Кноксвиллдегі WATE 6 арнасының тарихы

ABC affiliate in Knoxville, Tennessee

WATE TV (channel 6) is a television station in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Nexstar Media Group. The station's studios are located in the Greystone mansion on North Broadway/SR 33/SR 71/US 441, and its transmitter is located on Sharp's Ridge in North Knoxville.

Channel 6 was East Tennessee's first television station, signing on the air at 8 p. m. on October 1, 1953, as WROL TV. The race to be the first television station in the eastern part of the state was won by WROL TV when the 300 feet (91 m) tower of WJHL TV in Johnson City (ironically, now a sister station to the Knoxville station) collapsed a few months earlier. That station would have been first to sign on, but WROL claimed the title by 26 days. Its first studios were underneath the 800 feet (244 m) self supporting tower on Sharp's Ridge which was one of the tallest man made structures in Tennessee at the time. It was signed on by Greater East Tennessee TV, Inc., owned by local insurance executive Paul Mountcastle and a small group of investors along with WROL AM 950. At the time, Mountcastle was chairman of the board of the Life and Casualty Insurance Company of Tennessee in Nashville, which signed on WLAC TV (now WTVF) in that city in 1954. Despite that connection, the stations were not considered to be co owned. WROL TV signed on as a primary NBC affiliate because of WROL AM's longtime affiliation with NBC Radio and also shared ABC programming with CBS affiliate WTSK TV (later WTVK, now WVLT TV), whose Channel 26 analog signal did not travel nearly as far. Although NBC held a firm grip on WROL, DuMont tried unsuccessfully several times to get a secondary affiliation with the station when it was not broadcasting NBC and ABC. Channel 6 opted to fill its non network schedule with local programming, a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandate, and as a result, DuMont was forced to join WTVK on a secondary basis. CBS also made many attempts to grab a primary affiliation with Knoxville's only VHF station, but the owners of WROL held firm despite many financial incentives from the other networks, especially CBS. The station changed its call letters to WATE TV in 1955 with the new call letters not really standing for anything; the licensee also was renamed to WATE, Inc.

As was broadcast tradition with many stations in the 1950s, the channel's sales offices moved to downtown Knoxville and the studios were moved to a new building on North Broadway. In 1965, Mountcastle and his group sold WATE TV to Nationwide Communications of Columbus, Ohio. That same year, the station moved into and renovated the historic 19th century Greystone Mansion, now on the National Register of Historic Places. At the same time, WATE (which had changed frequency to 620 kilohertz) was sold off changing its call letters to WETE. It is now WRJZ, at AM 620. The self supporting tower on Sharp's Ridge was dismantled in 1975 when the station built a 1153 feet (351 m) broadcasting tower alongside it. That tower was dismantled in July 2016, owing to a newer, 1525 feet (465 m) multi plexed tower built beside it. The taller tower is owned by American Tower, Inc., formerly Spectracite Broadcast Towers, Inc.

On September 17, 1979, WATE swapped its NBC affiliation with WTVK to become an ABC affiliate. The years 1979 to 1980 saw the ABC television network become the highest rated in the country and ABC wanted a stronger station in Knoxville. At the time, WATE TV joined other former NBC affiliates WSB TV in Atlanta, KSTP TV in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, WRTV in Indianapolis and WSOC TV in Charlotte who also switched to ABC. At the time, WATE was the market leader with a strong VHF signal in East Tennessee, Southwestern Virginia, and Southeastern Kentucky. WTVK's UHF signal on channel 26 was marginal at best in much of the Knoxville area and many viewers in East Tennessee and Southeastern Kentucky treated ABC as though it were a new television network (which it was anything but at the time). Some of them would not see NBC again until September 10, 1988, when WBIR TV joined that network that day. After that, CBS was no longer seen in many of these households until December 8, 1988, when CBS moved its affiliation to WTVK (which coincided with its call letter change to WKXT TV and switch to VHF channel 8 on that day; it is now WVLT TV). Coincidentally, seventeen years later, WATE's digital signal would be broadcast on digital channel 26. During its first fifty years, WATE pioneered many locally produced programs like The Homemaker Show hosted by Mary Starr. Housewives were glued to television sets as Mary showed them the latest recipes and homemaking tips. Star Time, hosted by local businessman Jim Clayton, featured many local country music acts and The Cas Walker Show, a local country music show hosted by former Knoxville Mayor Cas Walker who also owned a chain of grocery stores in East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and Southeast Kentucky. The show also featured Dolly Parton who made her television debut on WATE TV before she became famous. In 1981, the station premiered PM Magazine with MayCay Beeler and Calvin Sneed. The popular syndicated show highlighted unusual people, places, and things from the East Tennessee/Southeastern Kentucky area. In 1993, Nationwide sold its three ABC affiliated television stations (WATE, WBAY TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and WRIC TV in Richmond, Virginia) to Young Broadcasting. Young Broadcasting emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June 2010, and the new company was renamed New Young Broadcasting, Inc. As a contingency of the reorganization plan, Young signed a limited management agreement with Atlanta based Gray Television to allow that company to operate all of Young's stations except WATE, WLNS TV in Lansing, Michigan, and KRON TV in San Francisco. Gray was not allowed to operate WATE or WLNS because it also owned WVLT in the Knoxville market and WILX TV in Lansing. Young Broadcasting merged with Media General on November 12, 2013, which united East Tennessee's first and second TV stations (WATE and WJHL, Johnson City) as sister stations. In 2017, Media General merged with Nexstar Broadcasting. WATE TV adopted its current "Circle 6" logo in 2011. Due to the design and similar callsigns, the logo has received comparisons to fellow ABC affiliate WTAE TV in Pittsburgh, who has used the current version of its "Circle 4" logo since 1995 and has used a variation of it since 1973. Aside from the ABC affiliation, the two stations are not related.

WATE TV owes its early existence to locally produced music programs owing to East Tennessee's country music history. 1950's programs like Bonnie Lou and Buster, The Cas Walker Show, and Jim Hill's Star Time were later joined by Nashville produced country music programs like The Porter Wagoner Show, The Wilburn Brothers Show and the Flatt and Scruggs show featuring guitarist Lester Flatt and banjoist Earl Scruggs. All of these were popular programs on Channel 6 in the mid 60's and 70's. In the early 80's, WATE TV also produced the East Tennessee version of PM Magazine, the syndicated series from Westinghouse Group W that spotlighted local people and events in the area. The show, co hosted by MayCay Beeler and Calvin Sneed, who had moved over from the news department, ran for three seasons. During the month of August, WATE broadcasts Tennessee Titans preseason football games regionally syndicated by sister station and fellow ABC affiliate WKRN TV in Nashville. In February 2024, WATE reached an agreement to broadcast matches from USL League One club One Knoxville SC. At least two games will air on WATE, with the remaining games airing on WATE DT2 (Antenna TV). WATE will also begin airing a weekly Soccer Talk show online.

WATE TV broadcasts 42 1/2 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 6 1/2 hours each weekday and five hours each on Saturdays and Sundays). Although WATE may not have always been a ratings powerhouse in east Tennessee, it has been the leader in other areas. In the late 1960s, it assembled the popular on air team of news anchor Pete Gardener, weathercaster Margie Ison, and Sports Director Mike Thurman. This move resulted in the station making inroads into the ratings dominant WBIR which led the market ratings at the time. In the early 1970s, Sam Brown joined WATE as news anchor and the group of "Sam, Mike, and Margie" subsequently became the most well known on air personality team in Knoxville. By the mid 1970s after the previous changes had been in place for a while, all of the station's newscasts were ranked number one in their respective time periods. Also at this point, it was the first outlet to update its newsroom technology with a switch from film to videotape (i. e. electronic journalism) as well as own and operating a live microwave truck to assist in newsgathering purposes. The station was Knoxville's first to utilize a helicopter (known as "Sky Eye 6") for on air coverage. In 1977, WATE debuted the market's first local newscasts seen on Saturday evenings featuring anchor Art Powell, Kay Elliott providing weather forecasts, and Calvin Sneed with sports. This was followed in 1978 by the launch of Knoxville's first noon newscast with Sneed adding the show to his anchoring duties. In 1979, he would be promoted to weekend news anchor in order to welcome the area's first local newscasts seen on Sunday nights. In 1980, WATE promoted Sneed to become the first African American to co anchor weeknight main news broadcasts in East Tennessee, which included Chattanooga, Knoxville and Tri Cities. During the early 80's, the unofficial goal of the weeknight news crew was to regularly scoop the Knoxville Journal (a morning newspaper) which was in the process of gaining circulation over the Knoxville News Sentinel (published in the afternoons). The stories seen on air served as fodder for the next day's coverage assignments pioneering the "follow up" concept of reporting in modern day journalism. WATE also hired the market's first AMS certified meteorologist in Knoxville and Eastern Tennessee in 1979 when Mark Mancuso joined the team. In 1998, a news share agreement was established with Fox affiliate WTNZ (owned by Raycom Media). This resulted in Knoxville's original prime time newscast to debut. Branded as Fox 43 Ten O'Clock News, the nightly thirty minute show featured a similar format to broadcasts seen on this station except for WTNZ's logo being present in the graphics. In 2002, it began to compete with another nightly newscast seen at 10 on then WB (now CW) affiliate WBXX TV. Produced by WBIR, this production offered as an alternative to WTNZ only aired for twelve minutes in an abbreviated format featuring the day's top stories along with an updated weather forecast. In early March 2011, WTNZ terminated its outsourcing arrangement with WATE after entering into another contract with WBIR. As a result, the latter station stopped producing the nightly update for WBXX. WBIR/WTNZ became the second news operation to upgrade to high definition on June 1 while WVLT was the first back on January 9, 2011. WATE's weekday noon show was cancelled on January 31, 2008, making the station Knoxville's only outlet without a newscast seen in the time period. On August 1, 2011, the station returned to the prime time newscast race with a new nightly 35 minute broadcast on WBXX (then owned by the Lockwood Broadcast Group) through an outsourcing agreement, under the branding The CW 20 News at 10. On October 17, 2011, starting with their 5 p. m. newscast, WATE became the final station in the Knoxville market to broadcast in high definition. Along with the switch to HD, the station unveiled a new logo, new graphics, new studio set, and new news music: "Locals Only" by Stephen Arnold Music. The newscast on WBXX was initially not included in the upgrade as that station lacked a high definition capable master control at its separate studios to transmit the newscast in HD. In early April 2012, that channel finally upgraded its master control to allow the WATE newscast and some other local and syndicated programming to be broadcast in HD. On December 31, 2016, WATE TV broadcast its final newscast on WBXX TV, now owned by Gray Television. Co owned Gray station WVLT TV began producing newscasts on WBXX TV the following day.

WATE TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 6, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre transition UHF channel 26, using virtual channel 6. As with other Channel 6 stations around the country, on June 12, 2009, the unintentional broadcast of WATE TV's audio signal also ceased on 87.7 FM.