aired on WBRC until 1970, when it moved to WAPI-TV. Meanwhile, WBRC-TV had become one of ABC's strongest affiliates, a position it retained for the next quarter-century. For a time, it incorporated the ABC circle logo inside its own "6" logo (just as it had done with the CBS eye in the 1950s). Channel 6 could make a plausible claim to be not only the most-watched station in the Birmingham market but in the entire state of Alabama, thanks in part to unusually weak competition. CBS affiliate WBMG (channel 42, nowWIAT), which signed on in October 1965 as the market's third commercial television station, was not a factor and, in fact, was among the lowest-rated major-network affiliates in the nation at some points, making Birmingham ade facto two-station market to industry observers from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s. Even still, due to signal impairment in mountainous areas of northeastern Alabama, WBRC operated twolow-powertranslators to extend its programming to that part of the state, W29AO (channel 29) inAnniston in W15AP (channel 15) inGadsden.
In 1982, WBRC began receiving ABC network and syndicated programming, and news footage viasatellite. In 1984, the station became one of the first television stations in the region to adopt a 24-hour-a-day programming schedule. After it suffered significant structural damage due to anice storm that affected the Southeastern U.S. in the winter of 1985, the station's original transmitter tower was replaced in 1986, with a new tower on Red Mountain 3 miles (4.8 km) east of the original tower's location. In October 1987, Taft was restructured into Great American Communications following the completion of a hostile takeover of the group. In December 1993, Great American Communications was restructured again into Citicasters after filing forChapter 11 bankruptcy. Citicasters then decided to put most of its television stations up for sale. These moves, though, did not immediately affect WBRC's high standing in the ratings or its reputation in the community.
On May 5, 1994, Great American Communications (which would later be renamed Citicasters following the completion of its restructuring) agreed to sell WBRC and three other television stations –WDAF-TV inKansas City,KSAZ-TV inPhoenix andWGHP inHigh Point, North Carolina – toNew World Communications – for $350 million in cash and $10 million inshare warrants.[9][10] However, three weeks later, New World agreed to purchase four stations owned by Argyle Television Holdings, WVTM being among them, in a purchase option-structured deal for $717 million[11] (although the transfer/assignment applications for the stations involved in the Argyle purchases were not filed with the FCC until after New World's acquisition of the four Citicasters stations was completed); this posed a problem for New World on two counts. At the time, the FCC forbade any broadcasting company from owning two commercial television stations in the same market; in addition, the concurrent acquisitions of the Argyle and Citicasters stations put New World three stations over the national television ownership cap that the agency enforced at the time, which allowed broadcasters to own a maximum of twelve stations nationwide.
On May 23, 1994, New World signed an affiliation agreement withFox to switch twelve television stations – six that New World had already owned and eight that the company was in the process of acquiring through the Argyle and Citicasters deals, including WBRC – to the network, in exchange for the latter's then-parent companyNews Corporation purchasing a 20% equity stake in New World; the stations would become Fox affiliates once their affiliation contracts with existing network partners expired (with the first stations involved in the deal switching to the network in September 1994).[12] Although the network's Birmingham charter affiliate,WTTO (channel 21), was one of Fox's strongest affiliates at the time, the network found the chance to align with WBRC too much to resist because of its longstanding ratings dominance in the market. The group's affiliation deal with Fox also gave New World a chance to solve its ownership problem by reaching an agreement with Citicasters to sell WBRC and WGHP directly to the network'sowned-and-operated station group,Fox Television Stations.
Fox was unable to immediately purchase the two stations outright due to questions over the American citizenship of then-parent companyNews Corporation's Australian-born CEORupert Murdoch. New World then decided to acquire the stations itself, but place them in an outsidetrust company that it established; New World would sell the stations to Fox Television Stations, which, in turn, would pay the group $130 million inpromissory notes upon the transfer's completion. New World formally filed an application with the FCC to transfer WBRC to the trust on October 12, 1994, one month after it filed transferred WGHP on September 9; the FCC approved the transfer on April 3, 1995.[13][14] Under the arrangement, New World owned the licenses of both stations, while Citicasters continued to control their operations underoutsourcing agreements. In April 1995, Citicasters transferred the operations of WBRC and WGHP to Fox Television Stations, which took over operational control through time brokerage agreements with New World and purchased the stations three months later on July 22; Fox formally finalized the purchase of the two stations on January 17, 1996.[15][16]
Although it was now owned by the O&O group of another network, Fox now had to run channel 6 as an ABC affiliate for more than a year after the purchase was announced as WBRC's affiliation agreement with that network was not set to expire until August 31, 1996. This gave ABC a sufficient amount of time to find another station to replace channel 6 as its central Alabama affiliate. In January 1996, ABC struck a deal withAllbritton Communications to affiliate with CBS stations WCFT-TV (channel 33, nowHeroes & Icons affiliateWSES) inTuscaloosa and WJSU-TV (channel 40, now Heroes & Icons affiliateWGWW) in Anniston (the latter of which Allbritton had agreed to operate under a local marketing agreement with then-owner Osborne Communications Corporation weeks prior); because Tuscaloosa and Anniston were then separate markets, which would result in neither station being counted inNielsen ratings reports for Birmingham, Allbritton purchased low-power station W58CK (channel 58, nowWBMA-LD), creating a triple-simulcast with WCFT and WJSU, which would act as itssatellite stations.[17][18]
WBRC became a Fox owned-and-operated station on September 1, 1996, ending its affiliation with ABC after 47 years; however, the station had begun airing the network's short-lived morning programFox After Breakfast for one month prior to the switch after it droppedGood Morning America from its schedule. The concurrent move of the ABC affiliation to W58CK and its satellites also led to the CBS affiliation for the Anniston-Gadsden market to move to WNAL-TV (channel 44, nowIon Television owned-and-operated stationWPXH-TV), which—along with WTTO and its Tuscaloosa satellite WDBB (channel 17)—lost its Fox affiliation to WBRC.
With the switch to Fox, WBRC became one of only a few television stations in the United States to have maintained primary affiliations with all of theBig Three networks, and the only one in the country to have had primary affiliations with all four current major networks; it also became the first network-owned commercial television station in the state of Alabama. At that time, WBRC phased out its longstanding "Channel 6" brand and began branding itself as "Fox 6", becoming one of three Fox stations affected by the affiliation deal between the network and New World to adopt Fox's standardized station branding conventions prior to the group's 1996 merger with Fox Television Stations (WGHP andWJBK in Detroit, which became a sister station to WBRC as a result of the New World merger, were the only others to comply with the network's branding techniques; the remaining ten stations did not incorporate network branding until after the merger was finalized). After New World merged with Fox in 1997, WBRC was reunited with four of its sister stations from the Storer era: WJBK,WAGA-TV inAtlanta,WJW inCleveland andWITI inMilwaukee.
WBRC would become the only remaining station in the Birmingham–Tuscaloosa–Anniston market that was owned by a major commercial broadcast television network, afterMedia General completed its acquisition of WVTM fromNBC Television Stations on June 26, 2006. However, on December 22, 2007, Fox announced that it had entered into an agreement to sell WBRC and seven other Fox owned-and-operated stations (WDAF-TV, WGHP, WJW, WITI,KTVI inSt. Louis,KDVR inDenver andKSTU inSalt Lake City) toLocal TV, aholding company operated by equity firmOak Hill Capital Partners that had earlier purchasedThe New York Times Company's television station division; the sale was finalized on July 14, 2008.[19][20][21][22] On January 6, 2009, Local TV announced that it would trade WBRC toRaycom Media in exchange for acquiring CBS affiliateWTVR-TV inRichmond, Virginia from that group.[23] Raycom—which was controlled by theRetirement Systems of Alabama—was headquartered inMontgomery (the market to the adjacent south of the Birmingham DMA), and also owned that market's NBC affiliateWSFA as well asHuntsville NBC affiliateWAFF. The transfer closed on March 31, 2009.[24]
On June 25, 2018, Atlanta-basedGray Television announced it had reached an agreement with Raycom to merge their respective broadcasting assets (consisting of Raycom's 63 existing owned-and/or-operated television stations, including WBRC), and Gray's 93 television stations) under the former's corporate umbrella. The cash-and-stock merger transaction valued at $3.6 billion—in which Gray shareholders would acquire preferred stock currently held by Raycom—resulted in WBRC gaining new sister stations in adjacent markets, including ABC affiliateWTOK-TV inMeridian and CBS/NBC affiliatesWTVY andWRGX-LD inDothan (while separating it fromWDFX), in addition to the current Raycom stations.[25][26][27][28] The sale was approved on December 20 and completed on January 2, 2019.[29][30]
WBRC currently carries the majority of the Fox network schedule, though itdelays the network's Saturday late night block (currently a repeat of a prime time reality show) one hour due to the station's 10 p.m. newscast and its carriage of the syndicated sports interview programIn Depth with Graham Bensinger; in addition, following the program's move fromFox Sports 1 to Fox in September 2015, WBRC formerly was one of several Fox affiliates that has declined carriage of the Sundaypre-game showFox NFL Kickoff during theNFLregular season due to existing programming contracts (unlike in other markets where a Fox station has declined carriage ofFox NFL Kickoff, the program was not broadcast by any other station in the Birmingham–Tuscaloosa–Anniston market). The station began clearingFox NFL Kickoff for the2016 season. Channel 6 has only aired Fox's prime time, news andsports programming since it joined the network in September 1996, with the only programs relating to Fox's children's programming blocks for the final twelve years that Fox carried programming aimed at that demographic consisting of fall preview specials and network promotions that aired within the network's prime time lineup.
WBRC became the first television station to broadcast theUnited Cerebral PalsyTelethon, an event to raise money for thecerebral palsy research organization that premiered in 1949; it was from WBRC that the event emerged into national prominence, with national celebrities even making appearances on the telecast. Even in its final years on WBRC, mini-documentaries produced by the station (which were produced by Randy Mize and Tom Stovall) for the local segments aired during the UCP Telethon; WBRC stopped producing and broadcasting the local segments of the telethon soon after it switched to Fox in 1996. WBRC began producing live local programming in 1950 after it converted the building that formerly housed WBRC-FM into a makeshift television studio; the station also acquired additional studio camera equipment, including shows such asCoffee Break,Supersonic Sam andCowboy Theatre.
Like many network affiliates, WBRC-TV would preempt ABC programming occasionally or regularly, in some cases. For example, according to local legends, the station initially turned downBewitched, not because it was concerned aboutwitchcraft, but because it concerned a mixed marriage (between a witch and a mortal); there were fears thatBewitched would encourage what somesegregationists referred to as "cross-breeding"; channel 6 would not clearBewitched until 1967 (although, according to the October 15, 1965, issue ofThe Birmingham News,Bewitched was shown airing at its in-pattern time of Thursdays at 8 p.m. (Central) on WBRC). Channel 6 continued these practices for most of its years with ABC. It also preempted theABC Evening News (the forerunner toWorld News Tonight) from the program's debut in 1968 until August 7, 1972 (when both it andWJRT-TV inFlint, Michigan, became the last two ABC affiliates to begin airing the network newscast), as well as daytime network programs at aired during the 10 a.m. hour. However, ABC largely brushed off the preemption issue, even though it would eventually become the No. 1 network nationwide by the late 1970s, because of WBRC's status as central Alabama's dominant station.
WBRC cemented viewer allegiances by carrying a heavy schedule of local programs during the 1960s and 1970s, most notably two long-running morning shows. The first wasThe Morning Show, hosted by sports anchorTom York; airing for 32 years from 1957 to 1989, it was a more general-interest interview and features program that was formatted basically a local version ofToday; WBRC anchor Joe Langston (who also hosted the children's programsBirthday Party andJunior Auction for the station in the late 1960s) and comedianFannie Flagg joined as York's co-hosts in the early 1960s (Flagg would leave for Los Angeles in 1964 to become a writer forCandid Camera). Fiddler, guitarist and vocalist Eddie Burns was invited to bring his musical group to serve asThe Morning Show'shouse band and act as the program's bandleader; however, within a few months, station management offered Burns his own morning program on channel 6. That series,Country Boy Eddie, which was aimed at rural Alabama viewers, featured localcountry,bluegrass andSouthern Gospel music artists during its 36-year run from 1957 untilDecember 31, 1993. Over time, Burns added novelty acts to the show's format and did most of the commercials himself in the studio live.
York's program, meanwhile, was so popular that, when ABC debutedAM America in January 1975, WBRC declined to carry it—preferring not to alter, let alone cancel, what had become a local television institution inThe Morning Show; this continued after ABC replaced the more news-drivenAM America withGood Morning America, which maintained a format similar to York's program, in November of that year. WBRC began to clear the first hour ofGMA in the early 1980s, and began airing the two-hour program in its entirety after York retired from the station in 1989. Preemptions and out-of-pattern scheduling of some ABC programs would continue in later years; for example, WBRC airedAll My Children on a one-day delay from its 1970 debut until it became a Fox station, and preempted the soap operaLoving throughout its 1986 to 1994 run.
Channel 6 originally planned to carry the entire Fox programming schedule when it switched to the network, including its children's program block,Fox Kids; it intended to air the weekday editions of that block from 1 to 4 p.m. on Monday through Friday afternoons. However, in what would be the catalyst to a change in the carriage policies for Fox Kids that allowed stations the option of either airing the block or being granted the right to transfer the rights to another station in the market,Sinclair Broadcast Group approached WBRC about retaining the rights to Fox Kids for WTTO, which became anindependent station on September 1; Fox allowed WTTO to retain the local rights to the block. WBRC also declined to carryWeekend Marketplace, theinfomercial block that Fox replaced its remaining Saturday morning children's programming block with in January 2009; the rights were instead acquired by WABM. WBRC and WGHP were the only Fox-owned stations that did not air the network's children's program blocks until 2003, when now-former sister stationsKTTV in Los Angeles andWFLD in Chicago moved the block to theirUPN-affiliated sister stations (KCOP-TV andWPWR-TV).
On September 17, 2024, Gray and theNew Orleans Pelicans announced a broader deal to form the Gulf Coast Sports & Entertainment Network, which will broadcast nearly all 2024–25 Pelicans games on Gray's stations in theGulf South, including WBRC.[31]
WBRC presently broadcasts64+1⁄2 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 11 hours each weekday,4+1⁄2 hours on Saturdays and five hours on Sundays); in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the highest local newscast output in the state of Alabama. In addition, the station producesFox 6 Sideline, ahigh school football program that debuted in September 1989 as an ABC affiliate, which airs Friday nights after the 10 p.m. newscasts during the fall. The station has the largest news staff of any television station in Alabama, with around half of its approximately 160 employees employed with the news department in on-air, administrative and production positions.
WBRC has been the ratings leader in the market for most of the last half-century, dating back to its tenure as an ABC affiliate. Its newscasts were also among the highest-rated local news programs in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s; WBRC had won practically every news timeslot for many years, with WAPI-TV/WVTM-TV coming in at a distant second until the mid-2000s; CBS affiliate WBMG/WIAT was not a factor for either station for most of its history (to the point where it did not even air any newscasts at three different periods between the early 1980s and February 1998). As a Fox station, WBRC has continued to maintain higher viewership than the other television news outlets in the market, although it has experienced tighter competition since the early 2000s against WBMA-LD and a resurgent WIAT (both of which currently engage in a spirited competition for second place); WBRC's 9 p.m. newscast has consistently ranked as one of the most-watched prime time newscasts in the U.S. for most of its run since its debut in 1996.
WBRC television's news operations began with the launch of the station in 1949, originally consisting of five-minute-long newscasts at sign-on and sign-off that were originally anchored by operations manager M.D. Smith III, who readwire copies of local news headlines over a slide of the station's logo. In September 1950, at which time newscasts were expanded to 15 minutes, anchor segments began to be conducted in-studio after it acquired camera equipment to recorded live programming;kinescopes of 16-mm film footage shot by a photographer for local stories and still photographs for illustration of national and international stories were used for story content. The station launched a full-scale news department in 1952, when it began operating from the former studios of the original WBRC-FM. Several members of the news department staff in its early years started at WBRC radio including news anchors Harry Mabry and Joe Langston (the latter of whom would also take on a management role as itsdirector of news and editorial policy in 1969), and sports anchor Tom York. In 1969, former WSGN radio anchor Bill Bolen joined WBRC to replace Harry Mabry as the station's main news anchor; Bolen would remain a fixture at channel 6 (eventually becoming anchor of the station's weekday morning newscast in 1990) for 42 years until his retirement in 2010. In 1978, WBRC became the first television station in the Birmingham market to acquire amicrowave truck forelectronic news-gathering purposes, and became the first to provide livebreaking news coverage on-scene.[32]
The station would not begin producing half-hour evening newscasts until 1979, eleven years after ABC expanded its national evening newscast to 30 minutes. Station management declined ABC's insistence that WBRC expand its 6 p.m. newscast to match the length of theABC Evening News; however, the 15-minute local newscast beatThe Huntley-Brinkley Report on WAPI-TV/WVTM and theCBS Evening News on WBMG in the ratings. In 1979, channel 6 became the first television station in Alabama to acquire a helicopter for newsgathering, "Chopper 6". In 1983, Bev Montgomery made history as the first African American to anchor a newscast in the Birmingham market when he was appointed anchor of the station's weekend evening newscasts. In 1988, the station acquired satellite news-gathering vehicles, "Skylink 6", to conduct and beam live remote footage transmitted to the studio via satellite.[32]
After WBRC became a Fox station in September 1996, the station shifted its programming focus heavily towards local news, increasing its output from about 25 hours a week to around 40 hours. The station retained all of the newscasts that existed during its final years as an ABC affiliate, but expanded its weekday morning newscast from one to three hours (with the addition of a two-hour extension, known for most of its run asGood Day Alabama, from 7 to 9 a.m.), and bridged the separate 5 and 6 p.m. newscasts on Monday through Friday nights to form a 90-minute early-evening news block (by adding a half-hour newscast at 5:30). Channel 6 also launched a prime time newscast at 9 p.m. to compensate for the lack of prime time programming provided by Fox during that hour; however, it filled the 9:30 p.m. half-hour with syndicated programs (originally reruns ofSeinfeld, then from 1997 afterward,Jeopardy!) as atentpole between the 9 and 10 p.m. newscasts from the September 1996 switch until September 2002, when it expanded the prime time newscast to one hour (WBRC is one of several Fox stations that offer newscasts in both the final hour of prime time and the traditional late news timeslot, one of the few affiliated with the network that runs a nightly newscast in the latter slot and one of the few to continue its Big Three-era late-evening newscast after switching to Fox). In addition to compensating for the absence of daily national morning and evening newscasts on Fox's schedule, the expansion of WBRC's news lineup also filled timeslots vacated by the departures ofGood Morning America andWorld News Tonight through the discontinuance of its ABC affiliation. WBRC also lost several longtime anchors and reporters to the W58CK/WCFT/WJSU trimulcast at that time, including news anchors Linda Mays and Brenda Ladun, meteorologistsJames Spann (who himself reportedly left WBRC due to his disapproval over the edgier content of Fox's programming) and Mark Prater, and sports anchor Mike Raita.
In 2009, WBRC became a founding member station of the Raycom News Network, a service created to allow the sharing of news resources among the four Raycom-owned television stations that serve Alabama – including NBC affiliate WSFA in Montgomery, NBC affiliate WAFF in Huntsville and ABC affiliateWTVM inColumbus, Georgia (the latter of which includes a portion of eastern Alabama in its service area) – which combined, cover almost half of Alabama's population. The service allows the stations to pool story content seen on the stations' newscasts and websites, as well as share information and newsgathering equipment (such as satellite trucks). The four stations also comprise the Raycom Weather Network and the Raycom Alabama Weather Blog, where meteorologists from all four stations post forecasts and storm reports, and which provide live feeds from cameras andDoppler weather radar systems that each of the stations operate (the only Raycom-owned station in Alabama that did not participate in the arrangement was fellow Fox affiliateWDFX-TV inDothan, whose news programming was produced by WSFA under a news share agreement and is no longer a sister station to those other stations).
On July 14, 2009, the station eliminated its Saturday evening 5 p.m. newscast due to budget cutbacks at the station spurred by theeconomic downturn.[33] On October 26, 2009, WBRC became the second television station in the Birmingham-Tuscaloosa-Anniston market (after WVTM-TV)—and the third station in Alabama—to begin broadcasting its local newscasts inhigh definition; the news set and the graphics were also redesigned as part of the transition.
On September 12, 2016, the station debuted a 4 p.m. newscast, placing the station in competition with WVTM and WBMA, which have both aired 4 p.m. newscasts for several years.
In May 2008, David Neal (who had been with WBRC since 1997) filed abreach of contract and fraud lawsuit against WBRC and members of the station's management team, after he was fired as chief meteorologist of the station's weather department without explanation that March.[34] The station denied any wrongdoing, and began defending the lawsuit.[35] In July 2008, the station announced that James-Paul Dice – a former meteorologist at CBS affiliateWHNT-TV inHuntsville – would replace Neal as chief meteorologist.[36] On July 29, 2008, the parties to the lawsuit filed a stipulation of dismissal, stating that the dispute had been resolved in mediation. The terms of the settlement were not immediately disclosed.[37] Neal now works forWeatherNation as chief meteorologist.
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.1 | 720p | 16:9 | WBRC | Fox |
| 6.2 | 480i | Bounce | Bounce TV | |
| 6.3 | GCSEN | Gulf Coast Sports & Entertainment Network | ||
| 6.4 | Oxygen | Oxygen | ||
| 6.5 | Jewelry | Jewelry Television | ||
| 6.6 | Quest | Quest | ||
| 21.4 | 480i | 16:9 | TBD | Roar (WTTO) |
WBRC shut down its analog signal, overVHF channel 6, at 8:55 a.m. 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 remained on its pre-transitionUHF channel 50,[40] usingvirtual channel 6.
The station operated its digital transmission facilities underspecial temporary authorization at a lowereffective radiated power until October 2009, when its transmitter was upgraded to full power at 1 megawatt at a position on the tower at 373 meters (1,224 ft). The FCC later granted WBRC to reclaim the top level of the tower for its main antenna, improving its digital coverage area (the former main antenna remains in use as an auxiliary antenna).
Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the state ofAlabama | ||
|---|---|---|
Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Alabama | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent | ||
| PBS |
| |
| Religious | ||
| Other | ||
| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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