WTVF
WTVF is a television station in Nashville, Tennessee, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside Ion Television owned-and-operated station WNPX-TV. WTVF's studios are located on James Robertson Parkway in downtown Nashville, and its transmitter is located north of downtown along I-24 near Whites Creek.
History
WTVF first signed on the air August 6, 1954, as WLAC-TV, originally owned by the Life and Casualty Insurance Company, and Nashville businessmen Guilford Dudley, Al Beaman and Thomas Baker. Life and Casualty's chairman of the board Paul Mountcastle and his investment group also held controlling interest in WROL-TV in Knoxville, but the two stations were not considered to be co-owned. Ever since its inception, WLAC-TV's analog signal was short-spaced to Memphis' WMC-TV, and Atlanta's WAGA-TV, also on VHF channel 5. WLAC-TV was owned alongside WLAC radio and later WLAC-FM. The call sign reflected the initials of the insurance company. It immediately took the CBS affiliation from WSIX-TV because WLAC had been Nashville's CBS Radio affiliate since 1928. With WLAC-TV, Nashville became one of the smallest cities in the United States to have three fully separate network-affiliated commercial television stations. American General Corporation, a Houston-based insurer, bought L&C and WLAC-AM-FM-TV in the 1960s.In 1975, American General sold channel 5 to the Hobby family of Houston, who changed the station's call letters to the current WTVF on December 1. The call letter change was brought on due to an FCC rule in place at the time forbidding TV and radio stations in the same city from sharing the same base callsign if they had separate owners. American General/L&C eventually sold WLAC-AM-FM to other interests and the other stations have had several owners over the years. In 1983, the Hobbys reorganized their broadcast holdings as H&C Communications after the Post was sold. Landmark Communications, based in Norfolk, Virginia, bought WTVF from the Hobbys in 1994.
On January 30, 2008, Landmark announced its intention to sell WTVF, along with sister station KLAS-TV in Las Vegas and cable network The Weather Channel. This was followed on July 14, 2008, with an announcement that WTVF would be sold to Bonten Media Group, which at that time already owned 16 broadcast television stations in five states, including WCYB-TV in Bristol, Virginia. However, the deal was called off due to the 2008 financial crisis as Bonten informed Landmark that it could not close on the purchase after its key financial backer for that purchase, Lehman Brothers, filed for what remains the largest bankruptcy in American history. Although the sale of The Weather Channel and some other assets was eventually completed, Landmark took most of its other properties off the market in October 2008. As a result, WTVF and KLAS remained owned by Landmark. WTVF would have become the largest station owned by Bonten, as well as the first CBS affiliate in its portfolio.
On May 1 and 2, 2010, WTVF's newsroom was flooded with of water, and became non-operational for three months as it was being rebuilt. During the flooding, equipment was hastily moved to other locations around the building to prevent disruption of the station's news operation.
On September 4, 2012, Milwaukee-based Journal Communications announced that it would purchase WTVF from Landmark for $215 million. The FCC approved the sale on October 22, and it was consummated on December 6. With the transaction's completion, WTVF became the largest Journal-owned station by market size. It also made WTVF the sister station of KLAS-TV's rival, KTNV-TV.
On July 30, 2014, less than two years after Landmark sold the station to Journal, it was announced that Journal Communications would be bought out by the E. W. Scripps Company in an all-stock transaction. Scripps retained the companies' broadcast holdings, including WTVF, and spun off their print holdings into Journal Media Group. This marks the second time that Scripps has owned a Tennessee television station, as it was the founding owner of WMC-TV in Memphis from its 1948 sign-on until 1993. The FCC approved the deal on December 12, 2014. It was approved by the two companies' shareholders on March 11, 2015, and it closed on April 1.
On September 24, 2020, a consortium made up of Scripps and Berkshire Hathaway announced the proposed purchase of Ion Media. As there were no regulatory complications within the Nashville market, the deal made Ion station WNPX-TV a sister station to WTVF. The transaction was finalized and closed on January 7, 2021.
Subchannel history
WTVF-DT2
WTVF-DT2, branded as NewsChannel 5 Plus or NewsChannel 5+, is the second digital subchannel of WTVF, operating as an independent station. It broadcasts in standard definition on channel 5.2.NewsChannel 5+ was introduced and launched in September 1996 as an all-news and information cable-only channel for the Nashville area. In addition to locally produced shows and newscast repeats, NewsChannel 5+ also carried programming from All News Channel until that service folded in September 2002. After that point, the channel's programming schedule relies mostly on original content.
NewsChannel 5+ was relaunched as an over-the-air digital sub-channel on June 21, 2009, nine days after the Digital TV transition of 2009, when WTVF began utilizing digital multi-casting on its digital signal. Since then, News Channel 5+ is being broadcast on digital channel 5.2. In mid-2014, WTVF-DT2's standard definition picture was upgraded to 16:9 SD widescreen to accommodate widescreen TVs.
WTVF-DT3
WTVF-DT3, the third digital subchannel, which is also available on Comcast channel 249, was launched as an affiliate of This TV on the same day as the over-the-air relaunch of NewsChannel 5+ on WTVF-DT2. On September 24, 2015, it was replaced by Laff. On September 1, 2021, Bounce TV replaced Laff.Programming
From September 2017 to May 2019, WTVF produced the syndicated daily talk show Pickler & Ben, featuring country artist Kellie Pickler and comedian Ben Aaron. The program, which the station served as its flagship station, was recorded with a live audience at Skyway Studios, the former north Nashville studio facility of the Christian Broadcasting Network.WTVF provides local coverage of New Year's Eve Live: Nashville's Big Bash on December 31 each year since 2021.
Sports programming
In 1998, WTVF became the primary home station for the Tennessee Titans, then still known as the Oilers starting with that season, when the rights to air road games of the National Football League's American Football Conference moved to CBS from NBC. In 2014, the first eight weeks of NFL Network's Thursday Night Football were added to WTVF's sports programming roster due to the new partnership between NFL Network and CBS to simulcast that program. WTVF began simulcasting any of the Tennessee Titans' TNF appearances in the late half of the season, beginning with the Titans–Jacksonville Jaguars game on November 19, 2015. In the 2013 and 2014 seasons, that duty was previously held by Fox affiliate WZTV; from 2018 to 2021, WZTV broadcast TNF games as part of Fox's rights to the package. In 2022, TNF broadcasts returned to WTVF; currently, any of the Titans' Thursday night appearances air on the station through a simulcast with Amazon Prime Video.In the mid-1980s, WTVF shared with WZTV the local broadcast rights to Southeastern Conference basketball games produced by the Lorimar Sports Network until that syndication service dissolved after the 1985–86 season. Beginning January 1987, when Jefferson-Pilot Teleproductions began syndicating those games, WSMV began serving as the package's primary Nashville-area rights-holder until WUXP-TV won the local rights for the rest of that package's run.
WTVF aired any Vanderbilt Commodores football games selected for broadcast on the SEC on CBS from 1996 to 2023.
During the 2024–25 season, WTVF announced an agreement to simulcast three Nashville Predators games alongside FanDuel Sports Network South.
Past programming
The station's Studio A, which was built in 1967 near the Tennessee State Capitol building, was also the home of the hit show Hee Haw for most of its 1968 to 1993 run; its last few years were recorded at The Nashville Network's studios, adjacent to the now-defunct Opryland USA theme park. Additionally, the 1970s syndicated version of Candid Camera originated from the station's facilities for most of its run.The station's relation to WLAC, which was known for many years for its nighttime soul music programming, led it to air a groundbreaking show on Friday and Saturday nights during the mid-and late-1960s called Night Train hosted by Noble Blackwell, which featured R&B performances and dancing similar to American Bandstand. Early in his career, Jimi Hendrix played guitar in a band that appeared on the show. From 1972 to 1975, Show Biz, Inc.'s The Bobby Goldsboro Show was recorded at the WLAC-TV/WTVF studios.
In March 1984, WTVF launched its locally produced magazine format program, Talk of the Town, hosted by Debbie Alan. Co-hosts Harry Chapman and Joe Case joined the show a few months later. Case also did weather for the show and for the morning and midday newscasts, while Chapman was the station's entertainment reporter.
WTVF aired the CBS Daytime lineup out of pattern in the late 1980s to early 1990s. WTVF aired The Bold and the Beautiful on a delay at 1:30 p.m. and As the World Turns at 3 p.m.; Talk of the Town occupied the 12:30 p.m. timeslot. Like many other CBS stations prior to the 1993 debut of Late Show with David Letterman, WLAC/WTVF also did not carry or delayed CBS' late night programming to air their own syndicated programs such as newsmagazines and sitcoms.