Television in Charlottesville: A quiet zone
It took Charlottesville until 1973 to have a television station of its own. One factor was the assignment of exclusively ultra high frequency (UHF) television channels to the area at a time when the viability of UHF was questioned. Early UHF stations were largely futile undertakings against VHF competition, as most televisions could not receive them yet and those that did produced a poor quality picture; the Daily Progress compared the difference between VHF and UHF reception to that between local AM radio and shortwave. Another factor was the location of part of Charlottesville and the surrounding area in the United States National Radio Quiet Zone. The Quiet Zone boundary runs through the grounds of the University of Virginia, dividing the area in half; all pending television allocations in the Quiet Zone had been abolished by 1965.[1]
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s 1952 Sixth Report and Order, its first nationwide channel allocation table, gave Charlottesville only one channel: UHF channel 45, reserved for non-commercial use. The nearest commercial allocation was on channel 42 in Waynesboro. In the ensuing public comment period, the city of Charlottesville and Charles Barham, the owner of WCHV radio, jointly petitioned to have very high frequency (VHF) channel 8 reassigned from Petersburg to a planned mountaintop tower near Crozet. They argued the VHF allocation would give a large part of central and northern Virginia its first-ever television service. This was denied by the FCC, which reasoned that removing VHF service from the larger city of Petersburg was unwarranted, though it conceded that a UHF station in Waynesboro would be unviewable in Charlottesville and added channel 64 to compensate.[2] Barham settled for channel 64 and received a construction permit on January 29, 1953.[3] One week later, CBS affiliate WLVA-TV signed on from Lynchburg on VHF channel 13, and Charlottesville residents reported good reception.[4] WCHV radio saw no economic path forward and returned the channel 64 construction permit in January 1954.[5]
In 1961, the Charlottesville Broadcasting Corporation, owner of radio station WINA, applied to have VHF channel 11 assigned to the Waynesboro–Staunton area.[6] However, even as the FCC took applications for channel 11, the plan faced stiff opposition from the United States Navy, which planned to build a radio telescope at Sugar Grove, West Virginia.[7] In the meantime, Virginia Broadcasting Corporation, a company owned by stockbroker and bluegrass music artist William Marburg—better known as Bill Clifton—filed for Charlottesville's channel 64 allocation.[8] The channel 64 station received a construction permit in June 1964;[9] six months later, the WINA proposal for channel 11 was denied after the Navy insisted on continued protection for the Sugar Grove site.[10] The channel 64 permit was never built, though it was transferred to another group in 1966.[11]
Two parties then filed for new UHF stations, both originally specifying channel 25, in January 1965. Shenandoah Valley Broadcasting proposed a semi-satellite of WSVA-TV in Harrisonburg with local news and public affairs programming,[12] while WINA soon filed a competing proposal, believing Charlottesville needed a station of its own.[13] WINA won the construction permit, amended to specify channel 29. However, it was unable to secure a network affiliation despite general manager Donald Heyne telling the networks that nearby affiliates only provided "fair, at best" reception to Charlottesville.[14] In 1969, WINA radio was sold, but neither the buyer nor the seller wanted to retain the channel 29 construction permit, which was returned to the FCC.[15]
