WDJT-TV

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WDJT-TV
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Branding	CBS 58 Milwaukee (general) CBS 58 News (newscasts) 10 at 10 (10 p.m. newscast)
Slogan	First. Fast. When Seconds Count.
Channels	Analog: 58 (UHF) Digital: 46 (UHF)
Affiliations	CBS Ind (WMLW-CA) (DT2) Ind (MeTV) (DT3)
Owner	Weigel Broadcasting Company (WDJT-TV, Limited Partnership)
First air date	November 10, 1988
Call letters’ meaning	Debra Jackson and John Torres (original license holders)
Sister station(s)	WBME-TV, WMLW-CA, WYTU-LP
Former affiliations	independent (1988-1994)
Transmitter Power	5000 kW (analog) 1000 kW (digital)
Height	339 m (analog) 322 m (digital)
Facility ID	71427
Transmitter Coordinates	43°6′42.1″N, 87°55′49.9″W
Website	www.cbs58.com

WDJT-TV "CBS 58 Milwaukee" is a television station located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It's an affiliate of the CBS television network. Its transmitter is located in Milwaukee's Lincoln Park next to WISN (Channel 12)'s tower and its signal covers most of southeastern Wisconsin, including Racine, Kenosha, Sheboygan and Waukesha.

WDJT is Wisconsin's only UHF CBS affiliate. The station also gathers news for CBS Radio in Milwaukee.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] History

WDJT's former logo, used from March 1996 - Sept. 2001. The "58" continued in use until 2008 during the station's morning newscast.

Aformentioned "Morning News Express" logo

WDJT signed on the air on November 10, 1988 as an independent station. Its call letters were selected in honor of its original owners, Debra Jackson and John Torres. Jackson died before the station took to the air, and Torres decided to sell controlling interest to Weigel in order to get more financing. At that time, its programming fare consisted of second-hand reruns of sitcoms, first-run syndicated shows, and a movie library.^{[citation needed]}

The station struggled at first, as there was barely enough room for a third independent in the city alongside WVTV-TV and WCGV. It was also hampered by a weak signal, which made cable carriers shy away from adding it to their lineups.^{[citation needed]}

The Milwaukee television market was in for a major shakeup in 1994 when New World Communications announced that most of its stations, including Milwaukee's WITI, would become Fox affiliates. That prompted CBS to look for a new affiliate in Milwaukee. It approached all four of Milwaukee's major stations--WTMJ-TV, WISN-TV (who was affiliated with CBS from 1961 to 1977), WVTV (which ironically was a CBS O&O in the 1950s) and WCGV. None of those stations were interested, however. This left CBS to negotiate with the city's lower-profile independents, WJJA (now WBME) and WDJT, as well as religious WVCY-TV. After negotiations with both WJJA and WDJT fell through, CBS made an abortive attempt to buy WVCY before its ownership group decided not to sell.^{[citation needed]}

With days to go before WITI was to join Fox, and faced with having to pipe in WISC-TV in Madison, WFRV-TV in Green Bay or WBBM-TV in Chicago for cable customers, the network finally affiliated with WDJT, even though it didn't even have a news department. This was similar to what happened to CBS in Detroit--as was the case in Milwaukee, CBS was forced to affiliate with a lower-profile station after being turned down by all of the high-profile stations in the market.^{[citation needed]}

As WDJT had not expected to go to CBS, a hastily-made logo with the CBS Eye to the left of WDJT's italic Times New Roman '58' of the time in red (and later yellow) was the station's logo for the next year and a half, along with a neutral image campaign using default CBS graphics while Channel 58 built a news department and looked for upgraded studio facilities. The switch took place on the afternoon of December 11, 1994 (the same day as Detroit with their CBS, Fox, and Independent affiliates), and the first CBS program to air on Channel 58 was 60 Minutes.^{[citation needed]}

WDJT's CBS affiliation caused major shuffles among area cable systems as they worked to quickly add it to their systems; it took until March 1995 for some Marcus Cable (the precursor to Charter Communications) cities to carry WDJT. As a result, many Milwaukee-area viewers without set-top or housetop antennas missed several major events, including the 1995 Grammy Awards, Daytona 500, Big Ten Basketball, and the NCAA Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments.^{[citation needed]}

Channel 58 launched its news operation from new studios on South 60th Street in West Allis in early 1996. Previously, the station's studio and transmitter were located on the top floors of what was then the Marc Plaza Hotel (now the Hilton Milwaukee City Center). The current studios are located in a building formerly associated with Allis-Chalmers.^{[citation needed]}

Three years later in 1999, the station's current Lincoln Park transmitter was put into service, giving the station an over-the-air signal comparable to the city's five other major commercial stations. Weigel would use this tower to launch two additional low-powered sister stations to WDJT (see below).^{[citation needed]}

In 2007, WDJT gained national attention after a station live truck fell through a frozen channel on Big Muskego Lake in Muskego, ironically while covering a story on ice safety. The estimated cost of repair was $250,000. A week after, the station would air a public service announcement on ice safety which premiered during CBS' Super Bowl XLI coverage, making light of the situation by referring to their news department as providing "the most in-depth coverage in Milwaukee."

[edit] Ownership

WDJT-TV is owned by Chicago, Illinois's Weigel Broadcasting. The company also owns full-power WBME (Channel 49) and two LPTV stations, Spanish-language Telemundo affiliate WYTU (Channel 63) and independent WMLW-CA (Channel 41), in the Milwaukee market.

[edit] Digital Television

The station's digital channel:

Digital channels

• Additionally, a fourth and fifth digital subchannel have been added in the past for multi-casting of games during the early rounds of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament in mid-March. In 2008 however, only one additional game was aired using WDJT-DT, over MeTV Milwaukee.

[edit] MeTV Milwaukee

Main article: WBME-TV

WDJT carries a digital subchannel called MeTV Milwaukee, which features a lineup of classic sitcoms and dramas resembling that of sister station WWME-CA (Channel 23) in Chicago. The subchannel is available over the air on Channel 58.3, over the air on Channel 49 and over Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications on Channel 201.

MeTV is in the process of moving to new sister station WBME-TV (Ch. 49), but will continue to simulcast over 58.3 until Weigel activates Channel 49's digital signal on the Weigel tower.^[1][2]

[edit] Post-analog shutdown

After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, which is tentatively scheduled to take place on February 17, 2009, ^[3] WDJT will remain on its current pre-transition channel number, 46. ^[4] However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers will display WDJT's virtual channel as 58.

[edit] Newscasts

Because of its relatively new status in the market, the station has the lowest rated newscast in Milwaukee. The station uses the "Ten at Ten" format for its late news, emphasizing the top stories and weather in the first 10 minutes of the program. WDJT has won regional Emmy awards, along with honors from the Associated Press for best newscast presentation. However, even with this critical acclaim, WDJT has yet to notch a ratings win, and syndicated programming on WVTV and WCGV is competitive with WDJT's newscasts, although in the May 2008 sweeps period both WITI and WDJT were separated by only a few thousand homes for the third place slot at 10pm.

WDJT, during the 2007 World Series produced a 9pm newscast for sister station WMLW-CA, in an attempt to attract non-Baseball viewers who would normally watch news on WITI-TV (but due to pre-emptions weren't able to during the World Series). ^[5] The station then introduced a 9pm newscast permanently on WMLW beginning on January 1, 2008. WDJT also produces a 10-minute local segment using Spanish-speaking reporters and anchors for co-owned Telemundo affiliate WYTU-LP, which airs during Telemundo's national 10pm newscast. Some of WDJT's news staff is bilingual and are seen reporting on both newscasts.

[edit] External links

• WDJT Official Website
• MeTV Milwaukee Official Website
• History of Milwaukee television
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WDJT
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WDJT-TV

[edit] References