WBTV
WBTV is a television station in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States, affiliated with CBS and owned by Gray Media. The station's studios are located off Morehead Street, just west of Uptown Charlotte, and its transmitter is located in north-central Gaston County. In addition, WBTV's studios continue to house the operations of its former sister radio stations currently owned by Urban One: WBT-AM/FM and WLNK, as well as WFNZ, which was previously owned by CBS Radio prior to its acquisition by Beasley Broadcast Group in 2014, followed by Entercom in late 2017 and then Urban One in 2020 under a local marketing agreement.
History
The station first signed on the air on July 15, 1949. When it debuted, WBTV was the 13th television station in the United States and the first in the Carolinas; it is the oldest television station located between Richmond and Atlanta. Veteran Charlotte broadcaster Jim Patterson was the first person seen on the station, and remained employed there until his death in 1986. WBTV was originally owned by the Greensboro-based Jefferson Standard Life Insurance Company, then-owners of WBT, the city's oldest radio station and the first fully licensed station in the South. At the time, the Jefferson Standard Life Insurance Company also had a 16.5% interest in the Greensboro News Company, licensee of WFMY-TV, which signed on from Greensboro two months after WBTV. Jefferson Standard had purchased WBT from CBS in 1947. Shortly before the television station went on the air, its call letters were modified from WBT-TV to WBTV. Jefferson Standard merged with Pilot Life in 1968 and became Jefferson-Pilot Corporation. In 1970, the media interests were folded into a new subsidiary, Jefferson-Pilot Communications.WBTV received one of the last construction permits issued before the Federal Communications Commission's "freeze" on new television licenses, which lasted until the Commission released its Sixth Report and Order in 1952. As such, it was Charlotte's only VHF station for eight years, carrying affiliations with all four major networks of the time—CBS, NBC, ABC and DuMont. However, WBTV has always been a primary CBS affiliate, owing to WBT radio's long affiliation with the CBS Radio Network. It is the only commercial television station in the market that has never changed its primary affiliation.
Channel 3 had originally operated from a converted radio studio in the Wilder Building, alongside its sister radio station. In 1955, WBT and WBTV moved to a then state-of-the-art facility on a hill atop Morehead Street, where both stations are still based today. The studio address, One Julian Price Place, is named in honor of the executive who effectively founded Jefferson Standard/Jefferson-Pilot through an early-20th century merger.
WBTV's only competition in its early years came from a UHF station on channel 36, known as WAYS-TV and then WQMC-TV, which broadcast briefly from 1953 to 1955. It was nominally an NBC affiliate, sharing a secondary ABC affiliation with channel 3. However, channel 36's signal was severely weak, and NBC continued to allow WBTV to cherry-pick its stronger programming. Channel 36 went dark in March 1955, and DuMont shut down roughly a year later in August 1956. Channel 3 took on secondary affiliations with NBC and ABC until Charlotte's second VHF station, WSOC-TV, took the NBC affiliation when it signed on in April 1957. Channel 36 returned to the air in November 1964 as WCCB, carrying whatever CBS programs that WBTV turned down in order to carry ABC programs. ABC programming continued to be split among the three stations until 1967, when WCCB became a full-time ABC affiliate.
File:WBTV-Tower.jpg|thumb|WBTV's broadcast tower in north-central Gaston County.
From 1958 to 1974, WBTV's studio facilities served as the home for Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling telecasts. Since its completion in 1984, WBTV's signal has been transmitted from a -high guy-wired aerial mast transmitter tower located in north-central Gaston County, North Carolina, which is also shared with former radio sister WLNK.
When WAGA-TV in Atlanta, which signed on the air four months before WBTV, switched to Fox in December 1994, WBTV became the longest-tenured CBS affiliate located south of Washington, D.C. from that point forward. WFMY-TV in Greensboro, the second-oldest station in the Carolinas, is the network's second-longest tenured affiliate south of the nation's capital; it signed on three months after WBTV. Two years later, after KPIX-TV in San Francisco became a CBS owned-and-operated station, WBTV became the second longest-tenured affiliate that was not owned by the network, behind only Washington's WUSA.
Jefferson Standard/Jefferson-Pilot acquired several other radio and television stations across the country, with WBTV serving as the company's flagship station. The first was WBTW in Florence, South Carolina, which was built and signed on in 1954; indeed, the call letters were chosen specifically because "W" is the next letter in the alphabet after "V". The two stations were separately programmed, but shared a microwave system from 1959 onward. Jefferson-Pilot sold WBTW in 1968 because WBTW provided a fairly strong grade B signal to the eastern portion of the Charlotte market, and neither station would have been able to expand their signals as long as Jefferson-Pilot owned both of them.
In 2006, Jefferson-Pilot merged with the Philadelphia-based Lincoln National Corporation. Lincoln Financial retained Jefferson-Pilot's broadcasting division, which was renamed Lincoln Financial Media, with WBTV retaining its status as the flagship station.
Sale to Raycom Media
On November 12, 2007, Lincoln Financial announced its intention to sell WBTV, sister stations WWBT in Richmond and WCSC-TV in Charleston, South Carolina, and Lincoln Financial Sports, to Raycom Media for $583 million. Lincoln Financial also sold its Charlotte radio stations to Braintree, Massachusetts–based Greater Media, effectively breaking up Charlotte's last co-owned radio/television station combination. According to Charlotte Observer TV critic Mark Washburn, Lincoln Financial decided soon after taking over the former Jefferson-Pilot properties that it would never really be able to integrate them with the rest of the company's assets, and had decided to sell them as soon as possible. The sale of the radio stations was finalized on January 31, 2008.The FCC approved the sale of WBTV on March 25, 2008, and Raycom formally took control of the station on April 1. With the purchase, WBTV became Raycom's second-largest station by market size, behind the Cleveland, Ohio duopoly of WOIO and WUAB. Since Raycom Sports is headquartered in Charlotte, WBTV had a very important role in Raycom Media's operations, and it shared its flagship status with NBC affiliate WSFA, located in the company's homebase of Montgomery, Alabama.
In early 2008, Raycom Sports and Lincoln Financial Sports officially merged under the Raycom Sports banner. The merger coincided with the start of the 2008 Atlantic Coast Conference basketball season. WBTV had been Charlotte's home station for ACC sporting events since C. D. Chesley piped in North Carolina's historic win in the 1957 NCAA tournament to channel 3 and several other television stations in the state. Raycom had produced ACC basketball games in partnership with Jefferson-Pilot/Lincoln Financial since 1982. The partnership was extended to football in 2004; Jefferson-Pilot/Lincoln Financial had been the sole producer of ACC football telecasts since 1984. From 2010 onward, the package was branded as the ACC Network.
In mid-May 2008, the former Jefferson-Pilot/Lincoln Financial stations launched redesigned websites, powered by the Local Media network division of WorldNow, assuming web platform operations from Broadcast Interactive Media. However, WBTV and WWBT retained their Jefferson-Pilot/Lincoln Financial-era logos and branding. WBTV changed its logo, in use since 2001, on September 7, 2023. The new logo incorporates the "GrayONE" graphics package used by most Gray stations.Image:WBTV logo.svg|thumb|Former logo used from 2001 to 2023
On November 15, 2013, both WBTV and WBT were dedicated with a North Carolina historical marker at the corner of Tryon and Third Streets. The Wilder Building, which was demolished in 1983, served as WBTV's studio facilities from 1949 to 1955.
Sale to Gray Television
On June 25, 2018, Atlanta-based Gray Television announced it had reached an agreement with Raycom to merge their respective broadcasting assets under Gray's corporate umbrella. The cash-and-stock merger transaction valued at $3.6 billion—in which Gray shareholders would acquire preferred stock currently held by Raycom—resulted in WBTV gaining new in-state sister stations, including NBC affiliates WECT in Wilmington and WITN-TV in the Washington–Greenville market, in addition to its current Raycom sister stations. The sale was approved on December 20, and was completed on January 2, 2019. As was the case with Raycom, WBTV became Gray's second-largest station by market size, after Cleveland's WOIO/WUAB. Since Gray acquired WAGA's successor as Atlanta's CBS affiliate, WGCL-TV as its flagship, WBTV has been Gray's third-largest station.2022 helicopter crash
On November 22, 2022, at 11:57 a.m., a 1999 Robinson R44 helicopter nicknamed "WBTV Sky3" crashed onto the grass verge of I-77 in south Charlotte during a training exercise. Both occupants, WBTV pilot Chip Tayag and WBTV meteorologist Jason Myers, were pronounced dead at the scene. WBTV anchors Molly Grantham and Jamie Boll covered the incident live on the air, before receiving confirmation it was their own station's helicopter and crewmen involved in the crash; the station released a statement citing the incident as a "terrible loss" to the WBTV family. WBTV received an immediate outpouring of support from the community, sister stations, and other media outlets; Governor Roy Cooper and Pastor Franklin Graham posted condolences on social media, and the Carolina Panthers and Charlotte FC delayed their 2022 Christmas tree lighting ceremony at Bank of America Stadium for a moment of silence in honor of Tayag and Myers.Witnesses to the crash claim the helicopter was visibly faltering, and in a steeply-banked spiral as it came down. Witnesses also claim that Tayag, a pilot with over 20 years of experience, deliberately steered the falling helicopter into the grass to avoid crashing into nearby buildings or onto the Interstate itself, which was crowded with Thanksgiving week traffic at the time. The FAA and NTSB began an investigation into the incident; the preliminary findings of this investigation, coupled with the available RadarBox data, indicated that the helicopter was initially traveling at, and made three 360-degree turns just before it crashed. Tayag, the pilot, never issued any distress signal, though he was in contact with CLT air traffic control moments before the crash. A further NTSB report released May 2, 2024, stated "inadequate inspections" did not reveal loose parts; these likely caused a loss of control, leading to the crash.
On March 6, 2023, the family of Jason Myers filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Wilson Air Center in North Carolina; this lawsuit was later expanded to include a claim of negligence against Total Traffic and Weather Network and iHeartMedia, who employed Chip Tayag and were responsible for the maintenance of the helicopter. The lawsuit alleged that the helicopter was poorly maintained, leading to the crash. That case was dismissed but a trial for helicopter owner TTWN and iHeartMedia was planned for 2025. Tayag's wife filed her own suit in November 2024 against Robinson Helicopter Company, alleging the company knew about problems with its helicopters. Ruling on the 2023 suit on September 18, 2025, Judge Forrest Bridges approved a $50 million settlement to be paid by TTWN and iHeartMedia.