WCGV-TV
WCGV-TV was a television station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, which operated from 1980 to 2018. In its latter years, it was owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group as an affiliate of MyNetworkTV; it had common ownership with CW affiliate WVTV. WCGV-TV's operations were last housed at WVTV's studio facilities on Milwaukee's northwest side; the station's transmitter was located on the Milwaukee PBS tower on North Humboldt Boulevard in Milwaukee's Estabrook Park neighborhood.
Established in 1980 as an independent station with part-time subscription television operation, WCGV-TV served as the first Fox affiliate for Milwaukee from 1987 to 1994. It then affiliated with UPN after it lost the Fox affiliation in a national realignment. After UPN was merged into The CW in 2006, it was aligned with MyNetworkTV.
On January 8, 2018, WCGV-TV's broadcast license was surrendered after Sinclair sold the station's spectrum in the 2016 Federal Communications Commission incentive auction. At that time, the station's programming continued as subchannels of WVTV, continuing to use virtual channel 24. What was WCGV-TV's primary subchannel continues under the WVTV license as "My 24".
History
Establishment
WCGV-TV first signed on the air on March 24, 1980, under the ownership of B&F Broadcasting from the former North 27th Street facilities of then-CBS affiliate WITI, which had moved to a new facility in Brown Deer two years earlier in 1978. At the time, it operated as an independent station and ran religious programs, older movies, cartoons and drama series during the day, along with select CBS and NBC programs that WITI and WTMJ-TV declined to air. It also produced a two-hour local afternoon talk program called Tempo 24, which aired from 1980 to 1981. At night, the station ran programming from subscription television service SelecTV, which required a decoder box and a monthly subscription to view; SelecTV ran mostly first-run feature films, although Friday nights/early Saturday mornings outside of FCC-designated safe harbor hours consisted of adult programming from The Playboy Channel.WCGV dropped SelecTV in 1984 once Warner Cable launched its Milwaukee area operations and brought traditional premium cable networks to the area. It gradually became a more serious ratings contender against Milwaukee's leading independent, future sister station WVTV. The station was branded simply as "TV-24". By then, the station had been acquired by Arlington Broadcasting, which also owned WTTO in Birmingham, WQTV in Boston and KNXV-TV in Phoenix; the latter two stations were later sold off.
Fox affiliation
On March 15, 1987, WCGV joined the infant network Fox in time for the network's April 5 prime time launch, later taking the branding of "Fox 24". The station joined Fox on the condition that it be allowed to preempt The Late Show, which by the time WCGV acquired the affiliation had lost Joan Rivers as its host and was not doing well in the ratings. The station also wanted to maintain as much of its existing schedule as possible, as WCGV had success counterprogramming the major network affiliates with a 10 p.m. block of two episodes of The Bob Newhart Show every weeknight until 1989, when it was replaced by the syndicated Arsenio Hall Show. From September 1993 until December 1994, the station also carried CBS' Late Show with David Letterman on a half-hour delay in lieu of WITI, which refused to carry the show due to better ratings for reruns of M*A*S*H in the timeslot.By 1988, the station scored a major coup by acquiring the broadcast rights to the Milwaukee Brewers and the Milwaukee Bucks, both previously seen on WVTV. In the late 1980s, Arlington Broadcasting was sold and became known as HR Broadcasting. By the end of the 1980s, WCGV had pulled almost even with WVTV in the ratings.
WCGV and Birmingham's WTTO were purchased by Abry Communications in 1990. The station continued with its general entertainment format, along with Fox programs. WCGV entered into a local marketing agreement with WVTV in 1994. Although WCGV was the senior partner, the combined operation was based at WVTV's original studio facility near North 35th Street and Capitol Drive.
UPN affiliation
In early 1994, WITI was named as the market's new Fox affiliate as a result of a deal between the station's owner New World Communications and Fox as part of the network's decision to upgrade affiliates in certain markets after it acquired the broadcast rights to the National Football Conference of the NFL. For a short time between September and November 1994, the station carried Green Bay Packers games in the market through the network's NFC package as a lame-duck affiliate, though without any pre-game programming, the only break in network coverage by WITI of the team since the 1977 affiliation switch between WISN and WITI, which took place in the off-season.WCGV lost the Fox affiliation and briefly became an independent station again on December 4, 1994. Despite the local press considering WCGV to be CBS's best option for a replacement affiliate, the station repeatedly refused the network's advances. Then acting general manager Alan Frank openly castigated the network for what he considered its poor negotiation tactics, such as attempting to buy the station despite Abry's clear disinterest and their willingness to settle for low-rated UHF stations in other markets. The station cited advertising concerns in the decision to refuse CBS; becoming an independent station would allow the network to sell more of its own commercials, as opposed to being forced to give up significant portions of ad time to the network. While industry observers believed that the station's ownership was simply holding out for a better deal, it steadfastly refused to affiliate. CBS ultimately affiliated with WDJT-TV.
Instead, it became a charter affiliate of the United Paramount Network on January 16, 1995, following a pattern in which many former Fox affiliates in markets where New World owned a station decided to join either UPN or fellow upstart network The WB if they did not join a Big Three network displaced due to the affiliation switches. Around this time, the station changed its branding to "UPN 24", with a generic logo consisting of the station's call letters and channel number beneath the primary color UPN "shapes" logo of that time.
In 1995, Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired WCGV and the other properties owned by Abry's television station group. WVTV was purchased by Glencairn Ltd.. The Smith family, owners and founders of Sinclair owned 97% of Glencairn's stock, so Sinclair effectively owned both stations. Glencairn was involved in similar deals, owning eleven stations that were all operated by Sinclair under LMAs. This arrangement prompted Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow/PUSH coalition to bring forward litigation, citing their concerns on racial issues in the face of one entity holding two broadcast licenses in a single market. The Federal Communications Commission eventually fined Sinclair $40,000 in 2001 for illegally controlling Glencairn.
On January 5, 1998, WCGV/Sinclair decided to drop the UPN affiliation over ratings and monetary issues, as did several other Sinclair stations in other markets after the company signed a lucrative affiliation deal with The WB to shift several stations from UPN. For eight months, the station reverted to being an independent station, though the only effect on the station's schedule was the replacement of UPN programming with syndicated film packages during prime time and Saturday afternoons, and paid programming in place of UPN Kids on Sunday mornings. A few local cable providers brought in the network's New York City area affiliate WWOR-TV to keep UPN programming available in the Milwaukee area, but for the most part the network was only seen on cable systems on the fringe of the market via WACY-TV in Appleton and WPWR-TV from Chicago; viewers could also choose to pull those stations over-the-air via antenna, along with the network's off-hours affiliation on WOOD-TV/WOTV across the lake in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Otherwise, most providers had dropped WWOR's "superstation" cable feed years before due to uninteresting programming replacing the main signal after SyndEx laws came into place, and the cable feed had been discontinued by satellite distribution rights holder Advance Entertainment Corporation a year earlier to increase distribution for Animal Planet.
However, WCGV did see a viewership decline without a network affiliation. It also received complaints from vocal Star Trek fans who had to pull in Voyager via over-the-air antenna from those out-of-market stations, switch to the Dish Network or PrimeStar satellite services for their "superstation" packages, or acquire the episodes through tape trading. Sinclair would eventually reverse its decision and come to terms with the network, resulting in WCGV rejoining UPN on August 4. On November 8 of that year, WCGV made up for the preemptions by airing an all-day Voyager marathon, showing the thirteen episodes making up the last half of season four that WCGV was not able to air during the second half of the 1997–98 season, with the permission of UPN and Paramount Television. WWOR was dropped from the few area cable systems it was on within days of the re-acquisition of WCGV's UPN affiliation.
Despite the reconciliation, the station continued to omit the mention of UPN from its own branding, and called itself "Channel 24" until the start of the 2001–2002 television season, when it brought back the "UPN 24" branding. WVTV became wholly owned by Sinclair in 2000, after the FCC overturned regulations that had prohibited television station duopolies.
WITI never held an interest in carrying any of Fox's children's programming after it joined that network due to existing local home showcase programming on Saturday mornings, and wanting to have traditional syndicated programming lead into its weekday local news programming; therefore, Fox Kids continued to air on WCGV for ten years after the affiliation switch. However, as time went on, WCGV began to use its own logo bug to cover all Fox logos, and advertised the block sparingly at the behest of UPN. The station declined to renew the children's block, later known as Fox Box and then 4Kids TV, after the fall of 2004, and subsequently 4Kids TV moved to independent WMLW-CA, where it aired on Sunday mornings until it ended on December 28, 2008.