WTOG

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WTOG
St. Petersburg / Tampa, Florida
Branding	CW44
Slogan	Tampa Bay's #1 Entertainment Station
Channels	44 (UHF) analog, 59 (UHF) digital
Translators	W23CN (23, UHF) Sebring, Florida W61AK (61, UHF) Inverness, Florida
Affiliations	The CW
Owner	CBS Corporation
Founded	1968
Former affiliations	Independent (1968-86, 1988-93); Fox (1986-88) PTEN (1993-1995) UPN (1995-2006)
Website	CW44.com

WTOG is the CW owned-and-operated affiliate for Tampa Bay, Florida. It is licensed to St. Petersburg. It broadcasts its analog signal on UHF channel 44, and its digital signal on UHF channel 59. Its transmitter is located in Riverview, Florida.

Contents 1 History 2 Logos 3 Ads 4 10 O'Clock News Anchors 5 External links

[edit] History

The station began operation in 1968 as general entertainment independent station, airing cartoons, sitcoms, movies, sports, dramas, and a 10pm newscast. It was originally owned by the Minnesota-based Hubbard Broadcasting Corporation, which owns KSTP-AM-FM-TV in the Twin Cities. In the station's early days, its slogan was: "WTOG...as far as the eye can see", which was made famous by a 1970s station identification package. WTOG was successful early on, it was so successful that it forced competitor WSUN-TV (now WTTA) off the air in 1970. For the rest of the 1970s and early into the 1980s, WTOG was the only independent station in the Tampa Bay area. This distinction finally ended in 1981, when WFTS-TV, then owned by Family Group Broadcasting, signed on. The station continued to compete head to head with WFTS. In the early 1980s, the station's slogan was "We're 44...we show you the good life".

During the 1970s and 1980s, WTOG was seen on many cable systems in central and southwestern Florida. In the 1980s, WTOG also had a network of low-powered repeaters, with repeaters in Sebring, Arcadia (in the Ft. Myers market), Ocala (Orlando market) and Okeechobee (West Palm Beach market). They billed themselves as "Florida's Super Station", which "Covered Florida Like The Sun". There was also some consideration to put WTOG on cable in Tallahassee, but that never came to fruition.

WTOG was one of the most profitable independent television stations in the country. In fact, during the late 1970s, a man named Ted Turner called the station to ask how it was that WTOG could be so profitable. It is believed that WTBS in Atlanta was modeled after WTOG.

In 1986, WTOG became a charter affiliate of the new Fox Broadcasting Company. However, this relationship lasted only 2 years, as WTOG dropped the affiliation in 1988, sending it to WFTS, now owned by the E.W. Scripps Company. Of course though, the station was still effectively independent during its time as a Fox affiliate, as Fox programming only comprised a small part of its schedule.

WTOG was largely unaffected by the affiliation swaps of 1994, which saw longtime CBS affiliate WTVT switch to Fox, WFTS going to ABC and longtime ABC affiliate WTSP go to CBS, but WTOG did become a charter UPN affiliate, aligning itself with the network at its launch in 1995. As with its days as a Fox affiliate, WTOG continued to program a traditional independent format during the day, with UPN programming shown during prime time. Paramount Stations Group, a subsidiary of Viacom purchased the station in the Spring of 1996 (swapping NBC affiliates WNYT in Albany, New York and WHEC in Rochester, New York to Hubbard in the process), and it changed its on-air branding to "UPN44".

WTOG's newscasts prior to 1982 was mainly at sign-on and sign-off, with the announcer reading the day's headlines over a slide. In the late-1970s and early-1980s, it featured a newsreader on camera reading the news during its morning discussion, Florida Daybreak. WTOG started using the Eyewitness News moniker in the late-1970s, though its news was still a rather staid, low-key affair, until they established a regular 10PM newscast in 1982. At first, WTOG continued to use the Eyewitness News name, with Barbara Callahan (former co-host of WTOG's PM Magazine) and John Nicholson (formerly an anchor at WTVT) as co-anchors. In the early-1990s, it was renamed 44 News at Ten. By 1996, following Viacom's acquisition of WTOG, it became "UPN44 10 O'Clock News" (with the slogan "Live, Local, Late Breaking"), co-anchored by Callahan and Patrick Emory. WTOG's news department was discontinued in 1998 due to financial reasons and competition from WTVT.

The station stopped airing cartoons when UPN cancelled UPN Kids in 2003. Today, CW44 runs syndicated shows such as off-network sitcoms, reality shows, talk shows, court shows, dramas, and UPN programming.

There were rumors that The E. W. Scripps Company would buy WTOG-TV from CBS Corporation (recently spun off from Viacom), thus creating a duopoly with ABC affiliate WFTS (who ironically had taken the FOX affiliation from WTOG in 1988). As of 2005, this has not occurred.

WTOG had handled master control operations for its sister station, KEYE in Austin, Texas, until WTOG's master control, along with that of Atlanta's WUPA, were moved to sister CW affiliate WGNT in Norfolk, Virginia; Twenty employees were laid off from WTOG ([1]), even though CBS had previously denied that such would happen ([2]). KEYE is currently in the process of being sold to Cerberus Capital Management.

On cable, WTOG can be seen throughout the Tampa Bay area on Bright House and Verizon FiOS channel 4, and on Comcast channel 9 in the Sarasota and Venice headends. WTOG also has a repeater in Sebring (W23CN channel 23). As for the other repeaters, the Arcadia and Sebring facilities have shut down while the Ocala station (W29AB) has since become a repeater for Orlando's WKMG-TV.

In May 1999, after WTOG's news department closed, WTOG housed WFLA-TV one day, when WFLA had a power outage at their main studios in Downtown Tampa.

[edit] Logos

WTOG's first logo, used from 1968 to 1970. This is actually only part of the logo; the complete logo also had the WTOG calls, with each letter in its own diamond (similar to the one used by its then-sister station, KSTP-TV).	WTOG's second, and most-well-known logo, used in various fashions from 1970 until its sale to Viacom in 1996.	Station's first UPN logo used from 1996 to 2002	Station's second and last UPN logo from 2002 to late August 2006
Current logo

[edit] Ads

Ad for The Love Boat on WTOG in 1984.

[edit] 10 O'Clock News Anchors

• Patrick Emory, anchor (1994-1998)
• Barbara Callahan, PM Magazine co-host (1980-1982); anchor (1982-1986; 1993-1998)
• John Nicholson, anchor (1980s)
• Sandra Cole, anchor (1988-1989) (now at WOWK)
• John ("J.P.") Peterson, sports (1997-1998, now at WFLA-TV)
• Wendy Ross, weather (now at WWSB)
• Justin Kiefer, weather (1997-1998, now at WMBB-TV)
• Kathryn Bursch, reporter (1980s-90s)
• Julie Brannon, anchor
• Jane Akre, anchor (1996)
• John Summer, anchor (1987-1994)
• Monica Stokes, weekend anchor (-1998)
• Beasley Reece, sports (1986-1988, 1997-1998, now at KYW-TV).
• Bob Alvarez, sports (early/mid 1990s)
• Rob Stone, sports (late 1990s)
• Diane Roberts, anchor (1989-1993)
• Carmen Roberts, reporter (1980s)
• Jay Villwock, feature reporter (1980s-1990s, now at WOI-TV)
• Ken Suarez, reporter (1988-1998, now at WTVT)
• Stan Rhoads, Cinema 44 Cash Call
• Harry Hairston, reporter (1980s, now at WCAU-TV)
• Dan Tylman, reporter (-1998)
• Marie Rhodes, reporter (-1998)
• Marcie Cipriani, reporter (-1998, now at WTAE-TV)
• Cindi Dohan, reporter (-1998)
• Stacey Phillips, reporter (-1998)
• Jack Harris, various spots (1970s-1983)
• Randy Scott, sports director (1982-1987)
• Ray Perkins, "The Buc Report"
• Mary Rogers, 10pm anchor (-1993)

[edit] External links

• Station Website
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WTOG
• Query the FCC's TV station database for W23CN
• Query the FCC's TV station database for W61AK