WTTO

WTTO, virtual and UHF digital channel 21, is a CW-affiliated television station serving Birmingham, Alabama, United States that is licensed to the suburb of Homewood. Owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, it is a sister station to ABC affiliate WBMA-LD (channel 58) and MyNetworkTV affiliate WABM (channel 68), both licensed to Birmingham. The three stations share studios at the Riverchase office park on Concourse Parkway in Hoover (with a Birmingham mailing address); WTTO's transmitter is located atop Red Mountain, near the Goldencrest neighborhood of southwestern Birmingham.

WTTO
Homewood/Birmingham, Alabama
United States
CityHomewood, Alabama
ChannelsDigital: 21 (UHF)
Virtual: 21 (PSIP)
BrandingCW 21 (general)
ABC 33/40 News (newscasts)
SloganDare to Defy
Programming
Affiliations
Ownership
OwnerSinclair Broadcast Group
(WTTO Licensee, LLC)
Sister stationsbroadcast: WABM, WBMA-LD
cable: Fox Sports South, Fox Sports Southeast[1]
History
FoundedNovember 6, 1979
First air dateApril 21, 1982 (1982-04-21)
Former channel number(s)
  • Analog:
  • 21 (UHF, 1982–2009)
  • Digital:
  • 28 (UHF, until 2020)
Former affiliations
Call sign meaningTelevision Twenty-One[2]
Technical information
Licensing authorityFCC
Facility ID74138
ERP45.8 kW (STA)
1,000 kW (CP)
HAAT294.7 m (967 ft)
422 m (1,385 ft) (CP)
Transmitter coordinates33°29′4.8″N 86°48′25.2″W
Links
Public license informationProfile
LMS
Websitewtto21.com
WDBB
Satellite of WTTO
Bessemer/Tuscaloosa, Alabama
United States
CityBessemer, Alabama
ChannelsDigital: 14 (UHF)
Virtual: 17 (PSIP)
BrandingCW 21
ABC 33/40 (DT2)
SloganDare to Defy
Working For You (DT2)
Programming
Affiliations
Ownership
OwnerCunningham Broadcasting
(WDBB-TV, Inc.)
OperatorSinclair Broadcast Group
(via time brokerage agreement)
Sister stationssee WTTO infobox
History
FoundedMarch 29, 1984
First air dateOctober 8, 1984 (1984-10-08)
Former channel number(s)
  • Analog:
  • 17 (UHF, 1984–2009)
  • Digital:
  • 18 (UHF, until 2020)
Former affiliations
  • Primary:
  • Independent (1984–1986, 1996–1997)
  • Fox (1986–1996, simulcast with WTTO from 1991)
  • The WB (1997–2006)
  • Secondary:
  • Fox (1996–2000)
  • DT2:
  • The Tube Music Network (2006)
  • ZUUS Country (2010–2014)
Call sign meaningDuBose Broadcasting
(original owners of WDBB)
Technical information
Licensing authorityFCC
Facility ID71325
ERP675 kW
HAAT637 m (2,090 ft)
Transmitter coordinates33°28′48″N 87°25′50″W
Links
Public license informationProfile
LMS

WDBB (virtual channel 17, UHF digital channel 14) in the Birmingham suburb of Bessemer operates as a full-time satellite of WTTO. It is owned by Cunningham Broadcasting and managed by Sinclair under a time brokerage agreement (TBA); however, Sinclair effectively owns WDBB as the majority of Cunningham's stock is owned by the family of deceased group founder Julian Smith. WDBB—whose transmitter is located east of State Route 69, near Windham Springs—relays WTTO's programming to areas of west-central Alabama that receive marginal to non-existent over-the-air coverage from the latter station's main signal (including its primary city of service, Tuscaloosa). However, there is a decent degree of overlap between the respective signal contours of WTTO and WDBB in western portions of the Birmingham metropolitan area. WDBB is a straight simulcast of WTTO; on-air references to WDBB are limited to FCC-mandated hourly station identifications during station promotions and regular programming, with both stations using WTTO's virtual channel number in on-air branding. Besides the transmitter, WDBB does not maintain any physical presence locally in Tuscaloosa.

The main WTTO signal is distributed to cable providers throughout most of the Birmingham–Tuscaloosa–Anniston market from Jefferson, Tuscaloosa and Shelby counties northeastward, while its programming is available to providers southwest of that line via WDBB. In Birmingham, the station is available on Comcast Xfinity channel 4, Charter Spectrum channel 9 and AT&T U-verse channel 21.

History

Early history of UHF channel 21 in central Alabama

The UHF channel 21 allocation in Central Alabama was originally allocated to Gadsden. The first television station in the region to occupy the allocation was WTVS, which operated during the 1950s as an affiliate of the DuMont Television Network, and was one of the earliest UHF television stations in the United States.

However, it was never able to gain a viewership foothold against the region's other stations; its owners ceased the operations of WTVS in 1957, as it had suffered from severely limited viewership due to the lack of television sets in Central Alabama that were capable of receiving stations on the UHF band (electronics manufacturers were not required to incorporate built-in UHF tuners into television sets until the passage of the All-Channel Receiver Act by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1961, although such tuners would not be included on all newer sets until 1964).[3] The WTVS callsign is now used by a PBS member station in Detroit, Michigan.

In 1963, Chapman Radio and Television Company—then the owners of radio station WCRT (1260 AM, now WYDE and 96.5 FM, now WMJJ)—filed a petition to the FCC to move the dormant channel 21 allocation to Birmingham, arguing that a new television station could better serve the region's ethnic and economic minority communities. The FCC granted the allocation of channel 21 in August 1965; however, the FCC chose to resume hearings on the matter after other applicants protested the granting of Chapman's petition. The Alabama Television Corporation (a group owned by John Jemison) was awarded the channel 21 license in the fall of 1968; Chapman subsequently filed a lawsuit against Jemison on the basis that it had already been granted the allocation.

The two parties were soon joined by the Birmingham Broadcasting Company (owned by investors that operated radio station WLPH [1480 AM, now WMMA] and the Birmingham Television Corporation (the original owners of CBS/NBC affiliate WBMG [channel 42, now WIAT and exclusively affiliated with CBS]), which also applied for the channel 21 license. As part of its efforts to resolve the four-way competition between the groups, the FCC conducted a survey of Birmingham residents that asked them what they wanted in a new television station.[4] In 1981, Chapman – by then, known as Chapman Broadcasting – was awarded the license for the second time.

WTTO/WDBB station history

WTTO first signed on the air at 6:00 p.m. Central Time on April 21, 1982, with a rerun of the 1970s action series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century as the first program to air on the station. As Chapman Family Television, its original owners, Chapman Broadcasting, founded WCFT-TV (channel 33, now Heroes & Icons affiliate WSES) in Tuscaloosa in October 1965, before selling the station to South Mississippi Broadcasters in 1967. The station originally operated from studio facilities located next to its transmission tower near the city's Goldencrest neighborhood.

Originally operating as an independent station, it was the second independent to sign on in Alabama—debuting a few months after WPMI-TV (now an NBC affiliate) in Mobile—and the first to begin operations in the Birmingham market. On paper, the Birmingham market had a large enough population to provide suitable viewership for an independent station since the early 1970s. However, as a whole, Birmingham is a very large market in terms of geographical size, and portions of the area are somewhat mountainous. UHF stations do not get good reception over wide areas or in rugged terrain. By the early 1980s, cable television service had gained enough penetration in central Alabama to make an independent station viable in the region.

Channel 21 was programmed as a typical UHF independent, maintaining a schedule reliant mainly on cartoons, sitcoms and movies. From its sign-on in 1982 until 1985, WTTO also carried programming from the Financial News Network. WTTO quickly became known in the market for airing a broad mix of cult films as part of its film lineup (the station also hosted film festivals at parks throughout central Alabama, featuring public screenings of the movies that it broadcast), as well as spoof promotional campaigns for its programs.[5] WTTO quickly became the strongest independent station in Alabama, and one of the highest-rated independents in the United States. In 1984, the station launched a low-power translator in downtown Birmingham, W62BG, which served areas that could not receive the main WTTO signal due to the rugged mountainous terrain of the area. Chapman Broadcasting sold WTTO to Arlington Broadcasting in 1983; Arlington, in turn, sold the station to HR Broadcasting in 1987. WTTO remained the only independent station in central Alabama for its first two years of operation; however, it would eventually gain a competitor in the west-central part of the state.

WDBB began operations on October 8, 1984 as an independent station that was originally licensed to Tuscaloosa, although it branded itself as a full-market Birmingham station. In point of fact, it was the second commercial television station to serve west-central Alabama, after WCFT-TV, which signed on in October 1965 as a part-time affiliate of CBS and NBC. The station was founded by DuBose Broadcasting, a locally based company owned by Tuscaloosa businessman David Dubose. Originally operating from a newly constructed studio facility located on Jug Factory Road on the southern edge of Tuscaloosa, it maintained a general entertainment format, with a heavy emphasis on movies during prime time and on weekends as well as local newscasts focused on the Tuscaloosa market; it also carried certain ABC daytime programs that were not cleared locally by WBRC-TV (channel 6).

Dubose invested heavily in the station, filling its schedule with strong first-run and off-network syndicated programming. The upstart station gained a major coup in the fall of 1985, when WDBB acquired the local broadcast television rights to the football and basketball coaches' shows of the Alabama Crimson Tide; prior to this, both Tide coaches' shows had aired on NBC affiliate WAPI-TV (channel 13, by then known as WVTM-TV), and before then, on WBRC. Although Birmingham was just barely large enough at the time to support two independent stations, WTTO and WDBB spent most of the first half of the 1980s in a pitched battle for ratings supremacy.

In September 1986, HR Broadcasting Company, a unit of HAR Communications, purchased the station along with WCGV-TV in Milwaukee from Byron Lasky's companies. HAR Communications was 20% owned by Hal Roach Studios.[6]

Because of its distinction as one of America's strongest independent stations, WTTO was approached by the Fox Broadcasting Company for an affiliation contract deal prior to its October 1986 debut. Channel 21 turned down the affiliation; however, the station continued to prosper even without the support of Fox. WDBB then quickly reached an agreement to serve as the central Alabama outlet for the upstart network. The signing of the affiliation agreement with Fox occurred just as WDBB was finalizing preparations to launch WNAL-TV (channel 44, now Ion Television owned-and-operated station WPXH-TV) in Gadsden, which debuted in April of that year as a satellite station intended to serve the northeastern part of the market—specifically, areas to the east of downtown Birmingham—that could not receive the WDBB signal due to interference from the rugged mountainous terrain within the city. WDBB used its new status as a network affiliate to make a concerted effort to improve its reach in Birmingham. In addition to signing on WNAL, WDBB was allowed to move its city of license to Bessemer, which allowed it to build a new transmitter tower located closer to Birmingham that would provide a much stronger signal in the western portion of the city.

WDBB/WNAL officially joined Fox when that network launched on October 6, 1986. As was the case with other Fox stations during the network's early years, channels 17 and 44 continued to essentially program as de facto independent stations as, by the time it expanded its programming outside of late-night in April 1987, Fox initially ran prime time programs only on weekend evenings; the network would not carry seven nights a week of programming until September 1993. Until Fox began airing programming on a nightly basis, WDBB aired movies (and later, syndicated programs) in the 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. time period on nights when the network was not scheduled to air any programming.

In June 1990, Qintex Entertainment sold its stake in HR Broadcasting Co., which owned WTTO and WCGV stations, to ABRY Communications for over $40 million.[7]

Despite covering a majority of central Alabama over-the-air, WDBB only provided Grade B coverage (at best) within Birmingham proper, even though Bessemer is located only 15.5 miles (24.9 km) southwest of the city. Due to the eastward location of its transmitter tower, WNAL's signal did not penetrate well into Birmingham either, only reaching as far west as extreme eastern Jefferson County. As a result, several major cable providers in the Birmingham market, including those serving Jefferson and Shelby counties, refused to carry the station. Ultimately, after all of DuBose's efforts to increase WDBB/WNAL's cable footprint failed, Fox signed an agreement to make WTTO its new Birmingham affiliate and moved its programming to channel 21 in January 1991.

Soon afterward, WDBB and WNAL began simulcasting WTTO for all but three hours of their broadcast day, with separate syndicated programming airing during the time that WDBB and WNAL programmed themselves. As part of the deal, WDBB/WNAL merged its stronger inventory of programming onto WTTO's schedule. WTTO now found itself with a large amount of programming that it no longer had time to air; it then chose to sell the local rights to some of its classic sitcoms to WABM (channel 68), which converted into a general entertainment independent around the same time WDBB/WNAL became its semi-satellites. The station subsequently began identifying as "Fox 21," relegating mentions of WDBB and WNAL to legal identifications. The WTTO/WDBB/WNAL trimulcast provided a strong combined signal throughout the central third of Alabama that was comparable to those of WBRC and WVTM.

By 1993, Abry had purchased WDBB and WNAL outright and converted both stations into full-time satellites of WTTO. WDBB then relocated its transmitter facilities to a tower in Moundville and reduced its transmitter power to reduce overlap with WTTO, but continued to maintain Bessemer as its city of license. That same year, WTTO entered into a local marketing agreement with WABM, which had been sold a few months earlier to a locally based group. By 1994, WTTO had become one of the highest-rated Fox affiliates in the country, and managed to overtake CBS affiliate WBMG as the third-highest-rated television station in central Alabama. Late that year, both WDBB and WNAL began airing separate programming during the daytime and late evening hours, consisting of syndicated sitcoms, drama and animated series that WTTO did not hold the rights to broadcast as well as local newscasts.

In 1994, Abry Communications merged with Sinclair Broadcast Group, which, in addition to acquiring WTTO and WDBB, also assumed the rights to the local marketing agreement with WABM. At that time, the station moved its operations into WABM's facilities on Beacon Parkway West. In 1995, WNAL was purchased by Fant Broadcasting, but continued to simulcast WTTO's programming through a time brokerage agreement.

Disaffiliation from Fox and eventual switch to The WB

On May 5, 1994, Great American Communications (which would be renamed Citicasters following the completion of its debt restructuring later that year) agreed to sell WBRC and three of its sister stations—fellow ABC affiliate WGHP in High Point, North Carolina, NBC affiliate WDAF-TV in Kansas City and CBS affiliate KSAZ-TV in Phoenix—to New World Communications for $350 million in cash and $10 million in share warrants. As part of a broader deal between New World and Fox signed on May 23 of that year, New World agreed to affiliate five of its eight existing television stations and the four it had acquired from Great American with Fox, in a series of affiliation transactions that would take two years to complete due to the varying conclusion dates of their ongoing contracts with either ABC, NBC or CBS.[8][9][10] WBRC was one of the stations involved in this agreement. Although WTTO had established itself as one of the network's strongest affiliates, Fox jumped at the chance to align with WBRC, which had been the dominant station in central Alabama for over three decades.

Three weeks later, New World agreed to buy WVTM-TV and three other stations—CBS affiliates KDFW in Dallas–Fort Worth and KTBC in Austin, and ABC affiliate KTVI in St. Louis—from Argyle Television Holdings, in a purchase option-structured deal worth $717 million.[9] The two purchases created a problem for New World due to conflicts caused by restrictions on television station ownership imposed by the FCC at the time; New World was not permitted to retain both WBRC and WVTM in any event as the ownership of two television stations in the same market by a single company was prohibited, and the concurrent acquisitions would give New World ownership of a combined fifteen stations, three more than the FCC allowed. The group's affiliation deal with Fox allowed New World to solve its ownership conflicts in Birmingham, as it chose to establish and transfer the license of WBRC into a trust company with the intent to sell the station to the network's broadcasting subsidiary, Fox Television Stations; the trust transfer was completed on July 24, 1995.

Although the transfer of WBRC to the trust was finalized on July 24, 1995, Fox could not switch WBRC's network affiliation in the short-term, as the station's contract with ABC would not expire until August 31, 1996. While this forced Fox Television Stations to operate WBRC as an ABC affiliate for 8½ months after its purchase of the station from the New World-established trust closed on January 17, 1996, creating the rare situation in which a station was run by the owned-and-operated station group of one network but maintained an affiliation with one of its competitors, it gave ABC enough time to find a new central Alabama affiliate. The network first approached WTTO for an affiliation agreement. However, Sinclair—which would not own any stations affiliated with either of the Big Three networks until it acquired River City Broadcasting in 1996—was only willing to carry ABC's prime time and news programming, as it was not interested in carrying the network's then-languishing daytime and Saturday morning programs. Even though WDBB operated a news department at the time negotiations with ABC began, Sinclair was also not willing to start a news department for WTTO; the group did not allocate a budget for news production for its non-Big Three stations at the time.

Unlike situations in St. Louis and the Piedmont Triad, where the network had little other choice but to align with a Sinclair-owned station (or one that the group would later acquire) due to a lack of another financially secure full-power station, other options were available in the Birmingham market. After turning down the WTTO offer in late 1995, ABC reached an agreement with Allbritton Communications to affiliate with WCFT in November of that year; Allbritton planned to acquire the non-license assets of WNAL-TV under a local marketing agreement and convert it into a satellite of WCFT-TV. Allbritton would later terminate the proposed LMA with WNAL and entered into an LMA with Osborne Communications Corporation to take over the operations of WJSU-TV; it also purchased low-power independent station W58CK (channel 58, now WBMA-LD) to serve as the official ABC affiliate for central Alabama for the purpose of being counted in the Birmingham station ratings reports (as Nielsen designated Tuscaloosa and Anniston as separate markets at the time), with WCFT and WJSU serving as its satellites; this prompted Allbritton to sign a groupwide affiliation deal with ABC which renewed the network's affiliations with its stations in Little Rock, Tulsa, Harrisburg, Roanoke, and Washington, D.C. and caused the company's stations in Charleston and Brunswick, Georgia to switch to the network.[11][12][13]

On September 1, 1996, when WBRC-TV officially became a Fox owned-and-operated station and W58CK/WCFT/WJSU became an ABC affiliate, WTTO and WDBB reverted to operating as independent stations. Simultaneously, WNAL formally terminated the WTTO simulcast, and became the CBS affiliate for Gadsden and northeastern Alabama. WBRC originally planned to carry the entire Fox network schedule, running the Fox Kids block on weekday afternoons to replace the displaced ABC soap opera lineup upon its move to the W58CK trimulcast (which would be collectively known as "ABC 33/40," a brand referencing the respective channel numbers of WCFT and WJSU, and will mostly be referred to hereafter in the article as "WBMA+"). 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 approached WBRC about allowing WTTO to retain Fox Kids, which the Fox network (on behalf of Fox Television Stations) allowed it to keep.

On February 2, 1997, WTTO and WDBB became affiliates of The WB Television Network, and changed its on-air branding to "WB 21". It was one of the first Sinclair stations to affiliate with the network, occurring six months before the group struck an agreement to affiliate most of its UPN-affiliated and independent stations that it either owned or controlled to The WB on July 21.[14] Prior to that point, Birmingham had been one of the largest markets that was not served by a local WB affiliate; central Alabama residents were only able to receive WB programs on satellite and some cable providers through the national superstation feed of the network's Chicago affiliate, WGN-TV (now an independent station; its cable feed now operates as a standalone channel), which carried the network's programming nationwide from The WB's launch in January 1995 until October 1999.[15][16]

With the WB affiliation, WTTO added one of Fox Kids' competitors, Kids' WB, to its inventory of children's programming. The station carried Kids' WB's weekday morning and afternoon blocks together on Monday through Friday mornings (bookending Fox Kids' weekday morning block) on either a one-day delay or live-to-air depending on the time slot and accordant block; the Saturday morning edition of the block, meanwhile, aired on Sundays in a day-behind arrangement as WTTO aired the Fox Kids weekend block on Saturdays. During the late 1990s, WTTO reduced the number of movies, classic sitcoms and cartoons on its schedule, and began shifting its syndicated programming towards a lineup of talk, reality and court shows as well as more recent syndicated sitcoms, that would become the common variety of programming for netlet stations at that time.

In early 2000, WDBB relocated its transmitter facilities back to its original 609.6-metre (2,000 ft) guyed-mast transmission tower in Windham Springs (which was constructed and completed shortly before the station signed on in 1982). WTTO dropped the Fox Kids block in September 2000, at which time, the station moved the Kids' WB blocks to weekday afternoons and Saturday mornings. Neither WBRC, nor any other central Alabama station, chose to acquire the local rights to Fox's children's programming lineup; as a result, Fox Kids, as well as the successor blocks that 4Kids Entertainment programmed for the network after 2002 (Fox Box and 4Kids TV), were not cleared in the Birmingham market for the 7½ years that the network continued to carry children's programming; in addition, WTTO (as with WBRC) declined to air the paid programming block that replaced 4Kids TV in January 2009, Weekend Marketplace; it would air instead on WABM. WTTO has continued to air the children's program blocks carried by The WB, and later by The CW (Kids' WB, The CW4Kids/Toonzai, Vortexx and One Magnificent Morning), without interruption through the years. In 2001, Sinclair purchased WABM outright, creating the Birmingham–Tuscaloosa–Anniston market's first television duopoly with WTTO/WDBB.

CW affiliation

On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. Entertainment unit of Time Warner (which operated The WB) and CBS Corporation (which acquired UPN through its split from Viacom in December 2005) announced that the two companies would respectively shut down UPN and The WB, and enter into a joint venture to form a new "fifth" broadcast television network, The CW, that would initially feature a mix of programming from both of its forerunner networks as well as new content developed specifically for The CW.[17][18] WTTO, however, continued to show The WB's programming until The WB's The Night of Favorites and Farewells, which aired on September 17, 2006. On May 2, 2006, Sinclair Broadcast Group announced that it had signed an affiliation agreement with the network, in which WTTO would become the Birmingham charter affiliate of The CW; when it officially joined the network upon its debut on September 18, WTTO/WDBB adopted "CW 21" as its official branding (although, the station sometimes identifies as "CW 21 Alabama" in some promotional imaging); sister station WABM affiliated with MyNetworkTV, a new secondary service started by Fox, on September 5, 2006.

In 2007, Sinclair sold WDBB to Cunningham Broadcasting, and entered into a time brokerage agreement to continue operating that station as its repeater. However, the sale itself was purely nominal, as 97% of Cunningham's stock is controlled by trusts owned by the family of now-deceased Sinclair founder Julian Sinclair Smith (including, among others, its current chief executive officer David Smith). Since the late 1990s, when it was known as Glencairn, Ltd., Cunningham has long faced allegations that it merely acts a shell corporation to circumvent FCC rules on television station ownership within a single market.[19][20][21]

Secondary ABC affiliation

On July 29, 2013, Allbritton Communications announced that it would sell its seven television stations—including the trimulcast operation involving WBMA-LD and satellites WCFT-TV and WJSU-TV—to Sinclair Broadcast Group (which would purchase the stations for $985 million), in order to focus on running its co-owned political news website, Politico.[22][23] As part of the deal, Sinclair had intended to sell the license assets of WTTO and WABM to Deerfield Media, and retain operational responsibilities for those stations through shared services and joint sales agreements.[24]

On December 6, 2013, the FCC informed Sinclair that applications related to the deal need to be "amended or withdrawn," as Sinclair would retain the existing time brokerage agreement between WTTO and WDBB; this would, in effect, create a new LMA between WBMA+ and WDBB, even though the Commission had ruled in 1999 that such agreements made after November 5, 1996 covering the programming of more than 15% of a station's broadcast day would count toward the ownership limits for the brokering station's owner.[25] On March 20, 2014, as part of a restructuring of the Sinclair-Allbritton deal in order to address these ownership conflicts as well as to expedite approval of the Allbritton acquisition that was delayed due to the FCC's increased scrutiny of outsourcing agreements (such as those maintained by Sinclair) used to circumvent in-market ownership caps, Sinclair announced that it would retain ownership of WTTO (under which WDBB would continue operating as its satellite under the existing LMA), and form a new duopoly between it and WBMA+ (which would mark the first known instance in which the senior partner in one duopoly became the junior partner in another, as well as the first instance involving a duopoly that was broken up legally terminating all operational ties with the junior partner); WABM was to be sold to a third-party buyer with which Sinclair would not enter into an operational outsourcing arrangement or maintain any contingent interest, other than a possible transitional shared facilities agreement until WTTO was able to move its operations from its Beacon Parkway studios to WBMA's facility in Hoover.[26][27]

On May 29, 2014, after informing the FCC that it had not found a buyer for WABM (even among the respective owners of WBRC, WVTM and WIAT that did not operate an existing duopoly in Birmingham, Raycom Media, Media General and LIN Media, the latter two of which were in the process of merging at the time), Sinclair stated that it would propose a surrendering of the WJSU and WCFT licenses, and migrate the WBMA simulcast to WABM's second digital subchannel on the basis that the latter's transmission facilities are superior to those of WCFT and WJSU (as a low-power station, WBMA-LD would not be affected as the FCC does not apply in-market ownership caps to low-power stations owned alongside any full-power station).[28][29] After nearly a year of delays, Sinclair's acquisition of Allbritton was approved by the FCC on July 24, 2014,[30] and completed one week later on August 1.[31]

On September 18, 2014, in preparation for the planned shutdown of WCFT and WJSU eleven days later on September 29 (the transaction would be suspended on Sinclair's asking by the FCC days prior to the shutdown after the group agreed to sell both stations to Howard Stirk Holdings, on the agreement that Sinclair would not enter into any operational arrangements with HSH for either station), WDBB added a simulcast feed of WBMA-LD on digital subchannel 17.2, replacing WCFT (which became a Heartland affiliate) as WBMA's Tuscaloosa repeater; WABM also added a simulcast of the WBMA on its 68.2 subchannel.[32]

Digital television

Digital channels

The stations' digital signals are multiplexed:

WTTO
Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming[33]
21.1720p16:9WTTO-CWMain WTTO programming / The CW
21.2480i4:3AntennaAntenna TV
21.316:9CometComet
21.4TBDTBD
WDBB
Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming[34]
17.1720p16:9WDBB CWMain WDBB programming / The CW
17.2ABC3340Simulcast of WBMA-LD / ABC
17.3480iWXJames Spann 24/7 Weather

Notes:

  • 1. WBMA-LD is simulcast on WDBB-DT2.

WTTO-DT2/WDBB-DT2

On March 23, 2006, Sinclair Broadcast Group announced that it signed an affiliation deal with The Tube to carry the music video network on the digital subchannels of many of the group's stations. The channel launched on WTTO/WDBB's second digital subchannel, which launched on virtual channels 21.2 and 17.2 on June 15, 2006. On December 31, Sinclair dropped The Tube from the stations affected by the deal due to new educational programming regulations put into effect by the FCC that The Tube not immediately comply with by inserting E/I-compliant programming within its schedule, effectively putting the burden on local stations to carry programs that complied with the regulations; the network ceased operations on October 1, 2007, due to several factors likely including the discontinuance of the Sinclair carriage deal.

In August 2010, Sinclair signed a groupwide affiliation deal with The Country Network (later known as ZUUS Country during the final year of its carriage on WTTO/WDBB), a digital subchannel network featuring country music videos, to the 28 of the company's stations.[35] WTTO/WDBB relaunched its second subchannel as an affiliate of The Country Network on October 26, 2010; the subchannel disaffiliated from ZUUS Country on July 1, 2014, when it began carrying the classic movie network GetTV, as a result of a channel lease agreement with Sinclair that involved 33 of the company's stations.[36][37]

As a result of WDBB becoming a simulcaster of WBMA-LD on its second subchannel in October 2014, WTTO and WDBB only simulcast the former's main programming feed, choosing to reallocate bandwidth space on WDBB's signal to transmit WBMA's programming feed in high definition on digital channel 17.2. On January 4, 2016, as part of a groupwide affiliation agreement with the network spurred by the network's acquisition of rights to reruns of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, WTTO switched the affiliation of its second digital subchannel to Antenna TV; this resulted in the displacement of GetTV (Now TBD) to a newly created fourth digital subchannel of the station.

WTTO-DT3

On October 31, 2015, WTTO launched a tertiary digital subchannel on virtual channel 21.3, which became a charter affiliate of the sci-fi network Comet, which is owned by Sinclair and operated by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer under a management agreement with the group.

WTTO-DT4

On June 1, 2017, GetTV was replaced with TBD, a digital subchannel which is owned by Sinclair and targeting millennial audiences.

Analog-to-digital conversion

On February 2, 2009, Sinclair Broadcast Group announced in an e-mail release to all cable and satellite television providers carrying its television stations that, regardless of the exact date of the mandatory switchover to digital-only broadcasting for full-power stations (which Congress rescheduled days later to June 12), its stations (including WABM) would shut down their analog signals on the originally scheduled transition date of February 17.[38]

WTTO and WDBB shut down their analog signals, respectively over UHF channels 21 and 17, at 11:59 p.m. on that date. WTTO's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 28; through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 21. WDBB also continued to operate its digital signal on its pre-transition digital channel, UHF 18; digital television receivers display its virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 17.[39] As part of the SAFER Act,[40] WTTO and WDBB kept its analog signal on the air until March 19 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters.

With the digital conversion, WTTO moved its transmitter facilities from its analog transmitter site 3 miles (4.8 km) east on Red Mountain to a digital transmitter overlooking the Goldencrest neighborhood, that it shares with radio stations WZZK (104.7 FM) and WBPT (106.9 FM). The move and the resulting expansion of its coverage area, resulted in the shutdown of W52BG as the main signal provided adequate coverage of the entire Birmingham area; the translator's license was canceled in late October 2011.

Programming

WTTO/WDBB carries the entire CW network schedule. Until 2017, the station carried the network's educational program block, One Magnificent Morning, one hour earlier than the network-recommended time of 7:00 a.m. on most Saturdays during the fall and winter months in order to accommodate sports programming from the ACC Network; in this case, the block was transmitted to the station via the network's Eastern Time Zone feed. This changed on October 7, 2017, when the station began airing the block locally from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on an all-year round basis. Syndicated programming broadcast by WTTO/WDBB (as of September 2016) includes Modern Family, Hot Bench, The Andy Griffith Show, The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men. Like WABM, WTTO/WDBB is one or two of the few remaining U.S. television stations that continues to sign off during the overnight hours, occurring on Sunday night/early Monday mornings from midnight to 5:00 a.m.[41]

Sports programming

In August 2009, WTTO/WDBB acquired the broadcast rights to ESPN Regional Television's SEC Network syndication service, carrying most regular season college basketball and football games from the Southeastern Conference, as well as games from the first three rounds of the SEC Men's Basketball Tournament; this agreement ended when ESPN discontinued the service in 2012, upon the launch of a conference-focused cable-only network of the same name.

In September 2015, WTTO/WDBB became the local broadcast rightsholder to the ACC Network syndication service, airing most regular season football and basketball games from selected teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference as well as games from the first three rounds of the ACC Men's Basketball Tournament. Most college football and basketball telecasts on the station air on Saturday afternoons during the fall and winter months, respectively, with occasional prime time games on weeknights (the station will reschedule CW prime time shows to air on weekend evenings if an evening game is scheduled, preempting movies usually aired on Saturday and Sunday evenings between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m., as The CW itself does not run network programming on those nights, and occasionally those usually aired in weekend afternoon timeslots). WTTO/WDBB assumed the rights to the ACC Network from sister station WABM, which passed on the rights due to its commitments to the Sinclair-owned American Sports Network ad hoc syndication service.

Newscasts

WTTO and WDBB have both aired local news programming during their respective histories. The Tuscaloosa station, WDBB, operated its own local news department at two different periods in its early years. Its first news operation debuted on the evening it signed on the air on October 8, 1984, when channel 17 premiered a nightly half-hour prime time newscast at 9:00 p.m.; the program, Alabama's Nine O'Clock News, was the first attempt at a prime time newscast by an Alabama television station (predating the launch of WBRC's current 9:00 p.m. newscast by twelve years). By 1986, the station added early-evening newscasts at 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. Monday through Fridays, at which point, its newscasts were retitled NewsCenter 17; the newscasts also began to be simulcast on WNAL-TV when that station signed on the same year. Throughout the four-year run of WDBB's first news department, its newscasts regularly trailed then-CBS affiliate WCFT-TV (which, incidentally, had been original WTTO owner Chapman's flagship station when it founded WCFT in 1965) for viewership among West Alabama residents; as such, Dubose Broadcasting shut down channel 17's initial news department in 1988.

After WDBB began deviating from the WTTO simulcast part-time, the station brought back news programming in 1993 under Abry ownership; the new news department, which branded its newscasts as WDBB 17 News, consisted of half-hour newscasts at 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. each weeknight and at 10:00 p.m. seven nights a week, which were targeted at Tuscaloosa and west-central Alabama; at the time, as Tuscaloosa was considered a separate market from Birmingham, it was the smallest Fox affiliate by market size that produced its newscasts in-house and one of the few news-producing Fox stations that did not carry a prime time newscast that followed the network's programming (the 9:00 p.m. hour was filled by syndicated programming instead). The newsroom and studio were housed at WDBB's original Jug Factory Road facility in Tuscaloosa. Talent such as Dan Cates and Don Hartley, who were already known from previous stints on other television and radio stations in central Alabama, were hired as part of the news department. Later on, they were joined by longtime WVTM anchor Gene Lively. Charleston, South Carolina weathercaster Lisa Willis signed on as the first main weathercaster during WDBB's first year.

Abry shut down the WDBB news department for the second time in December 1995. At that time, all of WDBB's operations were transferred to WTTO's Beacon Parkway facility in Birmingham; the Jug Factory Road studio facility was vacant until late 1997, when upstart WJRD-CA (channel 49, now WVUA-CD on channel 7) began operations at the facility, where it based its own local news operation that produced newscasts focusing on coverage of western Alabama. Some of the original WJRD staff consisted of former WDBB staff members who had been let laid off by the station when its operations were consolidated with WTTO two years earlier.

WTTO launched its own in-house news operation on September 8, 2003, and began airing a nightly hour-long prime time newscast, titled WB21 News at 9:00. The program was developed and formatted around the News Central local/national hybrid news concept created by Sinclair that year; local news segments originated from the station's Beacon Parkway studios in Birmingham, while national news, weather and sports segments were based out of studios located at Sinclair's corporate headquarters on Beaver Dam Road in Hunt Valley, Maryland. In addition, WTTO also aired "The Point", a controversial one-minute conservative political commentary feature during its newscasts; the segment was required to air on all Sinclair-owned stations that aired local newscasts (regardless of whether it carried the News Central format or not).

However, the newscast was unable to make headway against WBRC's longer-established (and much higher-rated) 9:00 p.m. newscast, which debuted in September 1996 upon its switch to Fox; as a result, WTTO outsourced production of its evening newscast to CBS affiliate WIAT through a news share agreement in October 2005.[42] The WIAT-produced newscast was canceled on October 13, 2006 due to low ratings; the News Central format had earlier been phased out entirely in its other markets by March 2006.[43][44]

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See also
  • Tallest structures in the U.S.

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