WKRN-TV
WKRN-TV is a television station in Nashville, Tennessee, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Nexstar Media Group. The station's studios are located on Murfreesboro Road on Nashville's southeast side, and its transmitter is located in Forest Hills, Tennessee.
History
The early years on channel 8 as WSIX-TV
The station first signed on the air on November 29, 1953, as WSIX-TV, broadcasting on VHF channel 8; it was the second television station in Nashville. WSIX-TV was originally licensed to WSIX, Inc., which was owned by Louis and Jack Draughon, along with WSIX. Initially licensed to nearby Springfield, WSIX radio was launched on January 7, 1927, and based in the Draughon brothers' 638 Tire and Vulcanizing Company auto supply business in downtown Springfield. The "638" was the auto supply business' mailing address and did not allude to the assigned frequency for the radio station, nor would it for the television station. The station's original studio facilities were located on Old Hickory Boulevard, south of Nashville at the transmitter site, which was shared with WSIX-FM.Originally a CBS affiliate that shared the ABC affiliation with WSM-TV, it became a full-time ABC affiliate after only one year when WLAC-TV signed on and took the CBS affiliation due to WLAC radio's long history as a CBS radio affiliate. During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network. In 1961, WSIX-AM-FM-TV moved to a new studio located at 441 Murfreesboro Road, where the television station remains located today.
The current WKRN studio facility is where the Wilburn Brothers' television program was produced during the 1960s and 1970s. WSIX-TV, however, did not have much luck against WSM-TV and WLAC-TV. Part of the problem was a weak signal, as its transmitter was short-spaced to channel 8 in Atlanta – occupied first by WSB-TV. WSIX-TV was also hampered by a weaker network affiliation.
Channel swap of 1973 and the General Electric years
The Draughons sold the WSIX stations to General Electric in 1966. In 1973, GE agreed to a deal with Nashville's PBS member station, WDCN-TV, then on channel 2, to swap frequencies. GE participated in the channel trade because the analog channel 2 facility was better suited for a network affiliate as opposed to a non-commercial educational station. The swap occurred on December 11, 1973, at 9 pm, in the middle of prime time programming, between that night's Movie of the Week, The Cat Creature, and Marcus Welby, M.D.. At the same time, the station's calls were switched to WNGE to emphasize both a fresh start on channel 2, and to end any confusion regarding call letters which never resided on channel 6. This was only the third facility swap in American television history.In 1979, General Electric almost filed to sell WNGE to Nashville Television Inc., a subsidiary of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company during a proposed General Electric merger with Cox Broadcasting, with its new group being led by president William J. Kennedy, for $25 million, but the deal apparently fell through due to a lack of Federal Communications Commission approval.
As WKRN-TV
General Electric pared down its broadcasting holdings during the early 1980s, selling WNGE to Knight Ridder Newspapers in 1983. The new owners changed the calls on November 29 to the current WKRN-TV. Knight Ridder sold off all of its television stations in 1989, at which point channel 2 was sold to Young Broadcasting. Merely by coincidence, the call letters reflect the former Young Broadcasting flagship outlet, KRON-TV in San Francisco.Like all other ABC affiliates that were owned by Young Broadcasting, WKRN preempted ABC's broadcast of the movie Saving Private Ryan in 2004.
On June 6, 2013, Media General announced that it would acquire Young Broadcasting in an all-stock deal. The merger was completed on November 12, 2013, resulting in WKRN and its Knoxville sister station WATE-TV becoming sister stations of Johnson City-based WJHL-TV.
However, less than two years after that merger was finalized, the station's ownership appeared as though it was once again put into flux, as on September 8, 2015, Media General announced that it would acquire the Meredith Corporation for $2.4 billion, with the combined group to be renamed Meredith Media General once the sale was finalized. Because Meredith already owned WSMV, and the two stations rank among the four highest-rated stations in the Nashville market in total day viewership, the companies would have been required to sell either WSMV or WKRN to comply with FCC ownership rules as well as recent changes to those rules regarding same-market television stations that restrict sharing agreements.
The overlap issue was later rendered moot as the deal collapsed, and on January 27, 2016, it was announced that Nexstar Media Group would acquire Media General for $4.6 billion. The sale was completed on January 17, 2017.
Subchannel history
WKRN-DT2
WKRN-DT2 is the Ion Mystery–affiliated second digital subchannel of WKRN-TV, broadcasting in standard definition on channel 2.2).As Nashville WX Channel
WKRN launched the subchannel in 2008 as a local 24-hour weather channel for the Nashville area. It was branded on-air as the "Nashville Weather Channel", but stylized as the "Nashville WX Channel". The subchannel also simulcast the main channel's wall-to-wall severe weather coverage when a tornado warning was issued for any part of WKRN's coverage area. The Channel was somewhat of a locally oriented version of the AccuWeather channel, except that it implements a backward L bar for its screen orientation, with an information crawl on the bottom of the screen. It provided pre-recorded weather segments produced by the WKRN Weather Team, and it featured radar imagery, the current time, temperature, and precipitation count in the Downtown Nashville area. This subchannel was also ad-supported, for commercials are shown between a replay of the taped weather segments, and the next time they show the weather slides with music in the background. Like the digital weather channels of other stations formerly owned by Young Broadcasting, the channel is produced in-house with no outside assistance from any national services and is fully automated using the station's weather computers. This format was similar to that of WBAY-DT2, the local weather-oriented second subchannel of Green Bay, Wisconsin area ABC affiliate WBAY-TV, then one of WKRN's sister stations.In addition, some syndicated programming aired on this channel, most notably on Sunday mornings where E/I programming is offered through syndication, mainly including Canadian-imported syndicated show, Edgemont. The syndicated version of Storm Stories was also shown on WKRN-DT2 on weeknights at 7 pm. CT. Both Edgemont and Storm Stories were discontinued a month before WKRN-DT2 switched to the MeTV affiliation.
It previously showed Atlantic Coast Conference basketball and football games from Raycom Sports from 2012 until late August 2014, when MyNetworkTV affiliate WUXP took over those rights for the purpose to serve as a replacement for the syndicated Southeastern Conference football and basketball packages by ESPN Plus-produced SEC TV, which were discontinued because of the launch of the new cable-exclusive SEC Network.
In 2014, a Wikipedia user listed WKRN-DT2 as an affiliate of WeatherNation TV, but it never aired programming from that network. WZTV-DT2, the second subchannel of local Fox affiliate WZTV, became a WeatherNation affiliate in November 2014.
WKRN-DT2's programming was simulcast on WKRN-DT3, beginning on May 30, 2015, when the Live Well Network ceased national distribution outside of ABC's owned-and-operated stations. This ended on December 30, 2015, when WKRN added Justice Network to the third subchannel.
MeTV affiliation
It was reported that WKRN-DT2 would affiliate with MeTV, and did so at the stroke of midnight on February 1, 2016, replacing The Nashville WX Channel. MeTV was first carried on low-power station WJDE-LD on 31.1 from 2012 until 2016. WJDE also carried all of MeTV's programming full time, since that station did not broadcast any local programming whatsoever. Since WJDE signed on in 1986, it carried the full-time satellite feed of the Home Shopping Network, before it switched to MeTV in 2012. At the same time on February 1, 2016, when WKRN-DT2 switched from the Nashville WX Channel to carry MeTV, WJDE-LD's main channel switched from MeTV to Heroes & Icons.Until January 1, 2018, WKRN-DT2 was the default MeTV affiliate for viewers in at least the southern half of the Bowling Green, Kentucky market area who can receive the signal. In spite of WKRN-DT2 being the closest MeTV outlet, Louisville CBS affiliate WLKY, along with its main channel, was carried on the South Central Rural Telephone Cooperative cable system, which serves cable subscribers in the Caveland area of Barren, Metcalfe, and Hart counties. This ended on January 1, 2018, when Bowling Green-area NBC primary/CBS subchannel-only affiliate WNKY launched their third subchannel to carry the entire MeTV schedule.