Wometco ownership
A squabble over options to purchase stock in Skyway Broadcasting Company erupted in April 1957, when Harold H. Thoms—owner of WISE radio and television—and Walter Tison of Tampa, Florida, announced they had an option to buy shares in the firm and were going to exercise it. Skyway denied that any such option existed, claiming that it was based on an option extended to a minority stockholder—J. E. Edmonds—and later withdrawn.[18] The matter was taken to court, where Edmonds attacked the validity of the 1953 Citizen-Times option, which remained outstanding.[19] Then, that option catapulted into the spotlight when Miami businessman Mitchell Wolfson—a summer resident of Asheville—announced that he had acquired the Citizen-Times option through his other broadcast property, WTVJ in Miami, and that he was offering a buyout of all other shareholders in Skyway.[20] The so-called "Britt option" that Thoms and Tison claimed to hold became the subject of multiple court cases as Thoms and Tison sued Britt and others for breach of contract.[21]
On March 1, 1958, Wolfson's company, Wometco Enterprises, announced it had reached a deal to buy Britt's stock in Skyway Broadcasting and thus assume majority ownership of the WLOS stations.[22] The FCC approved the transaction in August,[23] and upon closure, several WTVJ employees moved to Asheville to help manage WLOS radio and television.[24]
In 1959, Bill Norwood, known on air as "Mr. Bill", began hosting a children's program under a range of titles (the last being Mr. Bill's Friends) which continued to air until June 1988, later returning as a fill-in weatherman in the late 1990s.[25][26] Bill's sidekick was a clown named Bumbo, played by longtime WLOS weatherman Bob Caldwell.[27]
Wometco sold off WLOS AM to the Greater Asheville Broadcasting Corporation in 1969, retaining the FM and TV stations; the AM station changed its call sign to WKKE when the sale took effect.[28][29] WLOS continued to share ABC programming in the western Carolinas with WAIM-TV (channel 40) in Anderson, South Carolina, on the opposite end of the market. It was a dual ABC/CBS affiliate; while WAIM-TV's ABC affiliation agreement allowed it to carry any network program not aired by WLOS in Asheville, which was not receivable in the Anderson area. This ended in January 1979; after an ownership change at channel 40, ABC only allowed the station to continue airing its programming through the end of 1978.[30]
