WTVQ-DT
WTVQ-DT is a television station in Lexington, Kentucky, United States, affiliated with ABC and MyNetworkTV. Owned by Morris Multimedia, the station maintains studios and transmitter facilities on the outer loop of Man o' War Boulevard in the Brighton section of Fayette County.
The station began broadcasting on channel 62 as WBLG-TV in 1968 and has been an ABC affiliate for its entire history. It changed its call letters to WTVQ in 1973 and moved to channel 36 in 1980. With the exception of most of the 1990s, the station's local newscasts have generally rated third out of the four main TV newsrooms in Lexington.
History
WBLG-TV
Construction
On October 8, 1965, WBLG-TV, Inc. filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission to build a new television station on channel 62, the last commercial frequency available in the Lexington market. WBLG-TV, Inc. was a 50-50 partnership between Lexington-area businessman Roy White and Reeves Broadcasting Corporation. White already owned local radio station WBLG and would act as the entity's new president and general manager. Reeves chairman J. Drayton Hastie served as the chairman of WBLG-TV, Inc. Reeves owned existing television stations in Huntington, West Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina, as well as radio stations in Baltimore. The owners estimated the cost of constructing the station would be in excess of $1 million, and the station would be equipped to broadcast in color from the start.On June 24, 1966, WBLG-TV's application was designated for hearing alongside a competing application from Kentucky Central Life Insurance Company. However, on January 27, 1967, Kentucky Central Life announced that it would purchase existing station WKYT-TV from Taft Broadcasting for $2.5 million, signaling its exit from the channel 62 hearing. With no other applicants for the channel 62 allocation, the FCC granted initial approval of the station's application on July 28, 1967.
Meanwhile, the WBLG-TV partnership acquired land at the intersection of Winchester Pike and Bryant Road, which would serve as the new studio and transmitting facilities for the station. As the area surrounding the proposed site was primarily agricultural in nature, having previously been used as a farm, the land needed to be rezoned before construction could begin. Approval for the rezoning came on November 10, 1967, despite objection from two local residents who lived near the proposed location. Central to their complaints was the proposed tower, which they felt was "unsightly"; they were also concerned that the tower might fall. Approval was granted on the condition that the entrance/exit to the station be on Bryant Road only and that screening devices be provided between the station and adjacent residences. The building permit for the actual building then came on December 12, 1967, with approval being granted for a one-story structure on the site, built at a cost of $149,000.
WBLG-TV signs-on
The station launched at 9:30 a.m. on June 2, 1968, as an ABC affiliate, broadcasting from the highest above sea level tower in Kentucky. Lexington's then-Mayor Charles Wylie was on hand with White and daughter Barbara to throw the switch that brought the station on the air. WBLG-TV originally branded as "The ENTERTAINMENT Channel–62 WBLG-TV". WKYT, the former primary affiliate of ABC, became the market's CBS affiliate in January, ahead of WBLG-TV's sign-on. By the station's eighth week on the air, it had already managed to capture a 30% share of the prime time audience in the market according to a station-commissioned American Research Bureau survey, putting it on par with the other two local stations. On September 7, It Takes a Thief star Malachi Throne and Ed Allen Time host Ed Allen appeared at a public open house at the station's studios to officially "Grand Open" WBLG-TV. The FCC granted WBLG-TV its permanent license on August 5, 1970.On May 7, 1973, it was announced that WBLG-TV would be sold to New Orleans–based Starr Broadcasting Group, Inc. at a price exceeding $2 million. Starr was headed by company president Peter M. Starr, with William F. Buckley Jr. serving as Starr's chairman of the board. Starr had owned WCYB-TV in Bristol, Virginia, and radio stations in Arkansas, California, Kansas, New Jersey, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas; it was also in the process of purchasing KHVH-AM-TV in Honolulu at the same time. This came after talks to merge Reeves' holdings into Starr failed. Control was transferred on November 14, 1973. WBLG radio was not affected by this sale and was subsequently sold the following summer to North Carolina–based Village Communications.
WTVQ-TV
New owners, new call letters
The new owners immediately sought to make their mark on their new purchase. The first such step came when the present WTVQ-TV call letters were adopted on December 20, 1973. Starr would also move its corporate base of operations to Lexington shortly after the acquisition of WTVQ was completed. In December 1974, WTVQ applied to operate a translator on channel 58 in Frankfort, which at the time was a part of the Louisville market. In 1975, WTVQ became the first television station in Lexington to experiment with 24-hour operations when it aired Blockbuster Movie Madness, which delivered four feature films from the late-evening hours right through the next morning. By 1978, WTVQ had become Lexington's first television station to implement electronic news gathering and shoot its stories on tape, whereas its competitors were still shooting with film.Move to channel 36; sale to the Disney family
However, Starr began to pour the foundation for the biggest move in the station's history: literally. In January 1977, WTVQ petitioned the FCC to allow them to move to channel 36, in a move the station said was needed to evenly compete with WLEX-TV and WKYT-TV. The station noted that channel 62 suffered from technical interference and signal quality issues due to its higher position on the dial. To make the move happen, two unused allocations would need to be moved. Channel 36 would need to be moved from Portsmouth, Ohio, into Lexington; channel 55 would be re-located from Glasgow, Kentucky, to Portsmouth to fill the void, then the soon-to-be-discarded channel 62 allocation would be moved from Lexington to Glasgow. Kentucky Educational Television, the statewide PBS member, initially opposed the move, fearing that they would lose potential viewers who, in tuning to channel 62, had to dial past its station, WKLE, on channel 46 and might have sampled its programming. On May 3, 1979, the move to channel 36 was officially given the green light by the FCC. The FCC gave the station one year from June 4 to make the move. While objections were lodged from potential station owners in the Louisville and Florence areas, they were rejected by the FCC, believing that the public would be better served by having WTVQ on channel 36.Meanwhile, in May 1978, Starr announced that it would be acquired by Los Angeles–based Shamrock Broadcasting Inc. in a $21.6 million all-cash, all-stock deal. Shamrock was wholly owned by Roy Disney, nephew of Walt and son of Walt's brother Roy. The FCC approved the transaction on June 8, 1979, and it closed on July 18. The deal had been held up as Buckley and three other company principals were being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for defrauding and misleading investors. Buckley agreed to pay back $1.4 million in cash and stock to shareholders and not serve as a director of any publicly traded company for five years. Buckley denied any wrongdoing.
WTVQ, now under Shamrock, began to prepare for its move to channel 36 by making station wide changes that included the firing of then-general manager Jeff Evans, the first building expansion in the station's history with new equipment, a $300,000 investment into the news department, an expansion of the 5:30 p.m. evening news from a half-hour to a full hour, and a "major emphasis on public affairs and community involvement". Shamrock's president and CEO, Bruce F. Johnson, vowed to "demonstrate that the way things were done here in the past is not the way Shamrock operates".
Morale in the newsroom was high; newly hired news director Clark Edwards noticed that "people were going about their jobs with a new drive after the change". Longtime weatherman Frank Faulconer, the only on-air personality remaining after the resignations, left for WKYT to help launch the station's new morning show, where he had hoped to "finish out my career". Faulconer worked at WKYT for exactly two days in February before returning to WTVQ and resuming his usual weeknight weather duties. However, a setback occurred as new news director Edwards would resign after just ten days on the job. Station officials were concerned that he had been falsifying details about his background – specifically claiming that he had held a doctorate degree in political science. When management asked Edwards to present proof of this, he was unable.
The change to channel 36 was originally scheduled to take place on June 1 but had to be postponed due to delays from RCA, the manufacturer of the new $1 million channel 36 transmitter. Finally, on June 21, 1980, WTVQ-TV signed off channel 62 for the last time just after midnight. Riggers began removing the channel 62 antenna from the station's tower, and installed the new channel 36 antenna. Management boasted that the new signal, double the power output of the channel 62 signal, would fill-in holes in the station's coverage area. The station claimed that the new 2,150,000-watt signal was the most powerful in the commonwealth. Some areas of Lexington, such as Chevy Chase, would be able to receive a clear signal from the station for the first time ever. CEO Johnson stated that Shamrock was investing over $2 million for these signal improvements. New newscast opening music and on-air imaging would accompany the channel change.
Management had hoped to be on the air by Monday, June 23, in time to broadcast that evening's ABC prime time lineup. However, the crew realized that the channel 62 antenna was heavier than they realized, which required them to remove it in sections. That, along with high winds on Tuesday, delayed the sign-on of channel 36 to Wednesday, June 25. Channel 36 beamed to life for the first time in Lexington at 2:18 p.m. with a test pattern. Forty minutes later, the national anthem was broadcast, completing the move to channel 36. WTVQ's old channel 62 transmitter was sold to a group that intended on starting a new station on channel 61 in Ashland, Kentucky.
Months after the move to channel 36 and improved product, tragedy struck at the station. Twenty-eight-year-old weekend anchor Tom Howell died when his car collided with a city sanitation truck that ran a stop sign. Howell had been with the station less than a year.
In June 1981, due to a poor showing in the May ratings book, the station dropped Nightline and replaced it with reruns of All in the Family. General manager Bill Service noted that the reruns ABC had previously been programming in the timeslot fared better locally than Nightline was. The station received over 75 phone calls and 25 letters from viewers expressing displeasure with the move. Nightline was restored to the schedule on August 17, at a new, later midnight timeslot, with the All in the Family reruns remaining in the same timeslot to "please both audiences", according to Service.
The station underwent a $2 million renovation starting in 1985 that doubled the existing office space and created all-new technical facilities. The expanded facilities were dedicated in April 1986.