WCTV

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WCTV
Thomasville, Georgia/Tallahassee, Florida
Branding	WCTV Eyewitness News
Slogan	Coverage You Can Count On
Channels	6 (VHF) analog, 46 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	CBS (secondary until 1956) My Network TV on DT2
Owner	Gray Television
Founded	September 15, 1955
Call letters meaning	W Capital TeleVision
Former affiliations	NBC (1955-56), ABC (secondary; 1955-76)
Website	wctv.tv

WCTV is the CBS television affiliate for the Tallahassee, Florida television market. The station is owned by Gray Television and is licensed to Thomasville, Georgia. The station broadcasts its analog signal on VHF channel 6 and its digital signal on UHF channel 46. WCTV covers the middle part of the Florida Panhandle and extreme southern Georgia. Its transmitter is located in Metcalf, Georgia due to FCC regulations requiring the transmitter to be no farther than 15 miles from the city of license. The WCTV Tower is a 609.6 meter high guy-wired aerial mast, and is the tallest man-made structure in Georgia.

The station operates a semi-satellite, WSWG in Valdosta, Georgia; which serves as the CBS affiliate for Albany.

Contents 1 History 2 WCTV-DT2 2.1 Logos 3 External links 4 See also 5 Transmitter Coordinates 6 External links

[edit] History

The station signed on September 15, 1955 from a studio on North Monroe Street in Tallahassee. It was owned by John H. Phipps.

Although it has always considered itself a Tallahassee station, it was licensed to Thomasville because the FCC had allocated only one VHF channel to Tallahassee, channel 11. Florida State University had managed to have the FCC designate channel 11 for noncommercial use so it could put WFSU-TV on the air. UHF was not considered viable at the time. Until the FCC required all sets to have all-channel capability in 1964, UHF stations were unviewable without a converter. Even with one, the picture quality was marginal at best. Hoyt Wimpy, owner and founder of WPAX radio in Thomasville, persuaded the FCC to grant the Phipps family a license for channel 6 in Thomasville, the nearest city to Tallahassee that had a VHF allocation available. The station operated a live studio in Thomasville for many years, and still has a bureau there.

WCTV was the only commercial station in the area until WECA-TV (now WTXL-TV) signed on in 1976. It originally carried programming from all three networks, but was a primary NBC affiliate. After only a year on the air, WCTV switched to CBS and has been affiliated with that network ever since. However, it carried a secondary ABC affiliation until WECA signed on. It is still the only commercial VHF station in the market (the only other VHF stations are PBS members WFSU-TV and WXGA-TV).

It was owned by the Phipps family until it was sold to Gray Television in 1996. Gray's purchase of WCTV forced the sale of WALB, Gray's flagship station in Albany, because WALB's signal has city-grade quality in most of the Georgia side of the market (including Thomasville and Valdosta).

However, in 2004, Gray purchased WSWG in Valdosta, a UPN affiliate for the Albany market. WCTV operates this station from its Tallahassee facilities. The station dropped UPN in September and is now a semi-satellite of WCTV. This created a strong combined signal with just under 50% overlap; WCTV had been the default CBS affiliate for Albany for many years.

In March of 2006, WCTV moved from its longtime studios on County Road 12 in northern Leon County to new facilities on Halstead Boulevard in Tallahassee. The Halstead Boulevard location used to house the now defunct Florida's News Channel.

[edit] WCTV-DT2

WCTV also operates a My Network TV affiliate for the Tallahassee area on one of its digital sub-channels.

[edit] Logos

WCTV DT2 current logo.

"My TV" logo, seen on WCTV's website; however, this logo is unofficial, used only for Gray-owned My Network TV affiliates (Lincoln's KOLN is another).

[edit] External links

• http://en.structurae.de/structures/data/index.cfm?id=s0013987
• http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/AsrSearch/asrRegistration.jsp?regKey=122125
• http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?b7099

[edit] See also

• WSWG

[edit] Transmitter Coordinates

• 30°40′14″N, 83°56′26″W

[edit] External links

• Station Website
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WCTV