Construction and early years
When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) resumed granting new TV station applications in 1952 after a multi-year freeze, it allocated Portland, Maine, two VHF channels, 6 and 13. The freeze had affected the first television station application in Maine, made by Guy Gannett Broadcasting Services, owners of radio stations WGAN in Portland and WGUY in Bangor. In May 1952, Guy Gannett announced its intention to apply for channel 13.[2] Later in 1952, the Community Broadcasting Service, owner of Bangor radio station WABI, applied for channel 13 in Portland.[3] With competing applications, channel 13 was pushed into a comparative hearing situation, and the FCC in October 1952 ordered hearings be held on the two applications apiece it had received for channels 6 and 13.[4]
A third channel played into the channel 13 hearing dispute. Channel 8 had been allocated for use at Mount Washington, New Hampshire, from which it would cover Portland, and Mount Washington TV, Inc., was seeking that channel. Mount Washington and Community had a stakeholder in common: Horace Hildreth. In May 1953, Guy Gannett called on Hildreth to select one or the other application to prosecute because he could not own both channels, with their overlapping coverage areas.[5] On July 8, 1953, Mount Washington TV won the construction permit for channel 8, on the condition that its stockholders remove themselves from competing applications in Portland; these included not only Hildreth but the owners of an applicant for channel 6. If they did so, each channel would have one contested applicant. Another stockholder in Community, Murray Carpenter, declared he had no intention to drop out of the channel 13 contest.[6] Carpenter responded to the FCC action by selling out his ownership interest in WABI radio and WABI-TV to Hildreth in exchange for his shares in the channel 13 applicant.[7] He then filed for channel 13 under his own name in August.[8]
On November 2, days before hearings were to begin, Carpenter simultaneously withdrew his channel 13 application and agreed to buy WGUY radio from Guy Gannett. He told the FCC that he had been unable to find financial backing for the TV station. This left Guy Gannett unopposed for channel 13;[9] the firm received a construction permit on November 19 and declared its intention to be on the air within six months. The WGAN-FM site at Blackstrap in Falmouth was renovated to house the channel 13 transmitter facility; it had been built in 1946 with a possible television use in mind.[10]
WGAN-TV began broadcasting on May 16, 1954,[11] as a primary affiliate of CBS[12] with additional programming from ABC.[13] It was the fifth TV station on the air in Maine; it displaced the combination of WPMT (channel 53) and WLAM-TV (channel 17), a pair of UHF stations in Portland and Lewiston–Auburn, as the local outlet for CBS and ABC programs.[14] At the outset, WGAN-TV offered a variety of local programs. Three newscasts a day were scheduled, utilizing the resources of Guy Gannett's five Maine newspapers; it also aired a daily afternoon variety show, The Lloyd Knight Show, and locally produced educational and nature programs.[15] The station broadcast from an incomplete tower on reduced power until June 30.[16]
WGAN announced its intention to build a new, taller TV tower in 1958.[20] Such an expansion had been contemplated from the start, but an attempt to shuffle VHF television station allocations in New England—and possibly force WGAN-TV to another channel—stalled the move.[21] A 1619 ft mast was erected on Brown Hill near Raymond and began use on October 30, 1959. It was the world's tallest man-made structure at its completion,[22] though the next year KFVS-TV in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, eclipsed it with a 1676 ft tower.[23] While WGAN-TV was still losing money by 1961, the station improved its financial standing by the middle of the decade and attracted more than 40 percent of TV advertising revenue.[24] In February 1967, WGAN-FM 102.9 began broadcasting from the Raymond tower.[25]
Operations of WGAN AM and WGAN-TV moved in 1977 from downtown Portland to space in part of a former W. T. Grant department store in Portland's Northport Plaza shopping center.[26][27] When the radio stations were sold to Taylor Communications of Maine during 1983,[29] the WGAN call letters remained with them; WGAN-TV became WGME-TV, "We're Gannett of Maine",[30] on January 1, 1984.
Channel 13 had been the traditional news leader in the Portland market until the mid-1980s. In February 1986, WCSH surpassed WGME at 11 p.m. and tied channel 13 in the vital 6 p.m. news slot.[33] Later that year, WCSH would surpass WGME at 6 and proceed to do so for at least the next 16 years.[34] In 1989, WGME debuted a 5:30 p.m. newscast, 1st News. It was the first time a Portland station had produced an hour of early evening news since WCSH tried the idea in the 1970s.[35] Further news expansions came in 1993 with the debut of Daybreak, a morning newscast,[36] and in 1997 with a 5 p.m. news half-hour.[37] The latter helped give WGME the edge over WCSH in the 5:30 p.m. half-hour where the two stations competed.[38]
