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|---|---|
| City | Richmond, Virginia |
| Channels | |
| Branding | CBS 6 |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| History | |
First air date | April 22, 1948 (76 years ago) (1948-04-22) |
Former call signs | WTVR (1948–1966) |
Former channel number(s) |
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Call sign meaning | Television Richmond |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 57832 |
| ERP | 410 kW |
| HAAT | 346 m (1,135 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 37°30′45.6″N77°36′4.8″W / 37.512667°N 77.601333°W /37.512667; -77.601333 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | wtvr |
WTVR-TV (channel 6) is atelevision station inRichmond, Virginia, United States, affiliated withCBS and owned by theE. W. Scripps Company. Its studios are located on West Broad Street on Richmond'sWest End, and its transmitter is located inBon Air near the studios ofPBS member stationsWCVE-TV and WCVW.[2] WTVR-TV'sformer transmitter is located behind the station's studio, and onlyWTVR-FM broadcasts from that tower today. It still remains as part of WTVR-TV's history.
WTVR-TV is one of only a few stations in the country to have been affiliated with all three of theoriginal major American television networks.
When the channel 6 license in Richmond came up for bids before theFederal Communications Commission (FCC), it was assumed that the license would go to eitherLarus and Brother Company, owner ofWRVA, or Richmond Newspapers, owner ofWRNL, since they were considered Virginia's leading broadcasters. However, for reasons that remain unknown, neither station submitted a bid. The only applicant was auto parts dealer Wilbur Havens and his Richmond Broadcasting Company, which already owned WMBG (AM 1380) and WCOD (98.1 FM). FCC approval was a mere formality, and WTVR debuted on April 22, 1948.[3] It was the first television station to sign on in the state of Virginia, and the first south ofWashington, D.C. It became anNBC affiliate June 1, 1948.[4] For many years, it used a colorized version of its original ID slide to open newscasts. Then, as now, the station operated from a converted bus garage on West Broad Street, where WMBG had been based since 1939.
As it was one of the last stations to get a construction permit before an FCC-imposed freeze on new permits, WTVR was the only station in town until 1955. It carried programming from all four networks of the time—NBC, CBS,ABC andDuMont—but was a primary NBC affiliate. In 1953, WTVR switched to its current tower, a self-supporting 840-foot (256 m) tower near its studios. The tower has long been reckoned as a fixture of the Richmond skyline.
Channel 6 finally got competition in 1955, when WXEX-TV (channel 8, nowWRIC-TV) signed on from neighboringPetersburg and took the NBC affiliation. WTVR then had a brief stint becoming a primary CBS affiliate; this ended in 1956 when Larus-owned WRVA-TV (channel 12, nowWWBT) signed on and took the CBS affiliation due to WRVA radio's long history as aCBS radio affiliate. WTVR then carried on as an ABC affiliate until 1960, when CBS cut a new deal with Havens due to channel 12's low ratings. WTVR has been with CBS ever since and is one of the few stations in the country to have been a primary affiliate of all of the "Big Three" networks, like WWBT locally. During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with theNTA Film Network.[5] Although Richmond Broadcasting was nowhere near as large as Larus and Richmond Newspapers, WTVR's eight-year head start allowed it to become the ratings leader in Richmond for the better part of its first three decades on the air.
Havens sold WTVR, WMBG, and WCOD toRoy H. Park Communications in 1966, earning a handsome return on his original $500 investment when he started WMBG in 1927. After taking ownership of the properties, the radio stations adopted the TV station's "WTVR" call letters. When Park died in 1993, the company's assets were sold to aLexington, Kentucky group of investors that sold the radio properties separately to various owners, with WTVR-AM-FM going to Clear Channel (nowiHeartMedia) in 1995.WTVR-FM is now owned byAudacy, who acquired iHeartMedia's Richmond stations in 2017, while the AM station, bought bySalem Communications in 2001 and programmed asChristiantalk, was later sold by Salem and is nowSpanishreligious stationWBTK. The WMBG call letters are currently used on anAM radio station inWilliamsburg, Virginia.
WTVR began suffering in the ratings in 1994 whenCBS lost the rights to broadcastNational Football League games toFox (CBS returned to NFL broadcasting in 1998). However, it recovered by the turn of the century and since then has been a solid runner-up, sometimes waging a spirited battle for second place with WRIC in news ratings.
Park merged withMedia General, the successor to Richmond Newspapers, in May 1997. However, Media General could not keep WTVR alongside its flagship newspaper, theRichmond Times-Dispatch, because FCC rules of the time did not allow cross-ownership of newspapers and television stations in the same market. As a result, Media General swapped WTVR toRaycom Media in exchange forWJTV inJackson, Mississippi, itssemi-satelliteWHLT inHattiesburg, Mississippi, andWSAV-TV inSavannah, Georgia, two months later.
WTVR-TV was the only CBS station between Richmond andRoanoke untilWCAV-TV signed on inCharlottesville in 2004.
Local features and community programs have included "For Kids' Sake", "Paws for Pets", andBattle of the Brains and a 24-hour weather news channel called "CBS 6 Xtra" broadcast on broadband, digital cable, and digital sub-channel 6.2 in the area. The station carried Raycom's 24/7 music television format "The Tube" on WTVR-DT3 until its shutdown on October 1, 2007. In March 2011, WTVR-DT3 became the new home of CBS 6 Xtra, while 6.2 carriesAntenna TV (see below).
On November 12, 2007, Raycom Media announced its intention to purchase the television broadcasting and production properties ofLincoln Financial Media, including rival WWBT. Because WWBT and WTVR ranked as two of the four highest-rated stations in the Richmond market, FCC rules required one of the stations to be divested. Raycom decided to keep the higher-rated WWBT and sell WTVR to another owner.[6] On June 24, 2008,Hunt Valley, Maryland-basedSinclair Broadcast Group announced its intent to purchase WTVR and sell local Fox affiliateWRLH-TV (channel 35), which it had owned since 1996.[7] However, the Justice Department, under provisions of a consent decree with Raycom Media, denied Raycom permission to sell WTVR-TV to Sinclair in August 2008.[8]
On January 6, 2009, Raycom resolved the ownership issue by tradingWBRC, the Fox affiliate forBirmingham and $83 million toLocal TV LLC in exchange for WTVR-TV. The transfer closed on March 31, 2009.[9] As a result of the trade, Local TV owned Virginia's two largest CBS affiliates; it already ownedWTKR-TV, the CBS affiliate inNorfolk, the market just to the east of Richmond. Local TV added Hampton Roads CW affiliateWGNT in 2010 after buying it from CBS.
For three months after the swap deal was completed, WTVR's website remained in the old Raycom-era format. This changed in late June 2009, a few days after WBRC relaunched its website, when WTVR migrated its website to theTribune Interactive platform used by the websites of other Local TV-owned stations. As of 2012, Local TV migrated its websites toWordPress.com VIP. On July 1, 2013, Local TV announced that its stations would be acquired by the Tribune Company.[10] The sale was completed on December 27.[11]
On August 21, 2015, WTVR-TV's newsroom was named in honor of Stephanie Rochon, who anchored the weeknight newscasts from 1999 to 2014. Rochon had died that June after a long struggle with cancer.[12][13]
On May 8, 2017, Sinclair entered intoan agreement to acquire Tribune Media for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in debt held by Tribune.[14] It intended to keep WTVR, selling WRLH and eight other stations toStandard Media Group.[15] The transaction was designated in July 2018 for hearing by an FCCadministrative law judge, and Tribune moved to terminate the deal the next month.[16]
On December 3, 2018,Irving, Texas–basedNexstar Media Group—which has owned ABC affiliate WRIC-TV (channel 8) since January 2017 (it had beenMedia General's flagship station when that company merged with Nexstar)—announced it would acquire the assets of Tribune Media for $6.4 billion in cash and debt.[17] Due to FCC regulations prohibiting Nexstar from owning both WTVR and WRIC, the company had to sell one of the stations to a separate, unrelated company to address the ownership conflict.[18] On March 20, 2019, theCincinnati-basedE. W. Scripps Company announced it would purchase WTVR from Nexstar upon consummation of the merger, marking Scripps' entry into Virginia, as part of the company's sale of nineteen Nexstar- and Tribune-operated stations to Scripps andTegna Inc. in separate deals worth $1.32 billion. The sale was completed on September 19.[19][20][21]
WTVR was the overall ratings leader in Richmond until the late 1980s, when WWBT surpassed it, mainly in local news ratings and due to strength from WWBT's affiliation with NBC and its top rated prime time lineup then. For most of the time since then, the station has waged a spirited battle with WRIC for second place. During the late 1980s, early 1990s and into the 2000s, WTVR won numerous awards, including theRTNDA News Operation of the Year for two consecutive years.
On August 10, 2010, starting with the Noon newscast, WTVR became the second commercial station (behind WWBT) to broadcast local news in high definition. The change also came new graphics, music (an updated version of "The CBS Enforcer Music Collection" byGari Media Group) and a new news set. On January 23, 2013, WTVR used on-air graphics that were also used on then sister stationKDVR, aFox affiliate inDenver, Colorado[22] until April 20, 2015, when they debuted new graphics and music ("Moving Forward" by615 Music) that are also used by then sister stationWTTV (which became a CBS affiliate in January of that year) inIndianapolis. These were changed to Scripps' standardized graphics package and custom-made music from Stephen Arnold Music, in September 2020, almost a year after the company bought the station.
Between 2016 and 2018, WTVR produced a half-hour newscast for then Washington, D.C., sister stationWDCW, with presentation originated from the former's studios, along with reporter's based in Washington. It was cancelled on September 28, 2018, after Tribune announced budget cuts amid the failed Sinclair transaction.[23]
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | WTVR-HD | CBS |
| 6.2 | 480i | CBS6ANT | Antenna TV | |
| 6.3 | CBS6XTR | CBS6 Xtra (Independent) | ||
| 6.4 | CourtTV | Court TV | ||
| 6.5 | ION | Ion Television | ||
| 6.6 | IONPlus | |||
| 6.7 | HSN | HSN | ||
| 65.2 | 480i | 16:9 | Bounce | Bounce TV (WUPV) |
On April 11, 2022, WTVR-TV began hostingWUPV's 65.2 subchannel, as a result of WUPV converting toATSC 3.0; in turn, WUPV simulcasts WTVR-TV in the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard.[27]
WTVR-TV shut down its analog signal, overVHF channel 6, in the late morning of June 12, 2009, after more than 60 years, 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-transition UHF channel 25,[28] usingvirtual channel 6. Prior to the transition, the audio component of WTVR-TV's analog channel 6 signal at 87.75 MHz had been heavily promoted as available to listeners tuning to 87.7 on a standard FM radio receiver.[citation needed] WTVR-TV lost this benefit of the analog channel 6 allocation when analog transmission ended. WTVR-TV ended its telecasts on analog channel 6 with "The Star-Spangled Banner", featuring images of WTVR-TV's history and theRaising the Flag on Iwo Jima. WTVR-TV moved its digital signal from the tower it shared with former sister station WTVR-FM to a shared tower with PBS member stations WCVE-TV and WCVW as a result of the 2009 analog to digital conversion.[2]
Outside of the Richmond market, WTVR is carried oncable inNorthern Virginia inFront Royal andLuray. In central Virginia, it is carried on service providers in Charlottesville,Fredericksburg,Madison andStaunton. Insouthside Virginia inMecklenburg County, WTVR is carried near theNorth Carolina state line inBracey alongLake Gaston. It is also carried inChase City andSouth Hill.
In the 1970s and 1980s, WTVR was once received as far south inHalifax andEnfield in North Carolina. In southernMaryland, WTVR was once carried inLeonardtown,St. Mary's County.[29]
