Launch and early struggles
In 1983, Harry C. Powell Jr., a Florida man, successfully petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to add a new allocation for ultra high frequency (UHF) channel 58 in Milwaukee. Powell stated that he intended to apply for a license with the help of a Knoxville, Tennessee, consulting firm if the commission approved.[1] With channel 58 now allocated to Milwaukee, the commission took applications for the station, ending with a 13-party field which included Powell, five applicants residing in Knoxville, and several groups consisting of local investors. One of these groups included then-state senator Gary George.[2] This field thinned quickly to six applicants and then to two in October. In March 1985, the FCC rejected another applicant and issued a decision in favor of TV 58 Limited, a minority-owned firm headed by Debra M. Jackson and Milwaukee media veteran John Torres, who had worked for multiple radio stations and local Spanish-language newspaper La Guardia.[3] Debra Jackson originally suggested naming the station WJMT—Torres's initials—but the designation was not available, thus the selection of WDJT-TV, combining both their initials.
TV 58 Limited faced financial trouble from the start when it agreed to pay out settlements to other applicants, including George, in exchange for them withdrawing their applications.[4] A new burden surfaced when Jackson was diagnosed with a terminal illness—dying in January 1987—and the lenders that had originally committed interim financing backed out of their deals. In February 1986, one of the applicants with which TV 58 Limited had settled forced the company into involuntary bankruptcy. The Carley Capital Group of Madison negotiated to provide funding to keep the business afloat,[5] but it withdrew by early August, and a new company entered the picture: Weigel Broadcasting, the Chicago-based owner of WCIU-TV in that city.[6] Torres agreed to sell controlling interest in the station to Weigel, while the call letters were retained.
Weigel, in association with Torres, spent the next two years trying to put WDJT-TV on the air. Weigel proposed construction of facilities in various suburbs, including Glendale,[7] where it was rebuffed twice in two years,[8] and Germantown, where the village rejected Weigel's plans. Objections to the proposed 1000 ft tower called it unsightly.[9] To get the station on the air, Weigel instead decided to locate at a downtown site with a lengthy history of television in the city: the Marc Plaza Hotel. The antenna on the original mast atop the building—first used as a transmitting site by early UHF station WCAN-TV in 1953[10] and at the time utilized by low-power outlet W08BY—was replaced in October in preparation for the station's launch.
After a $2.3 million expenditure,[11] WDJT-TV began broadcasting on November 10, 1988. Known as "Classic 58", it presented a mix of older sitcoms and movies with a family orientation, a programming philosophy favored by Torres. The next year, Weigel also launched W46AR, a low-power station carrying Univision, giving it three signals in the area along with a preexisting WCIU translator, W65BT, and WDJT-TV.[12] The station also resurrected The Bowling Game, a bowling program that had previously enjoyed an 11-year run on established Milwaukee independent WVTV (channel 18) and continued on channel 58 until 1993.[13]
At the station's launch, Torres served as the vice president of operations; he later sued Weigel for forcing him out of the company by having him sell to an affiliated company, a case that resulted in an out-of-court settlement.[14] A Delaware court ruled in favor of Torres in a case involving undervaluation of his stock in the partnership in 1993.
The station's programming of syndicated shows and movies was bolstered by a variety of network programs preempted by the networks' Milwaukee affiliates; in late 1990, WDJT-TV was airing America Tonight from CBS, Loving and Match Game from ABC, and four shows from NBC.[15] In 1992, WDJT-TV put itself on the map by teaming up with WITI, then the CBS affiliate in Milwaukee, to air nonstop coverage during the trial of Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer from Milwaukee, thus making it available to non-cable homes in the Milwaukee area and allowing WITI to air its normal programming.[16] The trial coverage was credited by station management with making people aware that there was even a station on channel 58 in the first place; at times during the weeks-long trial, 15 to 20 percent of Milwaukee TV homes were tuned to WDJT-TV, and it also was added to at least one cable system as a result at a time when must-carry rules were not in effect.[17] Local programming efforts included the first locally produced children's TV program in Milwaukee in decades: SeaToons with Captain Al Gee, which presented segments between cartoons weekday mornings but lasted only eight weeks.[18]
With its limited presence, WDJT-TV was barely mentioned in the same breath as its more established competitors, independent WVTV and Fox affiliate WCGV-TV (channel 24). For example, a 1992 feature in The Milwaukee Journal on independent television programming in Milwaukee (at the time, WCGV, like other early Fox affiliates, was still considered an independent) consigned channel 58 to one lone mention.[19] Its signal was only a fraction of those of channels 18 and 24; the Marc Plaza transmitter effectively limited channel 58's coverage area to Milwaukee itself and its inner-ring suburbs.[20] On cable systems, it was on high channel positions, including channel 29 in Milwaukee and channel 48 on Warner Cable systems in suburban areas.
CBS courtship
On May 23, 1994, Fox announced an agreement with New World Communications in which most of New World's stations would become affiliates of that network. Among those due to switch affiliations was Milwaukee's WITI.[21] The deal, which triggered a years-long realignment process in cities nationwide, left CBS needing a new affiliate in the Milwaukee market. It approached NBC affiliate WTMJ-TV and ABC affiliate WISN-TV (which had previously carried CBS from 1961 to 1977), but each renewed their existing contracts.[22] This left three commercial independent or soon-to-be-independent stations operating in Milwaukee as potential CBS affiliates: WVTV, WCGV-TV (about to lose Fox), and WDJT-TV.[23]
The year before, Gaylord Broadcasting, owner of WVTV, had signed a local marketing agreement to allow WCGV-TV, then owned by ABRY Communications, to handle its programming functions.[24]
Subchannels and multicast experiments
In the late 2000s, Weigel began adding digital subchannels to WDJT-TV, a preview of what would later become one of its most important businesses. Aside from a simulcast of WMLW-CA, then only broadcast in analog, the first unique subchannel offering on that station was MeTV, which debuted in March 2008.[59] Soon after, Weigel purchased WJJA-TV, then a small station primarily airing home shopping programming, and relaunched it as WBME-TV, moving MeTV there.[60] When that transition was completed, the subchannel was freed up, and WDJT-TV was then among the first carriers of This TV, a new diginet launched from the start as a national service by Weigel and MGM on November 1, 2008.[61][62]
Two subchannel ventures involving WDJT-TV have been local, not national, services. In 2009, Weigel brokered subchannel 58.4 to Shorewest Realtors of Brookfield, Wisconsin
