| Knoxville, Tennessee | |
|---|---|
| City of license | Knoxville |
| Branding | Channel 10 (general) 10 News (newscasts) |
| Slogan | "Straight from the Heart" |
| Channels | Digital: 10 (VHF) Virtual: 10 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | 10.1 NBC 10.2 Accuweather channel |
| Affiliations | NBC |
| Owner | Gannett Company (Gannett Pacific Corporation) |
| First air date | August 12, 1956 |
| Call letters' meaning | W Jay BIRdwell (founder of the station) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 10 (VHF, 1956-2009) Digital: 31 (UHF) |
| Former affiliations | CBS (1956-1988) |
| Transmitter power | 40.9 kW |
| Height | 529.6 m |
| Facility ID | 46984 |
| Transmitter coordinates | (digital) |
| Website | www.wbir.com/ |
WBIR-TV, channel 10, is the NBC affiliate television station in Knoxville, Tennessee. The station is licensed to the Gannett Pacific Corporation, a subsidiary of the Gannett Company. Its transmitter is located in the broadcasting antenna farm on Sharp's Ridge in Knoxville.
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WBIR-TV signed on the air on August 12, 1956 as an affiliate of the CBS television network, taking that affiliation away from WTVK (channel 26, now WVLT-TV on channel 8). During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.[1] WBIR-TV was owned and named after Jesse W. "Jay" Birdwell, who also owned WBIR radio (1240 AM, now WIFA; and 103.5 FM, now WIMZ). Although WBIR radio's sign off was "We are the Best In Radio," which spelled out WBIR, the TV station's call letters actually came from the first three letters of Jay Birdwell's last name.
Birdwell was also one of the partners who had put WJHL-TV, the CBS affiliate in Johnson City, Tennessee (Tri-Cities), on the air in 1953. Shortly after signing Channel 10 on the air in Knoxville, Birdwell gave up his interest in WJHL-TV because channel 10's city-grade analog signal covered the area between Morristown and Greeneville, which is part of the Tri-Cities market. At the time, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) normally did allow common ownership of two stations with overlapping signals, and would not even consider granting a waiver for a city-grade overlap. Birdwell, who now had lesser partners in the ownership of WBIR-TV, opted to keep WBIR-TV because he still owned WBIR-AM-FM.
However, in 1957, Birdwell abruptly sold his majority interest in the WBIR stations to a group of investors: general manager John P. Hart, Gilmore Nunn, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Ashe, and Taft Broadcasting of Cincinnati. On October 29, 1959, Nunn, the Ashes, and Hart sold their 70 per cent of the station outright to Taft, which owned the station for just over a year. On November 16, 1960, Taft sold WBIR-AM-FM-TV to the News-Piedmont Company of Greenville, South Carolina; owner of WFBC-AM-FM-TV in its hometown. In 1967, News-Piedmont merged with Southern Broadcasting to form the Southeastern Broadcasting Corporation. Soon afterward, Southeastern sold all of its radio stations, purchased four more television stations and changed its name to Multimedia, Inc. WBIR-TV and WFBC-TV were its flagship stations.[2]
In 1988, WBIR became an NBC affiliate, swapping affiliations with WTVK just before it moved to channel 8 as WKXT-TV. Ironically, this marked CBS' return to its original affiliate in Knoxville. At the time, NBC was the top-rated network while CBS was in third place near the midpoint of the Laurence Tisch period of that network's history. The biggest reason was that most of Multimedia's stations were NBC affiliates. Companies that own several stations affiliated with the same network generally have more clout with that network. NBC was more than willing to make the switch, since WTVK had been one of its weakest affiliates while WBIR was a solid runner-up to WATE-TV. With the switch, Channel 10 became the last major commercial station in Knoxville to change affiliations. The switch also made channel 10 the third station in Knoxville to carry NBC; the network had previously aired on WATE from 1953 to 1979 before moving to WTVK in 1979. Multimedia merged with Gannett in 1995. In 2008, WBIR-TV debuted new graphics and news music. On June 1st, 2011, WBIR-TV & WTNZ-TV debuted a new High-Definition news set & weather studio and a full makeover of branding. However, WBIR-TV retained their logo by adding the HD symbol to the right of the logo.
| Channel | Name | Video | Aspect | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10.1 | WBIR-HD | 1080i | 16:9 | Main WBIR-TV programming / NBC |
| 10.2 | WBIR-WX | 480i | 4:3 | 10 Weather Now |
The national NBC Weather Plus network is defunct as of December 1, 2008, and was revamped as an affiliate of NBC Plus, utilizing the same graphics as Weather Plus (and is now a computer-updated loop of regional satellite/radar images, current temperatures, and daily forecasts) and without the national on-camera meteorologist segments (though the local OCM segments remained). It also airs FCC-mandated "E/I" programming on weekend mornings. In late 2011, it was replaced with The Local AccuWeather Channel, branded as "10 Weather Now".
After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion on June 12, 2009, WBIR-TV moved its digital broadcasts back to its former analog channel number, 10.
The Heartland Series, hosted by Bill Landry, was a popular documentary series produced by WBIR from 1984 until 2009. It was conceived in 1984 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It continued to celebrate the people and the land of the entire Appalachian region, presenting re-enactments of historic events and feature stories about regional culture.[3] In February 2009, WBIR announced that it would suspend production of the series in September 2009, but would continue to show the hundreds of episodes already produced "for as long as the viewers like them."[3] The last episode was taped at the Museum of Appalachia in Norris on August 8, 2009 before an audience estimated at 10,000 people, one of the largest crowds in the museum's history.[4] [5]
During its 25-year history, The Heartland Series received several awards, including four Emmy Awards[6] United States embassies around the world keep tapes of The Heartland Series broadcasts as an information resource on life in Appalachia.[7]
In 2006, WBIR celebrated its 50th anniversary with a special report on some of the past stories captured on WBIR for the past 50 years. These reports were called "Our Stories" and included retrospectives on events such as U.S. Presidents visiting Knoxville and East Tennessee, major crimes and even the 25th Anniversary of the 1982 World's Fair.
Prior to September 15, 2008, this show was aired at 5 p.m. on weekdays under the title Live at Five. The program was moved to 4 p.m. and was temporarily renamed Live at Five at Four with WBIR asking for viewers' opinions on a new name. The quirky temporary name, however, was embraced by viewers and Live at Five at Four has remained the brand for the 4 p.m. program. In 2010, Live at Five at Four debuted new graphics to better reflect programming shown on the newscast.
Until late March 2011, WBIR-TV produced a 10 p.m. newscast for CW affiliate WBXX-TV. On March 28, WBIR-TV began producing a nightly 10 p.m. newscast for Fox affiliate WTNZ (channel 43). WBIR will also begin producing a weekday morning news show at 7 a.m. for that station beginning in June. Both stations' newscasts began airing in high definition on June 1, 2011, making WBIR and WTNZ the second and third stations in Knoxville to make the upgrade.[8]
The station's current on-the-air staff include:[10]
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