| Dayton, Ohio United States |
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|---|---|
| Branding | Channel 2 (general) 2 News (newscasts) |
| Slogan | On Your Side |
| Channels | Digital: 50 (UHF) Virtual: 2 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | 2.1 NBC HD 2.2 NBC SD |
| Owner | LIN TV Corporation (WDTN Broadcasting, LLC) |
| First air date | March 15, 1949 |
| Call letters' meaning | DayToN |
| Sister station(s) | WBDT |
| Former callsigns | WLWD (1949-1976) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 5 (VHF, 1949-1953) 2 (VHF, 1953-2009) |
| Former affiliations | ABC (secondary 1949-1971, primary 1980-2004) DuMont (secondary, 1949-1955) |
| Transmitter power | 1,000 kW |
| Height | 323 m |
| Facility ID | 65690 |
| Website | wdtn.com |
WDTN, virtual channel 2, is the NBC-affiliated television station for Ohio's Miami Valley. Licensed to Dayton, it broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 50 from a transmitter in the Frytown section of the city. The station can also be seen on Time Warner Cable channel 2 and in high definition on digital channel 1002. It is owned by the LIN TV Corporation.
WDTN operates CW affiliate WBDT (owned by WBDT Television, LLC) through a local marketing agreement. The two stations share studios on South Dixie Drive in Moraine (which is in a Dayton ZIP code). However, master control and some internal operations of WDTN are based within centralcasting facilities at sister station WISH-TV in Indianapolis.
Syndicated programming on this station includes: Inside Edition, Jeopardy!, The Doctors, Swift Justice with Nancy Grace, The Nate Berkus Show, and Better.
WDTN's logo is very similar to ones used by KMID, WPRI-TV, and WNAC-TV.
Contents |
WDTN's signal on UHF 50 is multiplex:
| Channels | Programming |
|---|---|
| 2.1 | Main WDTN programming / NBC |
| 2.2 | SD simulcast of 2.1 |
The license for what is now WDTN was granted to the Crosley Broadcasting Corporation of Cincinnati, which was a subsidiary of the Aviation Corporation (later known as Avco), on March 3, 1947. It was the first broadcast television license granted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to the Dayton market. However due to several delays, it did not actually go on-the-air until March 15, 1949,[1] twenty days after CBS affiliate WHIO-TV began broadcasting.
The station originally signed onto channel 5[2] with the call sign WLWD. Named for Crosley's flagship Cincinnati radio station WLW (World's Largest Wireless) + Dayton, it identified on-air as "WLW‑D". WLWD's offices, studios, and studio-transmitter link KUQ-43 were established on South Dixie Highway in the Dayton suburb of Moraine, in a building that had previously housed a skating rink. The studios and offices remain there to this day.
WLWD was one of five stations which made up the Cincinnati-based WLW television network. Other stations included in this network were flagship WLWT in Cincinnati, WLWC (now WCMH-TV) in Columbus, WLWA (now WXIA-TV) in Atlanta and WLWI (now WTHR) in Indianapolis. WLWD provided city-grade coverage of Cincinnati, and provided at least grade B coverage to most of the Columbus market. After the FCC banned common ownership of stations with overlapping city-grade signals, it grandfathered Avco's common ownership of WLWD, WLWT and WLWC.
From its start, WLWD was affiliated with NBC. It also carried programming from DuMont and ABC. The first program shown on WLWD was the Texaco Star Theater with Milton Berle.
On April 27, 1953, WLWD switched from channel 5 to channel 2.[3][4]
WLWD lost DuMont in 1955, a few months before the network shut down. It lost ABC in 1965 (though it cleared some ABC daytime programming until 1971 as a secondary affiliate) when then-independent WONE-TV (now WKEF) picked up ABC's prime time programming.
Game show host and announcer Johnny Gilbert hosted his own local daytime variety/talk show immediately after the local airing of WLW television's Paul Dixon Show in the mid-1960s.[5][6]
Phil Donahue (former news anchor and radio talk show host at WHIO) began hosting a talk show on WLWD in 1967,[7] called The Phil Donahue Show, that was more issue oriented (greatly reducing the station's program budget). Donahue's show went national in 1970. Since most programs on the WLW television regional network originated from WLWT in Cincinnati, it was the first time WLWD was the originator of a program.
Aside from Paul Dixon's weekday morning show, other Cincinnati-based programming that aired on WLWD included: The 50-50 Club, hosted by Ruth Lyons (hosted by Bob Braun after Lyons' 1967 retirement), and the Saturday evening country music program Midwestern Hayride.
Due to WLWD's heavy local and regional programming schedule, many network programs from NBC and ABC were recorded on film as a kinescope for later airing. On rare occasions when a program was unavailable (sometimes due to network technical difficulties or if fill time was available before or after a network sportscast), a half-hour series entitled Star Performance, consisting mostly of drama pilots from the 1950s, would air. Fifteen minute mini-documentaries or newsreels would also air as a time filler under the title Miniature Theater.
Avco's broadcasting division continued to operate under the Crosley Broadcasting name until 1968, when it took on the name of its parent company.
In 1976, Avco decided to exit broadcasting. As a result, WLWD lost its grandfathered protection, and had to be sold off separately from WLWT and WLWC. It sold WLWD to Grinnell College in Iowa,[8][9][10] which changed the call letters to WDTN. (From April, 2003 until April, 2010, the WLWD call sign was used by an FM station licensed to Columbus Grove, Ohio, serving the Lima market with a rhythmic hits format. That station has since changed its call sign to WBKS.)
By the mid to late-1970s, ABC was searching for stronger affiliates in order to cement its status as the leading network in the country. Its existing affiliate, WKEF, was a distant third in the ratings, and did not have a news department until 1979. ABC's Cincinnati affiliate, WKRC-TV, and its Columbus affiliate, WTVN-TV (now WSYX), were both preempting certain of the network's daytime programs, late night shows, and some of its Saturday morning cartoons. Because of these preemptions, ABC also wanted a station in Dayton with a stronger over-the-air signal, able to reach Cincinnati and Columbus. In late 1979, ABC approached WDTN, which provided at least grade B coverage from northern Kentucky all the way to Columbus (the analog channel 2 signal traveled a long distance under normal conditions), and reached a deal. Almost by default, NBC was then left with WKEF.
On January 1, 1980, WDTN and WKEF swapped affiliations. Under the deal, WDTN was exempt from running ABC's soap operas after 2 p.m., since WKRC-TV easily covered Dayton. In place of One Life to Live and General Hospital, WDTN ran cartoons and off-network sitcoms.
In early September, 1981, Hearst Broadcasting bought the station.[11]
By the late 1980s, cartoons and sitcoms made way for first run talk shows such as The Oprah Winfrey Show (at 4 p.m.), The Montel Williams Show, and The Jerry Springer Show. WDTN would begin its talk block at 2 p.m. during the week.
In August, 1997, Hearst's television group merged with Argyle Television Holdings II to form what was then known as Hearst-Argyle Television. Argyle had purchased WDTN's former sister station, WLWT, that January. For the same reason that forced the breakup of Avco's television group 20 years earlier, Hearst-Argyle could not keep both stations (common ownership of stations with overlapping city-grade signals would not be allowed until 2000). It opted to keep the larger WLWT and trade WDTN, together with WNAC-TV in Providence, Rhode Island, to Sunrise Television for WPTZ in Plattsburgh, New York, WNNE in Hartford, Vermont, and KSBW in Salinas, California. The sale was finalized on July 2, 1998.
In 2000, Time Warner Cable (Dayton's largest cable system) dropped the Cincinnati network affiliates to make room for new cable channels. As a result, ABC soap viewers could no longer see One Life to Live or General Hospital, while over-the-air viewers could still pick them up on WCPO-TV (which had become Cincinnati's ABC affiliate in 1996). As a result, in the fall of 2000, General Hospital was added to WDTN's schedule.
In May 2002, Sunrise merged with LIN TV. After the LIN TV acquisition, One Life to Live was added to the station's schedule as well. From this point on, WDTN aired ABC's entire schedule until the station returned to NBC in 2004.
On August 30, 2004, in a reversal of the 1980 switch, WDTN became an NBC affiliate for the second time to take advantage of the network's then stronger programming. In another reversal, ABC was left with WKEF by default. Ironically, several months after the affiliation shift, ABC's ratings overtook those of NBC.
On May 18, 2007, LIN TV announced that it was exploring strategic alternatives that could have resulted in the sale of the company. In early June, WDTN's website (along with those of several other LIN TV-owned stations not affiliated with Fox such as WNDY-TV, WWHO, WAND, WWLP, and WLFI-TV) underwent a redesign. The web addresses were then operated by the Local Media Network division of World Now for a little over a year until October, 2008, when LIN TV relaunched most of its station websites through Fox Interactive Media. Prior to the World Now contract, the web addresses were powered by Web Pros.
On October 3, 2008, LIN TV pulled WDTN (and its other stations) from Time Warner Cable, due to a dispute over "retransmission fees."[12][13][14] Time Warner replaced WDTN with a free preview of HBO Family. On October 29, LIN TV and Time Warner Cable reached an agreement, restoring WDTN, as well as offering it in high definition on the cable system for the first time.[15][16][17]
WDTN ended its analog broadcast on VHF channel 2 on June 12, 2009 as part of the DTV transition in the United States.[18] It remained on its digital channel (50)[19] using PSIP to display its virtual channel as 2.
On June 4, 2010, it was announced LIN TV would begin operating CW affiliate WBDT (then owned by ACME Communications) through shared service and local sales agreements.[20][21] Three months later, LIN TV exercised an option to purchase that channel along with another LIN-operated ACME station, fellow CW affiliate WCWF in Green Bay, Wisconsin.[22] LIN TV requested WBDT's license be assigned to a subsidiary of Vaughan Media (owner of Austin, Texas CW affiliate KNVA, which is also operated by LIN TV). The company holds a 4.5% equity stake in Vaughan Media, but controls most of that company's voting stock, effectively making it a shell corporation for LIN TV.[23] WBDT was integrated into WDTN's facilities and the merger between the two stations occurred sometime around October, 2010. WBDT originally had studios at Corporate Place in Miamisburg, along Byers Road.
On March 4, 2011, LIN TV's contract with DISH Network expired, and all TV stations owned or operated by LIN, including WDTN and WBDT, were pulled from DISH.[24][25][26][27][28] On March 13, LIN and DISH entered into a retransmission consent agreement, and all affected channels were restored.[29][30][31][32]
In the 1970s and 1980s, WDTN used the Eyewitness News branding. For most of its history, its newscasts have been a runner-up to market leader WHIO-TV. Broadcasts on WDTN remain in pillarboxed 4:3 standard definition.
On August 18, 2007, the station began to produce a nightly prime time newscast for WBDT, known as 2 News at 10 on Dayton's CW. This show achieved higher ratings than WRGT-TV's nightly prime time news in Dayton's metered market households on the 26th day of its broadcast. That year, 2 News won the "Edward R. Murrow Award for Overall Excellence" for the second straight year.
In May 2011, the station changed the name of its weekday 5 a.m. – 7 a.m. newscast from 2 News Sunrise to 2 News Today.[33] On November 14, 2011, the station moved 2 News Today's start time to 4:30 a.m.,[34][35] probably in response to WHIO-TV's similar lengthening of its morning news on August 15.
In early January 2012, the station plans to replace its weekday hour-long newscast, 2 News at Noon, with a local lifestyle talk show called Living Dayton. Anchor Marsha Bonhart and meteorologist Jamie Jarosik will deliver news and weather at the top of the broadcast, and the show will cover any breaking news.[36][37]
WDTN maintains news partnerships with several area newspapers. In addition to its main studios, WDTN operates bureaus in Springfield (on West Main Street) and in Xenia (in the Xenia Daily Gazette newsroom on South Detroit Street).
WDTN operates its own weather radar known on-air as "Live Doppler 2X". The station's weather reports are sometimes branded as "Live Doppler 2X", sometimes as "Storm Team 2".
For many years, Charlie Van Dyke was the voice heard on WDTN's station IDs, news intros, promos, and other voice-over work. In September, 2011, Van Dyke was replaced by Roger Rose.[38]
Anchors
Live Doppler 2X Meteorologists
Sports
Reporters
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