WTKR

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    WTKR
    Channels
    BrandingWTKR News 3
    Programming
    Affiliations3.1: CBS (secondary until 1953)
    3.2: Court TV
    3.3: Bounce TV
    3.4: HSN
    3.5: Circle
    Ownership
    Owner
    WGNT
    History
    First air date
    		April 2, 1950 (73 years ago) (1950-04-02)
    Former call signs
    		WTAR-TV (1950–1981)
    Former channel number(s)
    		Analog:
    4 (VHF, 1950–1952)
    3 (VHF, 1952–2009)
    Digital:
    40 (UHF, 2002–2020)
    Primary:
    NBC (1950–1953)
    Secondary:
    DuMont (1950–1955)
    ABC (1950–1957)
    Call sign meaning
    		Dual meaning:
    * Tidewater; Knight Ridder (former owners)[2]
    * tribute nod to WTAR (rhyming scheme)
    Technical information
    Licensing authority
    		FCC
    Facility ID47401
    ClassDT
    ERP610 kW
    HAAT375 m (1,230 ft)
    Transmitter coordinates36°48′31.8″N 76°30′11.3″W / 36.808833°N 76.503139°W / 36.808833; -76.503139
    Links
    Public license information
    Websitewtkr.com

    WTKR (channel 3) is a television station licensed to Norfolk, Virginia, United States, serving the Hampton Roads area as an affiliate of CBS. It is owned by E. W. Scripps Company alongside Portsmouth-licensed CW affiliate WGNT (channel 27). Both stations share studios on Boush Street near downtown Norfolk, while WTKR's transmitter is located in Suffolk, Virginia.

    History[edit]

    Early history[edit]

    The station began operation on channel 4 on April 2, 1950, as WTAR-TV. It was Hampton Roads' first television station and the second television station in Virginia, after WTVR (channel 6) in Richmond. It carried programming from all four networks of the time—NBC, CBS, ABC, and DuMont—but was a primary NBC affiliate. In its first year of operation, when only 600 TV sets existed in the area, it had 19 locally originated programs in addition to network shows. Within a year of the station's debut, it moved into a new radio-TV center at 720 Boush Street.[3]

    It was owned by Norfolk Newspapers, publisher of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, along with WTAR radio (AM 790, now on AM 850), Virginia's first radio station, and WTAR-FM.[3] It moved to channel 3 in 1952 in order to avoid interference with WNBW (now WRC-TV) in Washington, D.C. When WVEC-TV signed on a year later as an NBC affiliate, WTAR-TV became a primary CBS affiliate, retaining its secondary ABC and DuMont affiliations.

    WTAR became solely affiliated with CBS in 1957, when WAVY-TV signed on as the ABC affiliate (WAVY and WVEC would swap affiliations in 1959 making the latter station the ABC affiliate). DuMont also shut down in 1956. In 1967, Norfolk Newspapers was reorganized as Landmark Communications, WTAR-AM-FM-TV became the flagship stations. The station was one of several in the country to produce a local version of PM Magazine from the late 1970s to mid-1980s.

    The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began tightening its ownership restrictions in the 1970s, eventually barring common ownership of newspapers and broadcasting outlets. Landmark was able to get grandfathered protection for its flagship Hampton Roads cluster. However, in 1981, it opted to sell channel 3 to Knight-Ridder, who changed the station's calls to WTKR on March 4. The new calls not only reflected the new ownership (FCC rules prohibited TV and radio stations in the same market, but with different ownership from sharing the same callsigns then, hence the modification), but also sounded similar to the old ones. Knight-Ridder sold WTKR and sister station WPRI-TV in Providence, Rhode Island to Narragansett Television in 1989. Narragansett sold WTKR to The New York Times Company in 1995.

    Former WTKR logo, used from 1998 to 2002; this logo retained the "3" introduced with the previous 1995-98 logo, but revised the "NewsChannel" branding.
    Former WTKR logo, used from 2002 to 2016.

    Local TV and Tribune ownership[edit]

    On May 7, 2007; the Times sold its entire broadcasting division, including WTKR, to Local TV.[4] In June 2010, Local TV announced that it would be acquiring CW affiliate WGNT (channel 27) from CBS Corporation's Television stations group. WTKR managed the station through a time brokerage agreement from that point until Local TV closed on the purchase on August 4. This purchase created the market's second co-owned duopoly operation, after the LIN TV-owned combination of WAVY and Fox affiliate WVBT.

    On July 1, 2013, Local TV announced that its 19 stations would be acquired by the Tribune Company, the owner of the Daily Press in Newport News, for $2.75 billion;[5] Since this would conflict with FCC regulations that prohibit newspaper-television cross-ownership within a single market[6] (although Tribune has maintained cross-ownership waivers for its newspaper-television station combinations in four other media markets), Tribune spun off WTKR and WGNT to Dreamcatcher Broadcasting, an unrelated company owned by former Tribune Company executive Ed Wilson. Tribune provided services to the stations through a shared services agreement, and held an option to buy back WTKR and WGNT outright in the future.[7] The sale was completed on December 27.[8] Tribune later announced on July 10, 2013, that it would spin off its newspapers (including the Daily Press) into a separate company, the Tribune Publishing Company, in 2014, pending shareholder and regulatory approval.[9]

    Aborted sale to Sinclair; sale to Nexstar and resale to Scripps[edit]

    Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of MyNetworkTV affiliate WTVZ-TV (channel 33), entered into an agreement to acquire Tribune Media in 2017. Sinclair would have had to select one of WGNT or WTVZ-TV to keep alongside WTKR; no divestiture plan was announced.[10] However, the transaction was designated in July 2018 for hearing by an FCC administrative law judge, and Tribune moved to terminate the deal in August 2018.[11]

    In 2019, Nexstar Media Group, owner of WAVY-TV and WVBT, announced it would acquire Tribune.[12] Nexstar opted to retain its existing stations and sold WTKR–WGNT to the E. W. Scripps Company.[13]

    News operation[edit]

    Not surprisingly for a station with roots in a newspaper, channel 3 dominated the news ratings in Hampton Roads for most of its first four decades on the air. However, its ratings slipped after a botched relaunch in 1994. The station has mostly recovered.

    Over the years, the station expanded its news operation to include about 30 hours of local news production per week. During the 2009 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, independent station WSKY-TV aired two weeknight 11 o'clock newscasts from WTKR. WTKR did air late newscasts at midnight when the coverage concluded.[14]

    WTKR started the area's first 4 p.m. newscast on September 8, 2009.[15] This is the station's second attempt at a newscast during the 4 p.m. hour, as WTKR had aired a short-lived 4:30 p.m. newscast in 1995.[16]

    WTKR began producing and airing its local newscasts in high definition on January 26, 2009, with the 5:00 p.m. broadcast.[17] WTKR is the third station in the Hampton Roads market, after WAVY-TV and WVBT, to begin airing high definition newscasts (as opposed to the upconverted widescreen standard definition format of WVEC's newscasts).

    As of August 25, 2011, a two-hour extension of WTKR's weekday morning newscast airs from 7 to 9 a.m. on sister station WGNT. On July 7, 2014, a half-hour 7 p.m. newscast made its debut on WGNT featuring former morning anchor Laila Muhammad, Les Smith and chief meteorologist Patrick Rockey. It is the first and only newscast at that time slot in the Hampton Roads area.[18] Almost a year later, a weeknight 10 p.m. newscast returned to WGNT after 18 years under the name WGNT News at 10 - Powered by NewsChannel 3 on June 29, 2015. This was not the first attempt at a weeknight 10 p.m. newscast for the station; a previous incarnation ran from 1995 to 1997 (as NewsChannel 3 at 10:00 on UPN 27) when WGNT was a UPN affiliate.[19]

    On June 17, 2016, WTKR retired the NewsChannel 3 branding it had used since 1995, returning to the News 3 moniker it used from 1970 to 1992.

    Notable former on-air staff[edit]

    Technical information[edit]

    Subchannels[edit]

    The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

    Subchannels of WTKR[22]
    Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
    3.1 1080i 16:9 WTKR-DT Main WTKR programming / CBS
    3.2 480i 4:3 CourtTV Court TV
    3.3 Bounce Bounce TV
    3.4 16:9 HSN HSN
    3.5 Circle Circle

    On December 6, 2014, WTKR added its first digital subchannel. This TV, a diginet then co-owned by Tribune Media, was placed on virtual channel 3.2.

    Analog-to-digital conversion[edit]

    WTKR began digital broadcasts on channel 40 on March 11, 2002, at 4:15 p.m. The station discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 3, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated from analog to digital television.[23] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 40, using PSIP to display WTKR's virtual channel as 3 on digital television receivers.

    The station frequency transitioned to channel 16 on July 2, 2020.[24]

    Eastern Shore translator[edit]

    There is one low-powered translator of WTKR on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, W18EG-D in Onancock.[25] It is owned by the Accomack County government rather than Scripps.[26] WTKR and Scripps do not own any translators located in the Greater Hampton Roads area.

    References[edit]

    1. ^ "Nexstar Selling 19 TVs In 15 Markets For .32B". TVNewsCheck. NewsCheckMedia. March 20, 2019. Retrieved March 20, 2019.
    2. ^ http://articles.dailypress.com/1999-05-15/features/9905150026_1_wtkr-stations-letters[bare URL]
    3. ^ a b "WTAR-TV Marks Its First Year" (PDF). Broadcasting. April 30, 1951. p. 62. Retrieved August 8, 2016.
    4. ^ NY Times CO. Sell TV Group to Equity Firm for $530M; Second equity group to buy a media business in two weeks., NewsInc. (via HighBeam Research), January 8, 2007.
    5. ^ Channick, Robert (July 1, 2013). "Acquisition to make Tribune Co. largest U.S. TV station operator". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
    6. ^ Walzer, Phil (July 2, 2013). "Tribune to buy Norfolk stations WTKR and CW27". The Virginian-Pilot. Retrieved May 16, 2016.
    7. ^ "Transferee Exhibit 15 Agreements and Summary of Transaction". FCC document. Retrieved July 17, 2013.
    8. ^ Company Completes Final Steps of Transaction Announced in July Archived December 28, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, Tribune Company, December 27, 2013
    9. ^ Haughney, Christine; Carr, David (July 10, 2013). "Tribune Co. to Split in Two". The New York Times. Retrieved July 10, 2013.
    10. ^ Eggerton, John (October 5, 2017). "Sinclair to FCC: We're Priming Divestiture Pump". Broadcasting & Cable. Archived from the original on December 6, 2022. Retrieved April 7, 2023.
    11. ^ Flint, Joe (August 9, 2018). "Tribune Terminates $3.9 Billion Sinclair Merger, Sues Broadcast Rival". The Wall Street Journal. News Corp. Archived from the original on April 5, 2019. Retrieved August 9, 2018.
    12. ^ Mark K. Miller (December 3, 2018). "Nexstar Buying Tribune Media For $6.4 Billion". TVNewsCheck. Archived from the original on December 4, 2018. Retrieved December 4, 2018.
    13. ^ Ahmed, Nabila; Sakoui, Anousha (March 20, 2019). "Nexstar to Sell Stations to Tegna, Scripps for $1.32 Billion". Bloomberg News. Bloomberg, L.P. Archived from the original on April 13, 2019. Retrieved March 15, 2023.
    14. ^ "Business News".
    15. ^ http://www.vartv.com/pdf/WTKR_2009_08_31.pdf[bare URL PDF]
    16. ^ "Untitled Document".
    17. ^ http://vartv.com
    18. ^ "Announcing WGNT News Powered by NewsChannel 3: Now Weeknights at 7pm!". Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Retrieved August 18, 2014.
    19. ^ "WGNT is expanding their weekend 10:00 p.m. Newscast to weeknights, powered by WTKR". June 16, 2015.
    20. ^ "Fates and Fortunes: News and Public Affairs" (PDF). American Radio History. Broadcasting Magazine. January 28, 1980. p. 124. Retrieved October 20, 2017.
    21. ^ "Bioguide Search".
    22. ^ RabbitEars TV Query for WTKR
    23. ^ List of Digital Full-Power Stations
    24. ^ "If you watch News 3 with antenna you will need to rescan starting July 3". July 2, 2020.
    25. ^ "W18EG-D". Federal Communications Commission.
    26. ^ "RabbitEars.Info".

    External links[edit]

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