Construction of channel 26
Harold H. Thoms and J. Horton Doughton, doing business as Television Services of Knoxville, applied with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on August 25, 1952, to build a new television station on Knoxville's channel 26; the application for a construction permit was granted on March 25, 1953, after W. R. Tuley—who had filed a competing bid for the channel[1]—merged his application with the Thoms-Doughton group.[2] The partners were out-of-town businessmen. Tuley, who took an 80 percent controlling interest in the station, had oil interests in Evansville, Indiana. Thoms owned WISE radio in Asheville, North Carolina, and Doughton was his partner in several other North Carolina television ventures.[3] A site on Sharp's Ridge previously used by radio station WROL's shuttered FM operation was secured for use by the new channel 26.[4]
WROL and competing channel 6 applicant WKGN merged their bids in July, and the race was suddenly on to be first to air in Knoxville and East Tennessee.[5] Channel 26 took the call letters WTSK-TV, after its ownership group, and secured a primary network affiliation with CBS and secondary affiliations with the DuMont Television Network,[6][7] and ABC. The first test pattern went out on the night of October 1, the same evening that WROL-TV (channel 6, now WATE-TV) started up; the station also aired a film that night,[8] though after channel 6's first broadcast.[9] Regular programming started on October 18, and WTSK was able to claim that it produced the first live television program in the city, as WROL-TV started with entirely filmed fare.[10]
In 1954, Television Services of Knoxville sold the station to another Evansville–based concern, South Central Broadcasting; Tuley cited the need to devote time to his other business ventures in the Midwest as a factor in selling.[11] Additionally, Television Services of Knoxville had been struggling financially, to the point that Tuley, Thoms, and Doughton had seriously considered shutting channel 26 down. South Central announced in September 1955 that it would seek approval to raise the station's effective radiated power from 21,900 to 314,000 watts and expand its transmitter facility; coinciding with the change, it also announced a new call sign, WTVK (for "Television Knoxville").[12] The call sign change took effect December 12, though it was not until early 1956 that the power boost took effect because of delays with a key part.[13]
Pursuing a VHF channel
Channel 26 had grown since its start, but it was also a UHF station in the days before the All-Channel Receiver Act took effect in 1964. During WTVK's first decade on the air, most viewers needed to buy an expensive converter to watch the station. Additionally, the Knoxville market is very mountainous, and UHF stations have never gotten good reception in rugged terrain.[14] As a result, from the 1950s onward, numerous proposals were floated to move the station to the stronger VHF band.
The first such proposal came in 1955 from Wilton E. Hall, owner of WAIM-TV (channel 40) in Anderson, South Carolina. In nearby Spartanburg, VHF station WSPA-TV (channel 7) had proposed a transmitter site move vigorously opposed by that area's two UHF stations, WAIM-TV and WGVL (channel 23). Hall proposed moving the channel 7 allocation to Knoxville for use by WTSK-TV, while reallocating channel 26 to Spartanburg.[15] The FCC denied this and 34 similar requests in November,[16] but South Central continued to be highly interested in the idea. In March 1956, South Central president John A. Engelbrecht warned that while WTVK could "marginally survive" with competition from just one VHF station, the impending arrival of
From ABC to NBC
In the late 1970s, ABC—by then ascendant in the national ratings—began to look for better affiliates in some markets where it had been relegated to a third-rated VHF or UHF station. On March 29, 1979, WATE-TV announced it would leave NBC and become an ABC affiliate within six months, giving 15,000 to 20,000 additional homes access to ABC programs.[28] WTVK station manager Duane Eastvold was rather perturbed at ABC's treatment of the station, as well as the late notification of the change. WTVK's compensation for carrying ABC programming had not increased in over 20 years. Moreover, channel 26 was caught completely unaware, informed only by a phone call from ABC before WATE announced the change on its 6 p.m. newscast.[29] WTVK signed an affiliation agreement with NBC and began carrying its programming on September 17 of that year.[30]
In 1980, WTVK was approved to increase its power one last time to the UHF maximum of five million watts. The full boost took effect in 1981, making channel 26 one of just 10 stations operating at that power level in the United States.[31] Two years later,
The battle for channel 8
In September 1980, the FCC opened the door again to giving Knoxville a third VHF television service when it approved four drop-ins–for Knoxville (channel 8); Salt Lake City (channel 13); Charleston, West Virginia (channel 11); and Johnstown, Pennsylvania (channel 8).[34] A group known as the "Organizing Committee", led by James R. Martin, was one of the most active suitors early on; WTVK, at that time in the middle of its increase to 5,000,000 watts, initially stayed out of the fray. Others, though, readied applications. By June 1981, there were 13 different applications on file for channel 8.[35] One proposed a Christian station; another suggested a partial simulcast of Atlanta's WTBS with some local content; and others proposed a commercial independent station.[36] One, however, was South Central Broadcasting itself. All 13 of these applications were designated for hearing in July 1982.
Affiliation switch and channel switch
The long wait for WTVK to secure channel 8 would have repercussions that would still be sorted out while it was on channel 26. In June 1988, WBIR-TV announced it was dropping CBS for NBC—the latter of which had become the top-rated network then—after 32 years.[45] After the network considered going to WATE-TV, CBS and WTVK reached an affiliation deal a month later,[46] with the change taking place on September 10. NBC president Pierson Mapes revealed that the delay in moving WTVK from UHF to VHF was a factor, as was WBIR-TV's dominance in local news.[47]
With the affiliation switch in the rear-view mirror, the process then began of replacing the UHF transmission facility with a VHF one. At the end of November 1988, the channel 26 transmitter went on reduced power and the station dropped its newscasts.[48] After a delay attributed to faulty connectors in the antenna and high winds,[49]
"Volunteer TV"
Phipps and the minority partners in Knoxville Channel 8 Limited Partnership agreed to sell WCTV and WKXT to Gray Communications Systems (now Gray Television) at the end of 1995, with the sale consummated in 1996.[56] (Many of the partners then briefly owned WINT-TV channel 20.[57]) The new owners changed the call sign to the current WVLT-TV on February 10, 1997, as part of a major investment in the station and its news product.[58]
WVLT-TV began programming a secondary service as a digital subchannel in 2004: "UPN Knoxville", which replaced prior low-power carrier WEEE-LP.[59] This service assumed the MyNetworkTV affiliation in September 2006, first as "MyEastTennesseeTV" and later as "MyVLT-2".[60] Some local programming has also aired on the MyVLT channel, such as high school football.
