WSMV-TV

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WSMV-TV
Nashville, Tennessee
Branding	Channel 4 News Telemundo Nashville (on DT2)
Slogan	Working 4 You
Channels	Analog: 4 (VHF) Digital: 10 (VHF)
Affiliations	NBC Telemundo (on DT2)
Owner	Meredith Corporation
First air date	September 30, 1950
Call letters’ meaning	We Shield Millions (V for "Vision" added to differentiate from WSM radio)
Former callsigns	WSM-TV (1950-1981)
Former affiliations	All secondary: ABC (1950-1954) CBS (1950-1953) DuMont (1950-1955)[1]
Transmitter Power	100 kW (analog) 42.4 kW (digital)
Height	434 m (analog) 415 m (digital)
Facility ID	41232
Transmitter Coordinates	36°8′27.4″N, 86°51′56.5″W
Website	www.wsmv.com

WSMV-TV Channel 4 is the NBC television affiliate serving the Nashville, Tennessee area. It broadcasts its analog signal on VHF channel 4 and its digital signal on VHF channel 10. Its transmitter and tower are located adjacent to its studios in west Nashville, which were built in 1963.

WSMV also airs programming from the NBC-owned Spanish-language network, Telemundo, on its DT2 subcarrier [2], since the Nashville DMA lacks a Telemundo affiliate of its own. The subchannel began airing in the summer of 2006. Nashville is the largest market in the U.S. without NBC Weather Plus on one of the NBC affiliate's subchannels.

[edit] History

[edit] Early years

WSMV signed on as WSM-TV on September 30, 1950 at 1:10 p.m. It was Nashville's first television station and the second in Tennessee, behind WMCT (now WMC-TV, coincidentally an NBC affiliate also) in Memphis. It was owned by the locally-based National Life and Accident Insurance Company along with WSM radio (650 AM & 95.5 FM); the AM station is renowned for broadcasts of the country music show "The Grand Ole Opry," which has been heard since 1925. The stations took their calls from their parent's slogan, "We Shield Millions."

The television station has been an NBC affiliate from the very first day, though it carried some programming from CBS, DuMont, and ABC until 1953, when WSIX-TV channel 8 (now WKRN-TV channel 2) signed on as a CBS primary affiliate. WSM shared ABC programming with WSIX for a year until WLAC-TV (now WTVF) signed on and took CBS. Before the advent of satellite delivery, network programming was delivered to WSM-TV by microwave transmission from WAVE in Louisville, Kentucky.

[edit] Ownership Changes since 1981

National Life was taken over by American General, a Houston-based insurer, in 1980. The new owners sold off WSM-AM-FM-TV, the Opry, and Opryland USA in order to maintain focus on the insurance business. Gaylord Entertainment Company bought the Opry, Opryland USA and WSM-AM-FM. Gaylord would have bought WSM-TV as well, but was already at the FCC's television ownership limit at the time; the FCC has since practically abandoned such restrictions. Instead, Gillett Broadcasting (property of George N. Gillett Jr.) bought WSM-TV on November 3, 1981 and changed the callsign to WSMV, in order to trade on the well-known WSM identity while at the same time separating it from its former radio sisters (later, the TV and radio stations would engage in news department cross promotions). WSMV was later sold, on June 8, 1989, to Cook Inlet Television Partners, an Alaska-based company which was a subsidiary of an Alaska Native Regional Corporation; Cook Inlet, in turn, sold it on January 5, 1995 to Meredith Corporation, its present licensee.

[edit] Past Personalities and Programs

The station's famous alumni include Pat Sajak (announcer and weekend weatherman from 1972 to 1977), Robin Roberts (sports anchor and reporter from 1986 to 1988), John Tesh (news anchor in 1975-1976), John Seigenthaler, Jr. (weekend anchor in the late 1980s) and Huell Howser (features reporter in the 1970s).

Ralph Emery, the longtime country music disc jockey on WSM-AM for many years, hosted morning (and at times, afternoon) shows on WSM(V) from the mid-1960s until the early 1990s; for much of that time, they were the highest-rated locally-produced early morning shows on American television. They featured performances by prominent country stars like Tex Ritter and current star Lorrie Morgan; also, the studio band consisted of top-notch Music Row session musicians.

Larry Munson, best known as the play-by-play announcer for radio broadcasts of Georgia Bulldogs football, created and hosted a long-running hunting and fishing show called The Rod & Gun Club.

[edit] News Ratings

WSMV has alternated with WTVF for first place in the Nashville ratings for many years. Generally speaking, the station takes a softer approach to news than WTVF. Surprisingly, the reverse was true some 15-20 years ago, as WSMV earned numerous prestigious awards for hard-hitting investigative stories, while WTVF took a more cautious approach. While WTVF usually leads the way in the city of Nashville itself, WSMV generally leads in Nashville's more conservative suburbs. Dan Miller, one co-anchor of its newscasts, has been associated with the station since 1969, except for an eight-year absence (1986-1994) during which he spent time in Los Angeles as a news anchor at KCBS and Sajak's sidekick on his short-lived late-night talk show.

[edit] Recent Events

Early in 2006, WSMV attracted some attention by becoming the largest-market NBC affiliate to refuse to carry the controversial NBC show The Book of Daniel on its programming schedule, after the premiere episode. This action, along with that of several smaller affiliates in the Midwest and South, prompted NBC to cancel the series after only three episodes.

During the May sweeps period that began on April 26, 2007, WSMV debuted its own live news helicopter known as Air 4, becoming the second station in Nashville to do so (WTVF's news helicopter Sky 5 debuted a year earlier, in 2006).

[edit] Digital Television

The station's digital channel :

Digital channels

WSMV will broadcast only on digital channel 10 when the analog channel 4 signal shuts down on February 17, 2009.[3]

[edit] External links

• Memories Of The WSM-TV Announcers' Booth
• WSMV Website
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WSMV
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WSMV-TV