| Richmond, Virginia | |
|---|---|
| Branding | Fox Richmond My TV Richmond & This TV Richmond (on DT2) |
| Slogan | The Right Time For News |
| Channels | Digital: 26 (UHF) Virtual: 35 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | 35.1 Fox 35.2 MyNetworkTV & This TV 35.3 TheCoolTV |
| Owner | Sinclair Broadcast Group (WRLH Licensee, LLC) |
| First air date | February 20, 1982 |
| Call letters' meaning | Richmond (city) Loving and Hudson (last names of two former owners) |
| Former channel number(s) | 35 (UHF analog, 1982-2009) |
| Former affiliations | Independent (1982-1986) UPN (secondary, 1995-1997) Kids' WB (1998-2006) |
| Transmitter power | 800 kW |
| Height | 327.7 m |
| Facility ID | 412 |
| Website | foxrichmond.com |
WRLH-TV is the Fox-affiliated television station for Richmond, Virginia. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 26 from a transmitter at the studios of PBS affiliates WCVE-TV/WCVW in Bon Air. The station can also be seen on Comcast and Verizon FiOS channel 11. There is a high definition feed offered on Comcast digital channel 511 and Verizon FiOS digital channel 805. Owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, it has studios on Westmoreland Street in the North Side area of Richmond. Syndicated programming on WRLH includes: Two and a Half Men, Family Guy, Maury, Judge Judy, and How I Met Your Mother.
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On WRLH-DT2, Verizon FiOS channel 10, and Comcast digital channel 209 is the area's MyNetworkTV & This TV affiliate. On WRLH-DT3 and Comcast digital channel 205 is TheCoolTV.
| Channels | Video | Aspect | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|
| 35.1 | 720p | 16:9 | main WRLH programming / Fox |
| 35.2 | 480i | 4:3 | "My TV Richmond" & "This TV Richmond" |
| 35.3 | TheCoolTV |
WRLH began its operation on February 20, 1982 [1] as Richmond's first general entertainment Independent station. The calls were previously used on a predecessor to WNNE in Hartford, Vermont. It aired an analog signal on UHF channel 35 from a transmitter southwest of the U.S. 60/SR 288 interchange. It was the second station owned by the TVX Broadcast Group that had launched WTVZ in 1979 as a successful Independent in the neighboring Hampton Roads market. The WRLH call letters refer to Richmond and two of the executives in TVX who were primarily responsible for getting this station on-the-air (Gene Loving and Harvey Hudson). Like most Independents, it initially offered a format consisting of cartoons, sitcoms, movies, drama shows, and religious programming in mid-mornings after the cartoons.
In 1983, WRNX signed on channel 63 with a religious format, and WRLH's religious programming moved there. Some of those shows moved back to WRLH when WRNX took on a general entertainment format in Summer 1985 under a new call sign, WVRN, and the two stations now competed under the same format. The competition took a toll financially, and as a result, TVX sold WRLH to Times Mirror Broadcasting in Spring 1986. Times Mirror then turned around and sold WRLH (along with WMAR in Baltimore) to Gillett Broadcasting that fall.
By then, WRLH was already a charter Fox affiliate with the affiliation agreement having been inherited from TVX ownership. The station is the only Richmond channel that has never changed its network affiliation having been with Fox since the network's inception. WVRN was put up for sale after its parent company, Sudbrink Broadcasting, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late-1986. At that point, Act III Broadcasting purchased WVRN and both stations continued to suffer financially.
Part of the problem was that Fox only offered eight hours of programming a week at the time, meaning WRLH was still programmed largely as an independent. At the time, Richmond was just barely big enough to support what were essentially two independent stations. Soon after Act III bought WVRN, it offered to buy WRLH's programming on the condition that channel 35 itself be sold to a different group that would run it as a non-commercial or home shopping type station. Gillett declined but offered instead to sell WRLH outright to Act III, which then put WVRN back on the market. There were no takers for channel 63, however, and Act III merged WVRN's programming onto WRLH's schedule and took WVRN off the air. The analog UHF channel 63 license was returned to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for deletion.
The Act III group was purchased by Abry Communications in 1993. Sullivan Broadcasters (in which Sinclair had an interest in) took over the station in 1996 and Sinclair bought WRLH outright in 1998. It began carrying a secondary UPN affiliation at the network's inception on January 16, 1995. This moved to WZXK (now WUPV-TV) in 1998. Also that year, WRLH began to carry programming from Kids' WB with NBC affiliate WWBT carrying The WB programming out of rotation in late-night since there was no full-time affiliate with the network in Richmond. On March 14, 2008, the Virginia High School League championships basketball tournament was televised for the first time by WRLH and other Virginia television stations.
On June 24, Sinclair announced that it was intending to purchase CBS affiliate WTVR-TV from Raycom Media and sell WRLH to the previously unknown Carma Broadcasting. Raycom had recently bought Lincoln Financial Media's three television stations, including Richmond NBC affiliate WWBT, and put WTVR on the market because FCC rules do not allow duopolies between two of the four largest stations in a market.[2] Sinclair was to provide "sales and other non-programming related services" to WRLH after the sale was finalized. This could be seen by some as an attempt by Sinclair to sell WRLH to a shell corporation used for the purpose of circumventing FCC ownership rules, much as Sinclair has done for years with Cunningham Broadcasting.
In August 2008, the United States Department of Justice, under provisions of a consent decree with Raycom Media entered into as part of the Lincoln Financial Media deal, denied the company permission to sell WTVR to Sinclair. [3] As a result, Raycom sought and was eventually granted a temporary waiver to keep both WTVR and WWBT until it could find a buyer for WTVR, which was eventually swapped to Local TV for a station in Birmingham, Alabama.
MGM and Weigel Broadcasting launched This TV, a fledgling digital network broadcasting old movies, in November 2008. WRLH-DT2, a digital subchannel that carries MyNetworkTV, became one of This TV's launch-day affiliates. [4] Sinclair and Fox recently finalized a six-year affiliation contract extension for the 19 Fox affiliates either owned or controlled by Sinclair, including WRLH. Channel 35's affiliation contract now expires in March 2012. [5] It requested and received permission from the FCC to switch-off analog broadcasting on the original transition date of February 17, 2009 at 11:59 p.m. [6] It was the only station in the Richmond market that ended analog broadcasting before the new date of June 12. WRLH did provide "nightlight" analog service for thirty days after. [7] A fake WRLH newscast sporting the "Fox 35" logo is seen at the beginning of the 2001 film Hannibal.
On September 19, 1994, WWBT (then owned by the Jefferson-Pilot Corporation) entered into a news share agreement with WRLH. This resulted in a nightly prime time newscast being produced on WRLH known as Fox News at 10. On January 8, 2001, the weeknight broadcast was expanded to an hour. This made WRLH the only station in the area to have a late-night hour-long news show. Friday nights at 10:45, there is a fifteen minute sports highlight show that airs known as Fox First Sports. WWBT became the first in the market to air local newscasts in high definition on July 27, 2008. However, the WRLH broadcasts were not included in the upgrade because this channel lacks the necessary equipment to transmit local or syndicated programming in HD.
As a result, it still presents the WWBT news in pillarboxed 4:3 standard definition. The nightly prime time newscast did not face competition until March 5, 2007 when CW affiliate WUPV launched a 35-minute weeknight newscast at 10 produced by WTVR. Thirty minute weekend shows on that station began October 20, 2007 and ended a year later on October 19. The final weeknight newscast was November 7. Three days later, WUPV announced that the agreement with WTVR had been canceled due to high financial costs to produce the broadcasts. On January 5, 2009, WWBT began airing a high definition weeknight newscast for WUPV which airs against the national newscasts on the big three networks.
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