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93-630: The tower was built after FCC relaxed earlier tight guidelines on station co-location as the various characteristics of the signal ranges for VHF television and FM signals were shown in everyday consumer use. In 1956, WITI came to the air as an independent station , but had to deal with interference issues with two other channel 6 stations in adjacent states while trying to come on the air. The most obvious issue involved WJIM-TV in Lansing, Michigan . Television stations in western and central Michigan are subject to tropospheric propagation , along with

186-585: A breach of contract lawsuit in the Delaware Chancery Court , alleging that Sinclair engaged in protracted negotiations with the FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division over regulatory issues, refused to sell stations in markets where it already had properties, and proposed divestitures to parties with ties to Sinclair executive chair David D. Smith that were rejected or highly subject to rejection to maintain control over stations it

279-474: A studio/transmitter link tower, with full Common Council approval coming a week later on June 12. The stations moved to the new building in December 2013, with the new master control coming online in the last week of the month. From June 2012 until the end of December 2013, the engineering and master control of WVTV/WCGV transmitted 16:9 syndicated programming in full screen, but in standard definition as

372-667: A compensation agreement for the stations. Charter Communications , the other major cable provider in the area, reached a compensation agreement in April 2007, but the HD signal was not added until June 9, 2009, when the station began to air on digital channel 618 throughout Charter's southeastern Wisconsin systems. On July 22, 2010, the Milwaukee area experienced a major flash flooding event which caused major damage in several parts of Milwaukee County . The studios of WVTV/WCGV were then located

465-594: A controversial one-minute conservative political commentary feature, that was a requirement of all Sinclair-owned stations that aired newscasts (regardless of whether it carried the News Central format or not). The program was reduced to a half-hour in September 2005 due to ratings issues, and was eventually discontinued on March 31, 2006, due to cutbacks in Sinclair's news operations companywide, which included

558-510: A half-mile south of Lincoln Creek, on the corner of North 35th Street and Capitol Drive, and the building and technical equipment belonging to the stations suffered major damage, forcing channels 18 and 24 off the air for the majority of the time after 6 p.m. on July 22 until the early morning of July 24; the two stations, once they returned to the air, had their programming fed into their master control facilities via another unknown Sinclair master control. For both stations, this resulted in most of

651-539: A minority-owned company (its president, Edwin Edwards, was black) when it was really an arm of Sinclair, and used the LMA to gain control of the station. By this point, however, the FCC had overturned regulations that had disallowed television duopolies, and the sale to Sinclair went through despite these objections. Following Time Warner and CBS Corporation 's January 24, 2006, announcement of The WB and UPN's shutdown and

744-518: A mixed schedule of court shows , sitcoms and lifestyle programming, with WVTV's ratings eventually stabilizing as The CW has found better success in later seasons. Beginning in the fall of 2015, former WKLH morning show host Carole Caine (who left that role in June 2015 after her contract was not renewed, to much local criticism against the station) began to perform various roles for Sinclair's Milwaukee operations, but mainly with WVTV, including acting as

837-500: A part of the same agreement. With The WB's drive to have stations in other markets take the network and pushing market exclusivity for those stations, Sinclair made the decision to begin winding down carriage agreements with providers outside of the Milwaukee and Green Bay markets, ending WVTV's status as a regional superstation. Sinclair also wanted to push viewership to WCGV, though it soon restored its UPN affiliation in August 1998 due to

930-502: A process to move these stations to UHF bands to free up valuable VHF spectrum for its original purpose of FM radio. In addition, by 1985 the federal government decided new TV stations are to be broadcast on the UHF band. Two new VHF channels, 9A and 12, have since been made available and are being used primarily for digital services (e.g. ABC in capital cities) but also for some new analogue services in regional areas. Because channel 9A

1023-669: A proposed transmitter station. VHF is the first band at which wavelengths are small enough that efficient transmitting antennas are short enough to mount on vehicles and handheld devices, a quarter wave whip antenna at VHF frequencies is 25 cm to 2.5 meter (10 inches to 8 feet) long. So the VHF and UHF wavelengths are used for two-way radios in vehicles, aircraft, and handheld transceivers and walkie-talkies . Portable radios usually use whips or rubber ducky antennas , while base stations usually use larger fiberglass whips or collinear arrays of vertical dipoles. For directional antennas,

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1116-419: A ratings plunge and a conciliatory agreement to restore the network between UPN and Sinclair. WVTV finally became wholly owned by Sinclair in 2000, after a long legal battle between Sinclair and Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow/PUSH coalition about the racial issues of one concern holding two broadcast licenses in a market. Jackson argued that Glencairn ownership was making an end-around by passing itself off as

1209-406: A result of the company's merger with Abry. Glencairn, in turn, was owned by a former Sinclair executive. For all intents and purposes, Sinclair owned both stations even though FCC rules forbade duopolies at the time. Sinclair further circumvented the rules by continuing the LMA. WVTV continued to be an independent station for two more years, with The WB pushing for more national distribution beyond

1302-515: A result, FM radio receivers such as those found in automobiles which are designed to tune into this frequency range could receive the audio for analog-mode programming on the local TV channel 6 while in North America. The practice largely ended with the DTV transition in 2009, although some still exist. The FM broadcast channel at 87.9 MHz is normally off-limits for FM audio broadcasting; it

1395-454: A second digital subchannel affiliated with MyNetworkTV which brands as "My 24 WCGV". It uses virtual channel 24.1, formerly utilized by separately licensed WCGV-TV until January 2018, when Sinclair turned in WCGV-TV's license and merged its subchannels onto WVTV's spectrum after selling WCGV-TV's spectrum in the 2016 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) incentive auction . WVTV

1488-584: A shift in Chicago and Milwaukee's channel plans in 1953 due to Chicago's channel 4 causing havoc with several adjacent markets, including the Quad Cities and Kalamazoo, Michigan ; this included WTMJ-TV moving from channel 3 to channel 4, and Chicago's channel 4 to shift over to channel 2, today's WBBM-TV ). As such, WITI thus launched being licensed to the North Shore suburb of Whitefish Bay , with

1581-470: A short time before terminating analog operations the next year and a four-year build-out of digital operations in Milwaukee. Despite its status as one of the strongest independent stations in the country, channel 18 turned down an offer by the fledgling Fox Broadcasting Company for an affiliation in 1986. Most of the smaller markets in WVTV's cable footprints had enough stations to provide a local Fox affiliate at

1674-575: A state of flux after Gaylord began easing out of the television business (except for its stake in The Nashville Network ). In 1994, Gaylord entered into a local marketing agreement with WCGV, which was owned by Abry Communications. Although WCGV was the senior partner, the two stations' operations were merged at WVTV's original studio facilities. WVTV was originally tapped to be a charter affiliate of The WB Television Network along with Gaylord's other independent stations. The new network

1767-467: A station liaison for public events and taking over as the station's voiceover announcer , replacing various centralcasted voices which had come out of Sinclair's various national deals with announcers for their stations. On January 18, 2016, tying into the launch of the new CW/ DC Comics series Legends of Tomorrow and Sinclair's growing emphasis of using local heritage brandings of their stations rather than generic "network/channel number" brandings,

1860-606: A stopgap solution until the move to the new studios. Upon the opening of the new master control, all syndicated programming available in the format now is aired in high definition. Despite its long broadcasting history, WVTV has been one of The CW's weaker affiliates in terms of viewership. In the past, Sinclair put more promotional effort into WCGV. While this trend dated back to the mid-1990s, it became more pronounced from 2006 onward, as WCGV's affiliation with MyNetworkTV allowed more experimentation with its schedule. Both stations have seen their talk-heavy daytime lineups struggle against

1953-529: A tower located in Ozaukee County in the then- Town of Mequon to address the Lansing and Davenport interference issues. This proved disadvantageous to WITI because viewers in the area had to aim their antennas more northward or northeastward to receive WITI, where the city's other stations were centrally located north of downtown. In 1958, WITI would be purchased by Storer Broadcasting and would acquire

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2046-661: Is a television station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin , United States, affiliated with The CW and owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group . The station's studios are located on Calumet Road in the Park Place office park near the I-41 / US 45 interchange on Milwaukee's northwest side; its transmitter is located on North Humboldt Boulevard in Milwaukee's Estabrook Park neighborhood as part of the Milwaukee PBS tower. WVTV operates

2139-528: Is a radio band which, in most of the world, is used for FM broadcasting . In North America , however, this bandwidth is allocated to VHF television channel 6 (82–88 MHz). The analog audio for TV channel 6 is broadcast at 87.75 MHz (adjustable down to 87.74). Several stations, known as Frankenstations , most notably those joining the Pulse 87 franchise, have operated on this frequency as radio stations, though they use television licenses. As

2232-567: Is along the Milwaukee River , within Estabrook Park . As guy wires could not be placed on the parkland or into the river, the structure would have to be free-standing by design. The Bentley Company was the contractor building the tower's foundation, with Dresser Ideco constructing the actual structure, and Seago Construction Co. erecting the tower. Consistent with Storer's exterior studio and transmitter architecture standards,

2325-1054: Is available in the FM broadcast band for purposes such as micro-broadcasting and sending output from CD or digital media players to radios without auxiliary-in jacks, though this is illegal in some other countries. This practice was legalised in the United Kingdom on 8 December 2006. ELF 3 Hz/100 Mm 30 Hz/10 Mm SLF 30 Hz/10 Mm 300 Hz/1 Mm ULF 300 Hz/1 Mm 3 kHz/100 km VLF 3 kHz/100 km 30 kHz/10 km LF 30 kHz/10 km 300 kHz/1 km MF 300 kHz/1 km 3 MHz/100 m HF 3 MHz/100 m 30 MHz/10 m VHF 30 MHz/10 m 300 MHz/1 m UHF 300 MHz/1 m 3 GHz/100 mm SHF 3 GHz/100 mm 30 GHz/10 mm EHF 30 GHz/10 mm 300 GHz/1 mm THF 300 GHz/1 mm 3 THz/0.1 mm WVTV WVTV (channels 18 and 24)

2418-558: Is less of a problem in this and higher frequency bands than at lower frequencies. The VHF band is the first band at which efficient transmitting antennas are small enough that they can be mounted on vehicles and portable devices, so the band is used for two-way land mobile radio systems , such as walkie-talkies , and two way radio communication with aircraft ( Airband ) and ships ( marine radio ). Occasionally, when conditions are right, VHF waves can travel long distances by tropospheric ducting due to refraction by temperature gradients in

2511-469: Is not used for television services in or near Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide or Perth, digital radio in those cities are broadcast on DAB frequencies blocks 9A, 9B and 9C. VHF radio is also used for marine Radio as per its long-distance reachability comparing UHF frequencies. Example allocation of VHF–UHF frequencies: Until 2013, the four main free-to-air TV stations in New Zealand used

2604-612: Is reserved for displaced class D stations which have no other frequencies in the normal 88.1–107.9 MHz subband to move to. So far, only two stations have qualified to operate on 87.9 MHz: 10–watt KSFH in Mountain View, California and 34–watt translator K200AA in Sun Valley, Nevada . In some countries, particularly the United States and Canada, limited low-power license-free operation

2697-400: Is the second-oldest continuously operating station in Milwaukee. The station first signed on the air on October 3, 1953, as WOKY-TV, broadcasting on UHF channel 19. It was owned by Bartell Broadcasters , along with WOKY radio (920 AM). The station originally operated as a primary ABC and secondary DuMont affiliate. On October 21, 1954, CBS purchased WOKY-TV for $ 335,000 and announced it

2790-742: The HF band there is only some reflection at lower frequencies from the ionosphere ( skywave propagation). They do not follow the contour of the Earth as ground waves and so are blocked by hills and mountains, although because they are weakly refracted (bent) by the atmosphere they can travel somewhat beyond the visual horizon out to about 160 km (100 miles). They can penetrate building walls and be received indoors, although in urban areas reflections from buildings cause multipath propagation , which can interfere with television reception. Atmospheric radio noise and interference ( RFI ) from electrical equipment

2883-550: The SAFER Act , WVTV kept its analog signal on the air until March 4 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters . As WVTV was the only Milwaukee station that did not retain its pre-transition digital channel, the station's digital transmitter and antenna have been continually undergone tuning adjustments since

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2976-580: The Tribune Company 's broadcast stations and WGN-TV's superstation. Sinclair struck a large affiliation deal with The WB for several of the UPN affiliates and independent stations it either owned or controlled on May 19, 1997, an agreement which included WVTV. WVTV finally picked up the WB affiliation the same day and changed its on-air branding to "WB 18"; the following January, WCGV disaffiliated from UPN as

3069-663: The WXIX and WUHF calls now reside with Fox affiliates in Newport, Kentucky (part of the Cincinnati market), and Rochester, New York , respectively. The WKY Television System, based in Oklahoma City and the forerunner to Gaylord Broadcasting , bought the station in 1966 and changed its call letters to WVTV. The new owners also built new studio facilities at the corner of North 35th Street and Capitol Drive. This started

3162-619: The Yagi antenna is the most widely used as a high gain or "beam" antenna. For television reception, the Yagi is used, as well as the log-periodic antenna due to its wider bandwidth. Helical and turnstile antennas are used for satellite communication since they employ circular polarization . For even higher gain, multiple Yagis or helicals can be mounted together to make array antennas . Vertical collinear arrays of dipoles can be used to make high gain omnidirectional antennas , in which more of

3255-597: The visual horizon out to about 160 km (100 miles). Common uses for radio waves in the VHF band are Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) and FM radio broadcasting, television broadcasting , two-way land mobile radio systems (emergency, business, private use and military), long range data communication up to several tens of kilometers with radio modems , amateur radio , and marine communications . Air traffic control communications and air navigation systems (e.g. VOR and ILS ) work at distances of 100 kilometres (62 miles) or more to aircraft at cruising altitude. In

3348-435: The 10 VHF channels were insufficient to support the growth of television services. This was rectified by the addition of three additional frequencies-channels 0, 5A and 11. Older television sets using rotary dial tuners required adjustment to receive these new channels. Most TVs of that era were not equipped to receive these broadcasts, and so were modified at the owners' expense to be able to tune into these bands; otherwise

3441-541: The 625-line colour signal), with the exception of BBC2 (which had always broadcast solely on UHF). The last British VHF TV transmitters closed down on January 3, 1985. VHF band III is now used in the UK for digital audio broadcasting , and VHF band II is used for FM radio , as it is in most of the world. Unusually, the UK has an amateur radio allocation at 4 metres , 70–70.5 MHz. Frequency assignments between US and Canadian users are closely coordinated since much of

3534-458: The Americas and many other parts of the world, VHF Band I was used for the transmission of analog television . As part of the worldwide transition to digital terrestrial television most countries require broadcasters to air television in the VHF range using digital, rather than analog encoding. Radio waves in the VHF band propagate mainly by line-of-sight and ground-bounce paths; unlike in

3627-557: The Canadian population is within VHF radio range of the US border. Certain discrete frequencies are reserved for radio astronomy . The general services in the VHF band are: Cable television , though not transmitted aerially, uses a spectrum of frequencies overlapping VHF. The U.S. FCC allocated television broadcasting to a channelized roster as early as 1938 with 19 channels. That changed three more times: in 1940 when Channel 19

3720-550: The Dakotas . This resulted in the station rebranding as "Super 18, Wisconsin's Superstation" in 1987. WVTV was also the longtime home of the Milwaukee Brewers (1981–1988; 1993–1997), Milwaukee Bucks (1976–1988; 1994–1999), Big Ten Conference men's basketball , and area college sports teams. The station was carried on Green Bay area cable providers until June 2007, when WWAZ-TV (channel 68, now WIWN ) replaced it for

3813-742: The Estabrook Parkway along the Milwaukee River , which would increase the village's property tax base (though the road was eventually completed through the tower property). The WTMJ-TV / FM tower was directly across the river to the west behind The Milwaukee Journal ' s "Radio City" studios for the WTMJ stations, with the WISN-TV / FM tower 2.15 miles (3.46 km) northwest in Lincoln Park ( Weigel Broadcasting 's WDJT-TV would build their own Lincoln Park tower in 1999), along with

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3906-510: The FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division . Sinclair had already announced that WCGV's license was sold in April in the FCC's 2016 spectrum auction and later announced that in technicality, WCGV would go off the air completely with its schedule moved to WVTV's second subchannel. The transaction would have alleviated any regulatory complications involving the sale within Milwaukee, outside any physical and employee assets which would have needed to be sorted out later on (including

3999-495: The Milwaukee River terminating on the river's east bank). WYMS (88.9) and WUWM (89.7) have been long-term tenants of the tower dating to the 1970s, along with Family Radio 's WMWK (88.1) coming online in the early 1990s. Ion Television 's Kenosha -licensed WPXE-TV (channel 55) would begin to transmit from the tower in the late 2000s to centralize their digital signal. WVCY-TV (channel 30) became another tenant of

4092-589: The Milwaukee market and came online the afternoon of July 3. Sony leased the channel space on 18.2 for their network. Charter added WVTV-DT2 to their systems on December 2, 2014, which is carried on channel 179. The network was dropped on January 2, 2018, one week ahead of WCGV merging their channels onto WVTV's spectrum as part of Sinclair's sale of WCGV's spectrum back to the FCC in the 2016 auction. WCGV's existing channel numbers were retained. WIWN (channel 68) eventually picked up getTV in late March 2018 for their fourth subchannel. A second audio program channel

4185-809: The Milwaukee market. WXIX's tenure as a CBS O&O, however, was not successful. Only a small percentage of television sets in the Milwaukee area were even capable of receiving UHF stations at the time, as set manufacturers were not required to equip televisions with UHF tuners until 1964 as a result of the 1961 passage of the All-Channel Receiver Act . Those viewers not lucky enough to get a signal from WBBM-TV in Chicago , WISC-TV in Madison , or WBAY-TV in Green Bay were forced to rely on expensive UHF converters to watch channel 19, and even then

4278-471: The VHF television bands ( Band I and Band III ) to transmit to New Zealand households. Other stations, including a variety of pay and regional free-to-air stations, were forced to broadcast in the UHF band, since the VHF band had been very overloaded with four stations sharing a very small frequency band, which was so overcrowded that one or more channels would not be available in some smaller towns. However, at

4371-460: The antenna's power is radiated in horizontal directions. Television and FM broadcasting stations use collinear arrays of specialized dipole antennas such as batwing antennas . Certain subparts of the VHF band have the same use around the world. Some national uses are detailed below. The VHF TV band in Australia was originally allocated channels 1 to 10-with channels 2, 7 and 9 assigned for

4464-427: The atmosphere. VHF transmission range is a function of transmitter power, receiver sensitivity, and distance to the horizon, since VHF signals propagate under normal conditions as a near line-of-sight phenomenon. The distance to the radio horizon is slightly extended over the geometric line of sight to the horizon, as radio waves are weakly bent back toward the Earth by the atmosphere. An approximation to calculate

4557-630: The city of Milwaukee). Very high frequency Very high frequency ( VHF ) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves ( radio waves ) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter. Frequencies immediately below VHF are denoted high frequency (HF), and the next higher frequencies are known as ultra high frequency (UHF). VHF radio waves propagate mainly by line-of-sight , so they are blocked by hills and mountains, although due to refraction they can travel somewhat beyond

4650-536: The classic television programming of Weigel's WBME-CD (channel 41), which is one of the flagships of the MeTV network. Despite this, WVTV and all of Sinclair's CW stations were renewed in a long-term agreement with the CW on July 9, 2015, which keeps the network on the station in the long term. By the 2014–15 season, Sinclair had settled on having WVTV's daytime schedule dependent on talk show programming, while WCGV featured

4743-490: The complexities of rewiring an older and flood damaged studio and master control facility. On June 6, 2012, Sinclair received approval from the Milwaukee Common Council's Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee to move to an existing building near the 41 / 45 Interchange on Milwaukee's northeast side on Calumet Road in the Park Place office park and install receiving satellite dishes, generators and

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4836-504: The disbandment of its News Central division. As of 2013, Terry Gaughan, general manager of WVTV and WCGV, has said there are no plans to relaunch a news operation; although the station has inquired the market's existing news-producing stations about entering into a news share agreement. WVTV began to carry Sinclair's national morning newscast The National Desk in January 2021, then the late primetime edition in September 2021. Currently

4929-473: The end of 2013 , all television channels stopped broadcasting on the VHF bands, as New Zealand moved to digital television broadcasting, requiring all stations to either broadcast on UHF or satellite (where UHF was unavailable) utilising the Freeview service. Refer to Australasian television frequencies for more information. British television originally used VHF band I and band III . Television on VHF

5022-483: The eventual WVTV (channel 18) tower nearby (that station, along with WDJT and WMKE-LP , all originally utilized a transmitter tower atop the Hilton Milwaukee City Center downtown), and locating the tower there meant that viewers throughout the Milwaukee market could point their antennae in the same general direction. An issue with the tower's location is that the west side of the property

5115-406: The flat waters of Lake Michigan effectively allowing the western signal radius of those stations to be amplified across the lake and into the communities along the lake's western shore in eastern Wisconsin and Illinois (and vice versa those stations into Michigan), causing interference between the two stations that did not exist with the market's other stations. WTMJ-TV broadcast on channel 4, with

5208-565: The initial services in Sydney and Melbourne , and later the same channels were assigned in Brisbane , Adelaide and Perth . Other capital cities and regional areas used a combination of these and other frequencies as available. The initial commercial services in Hobart and Darwin were respectively allocated channels 6 and 8 rather than 7 or 9. By the early 1960s it became apparent that

5301-420: The launch of the jointly owned CW Television Network , Sinclair announced on May 2, 2006, that WVTV would become The CW's Milwaukee affiliate upon the network's September 18 launch. Sister station WCGV affiliated with MyNetworkTV two weeks before on September 5, creating one of five Sinclair-owned and/or controlled CW/MyNetworkTV duopolies in the country at the time. WVTV continued to identify as "WB 18" during

5394-401: The lights affixed to the tower's legs were legal. The village later declared the lights and the sign to be legal. Except for special requests – such as to aid navigation on Lake Michigan during sailing races – the tower was only lit from local sunset until midnight. The lights stayed on until the energy crisis of 1973-74 , when a viewer suggestion permanently darkened the lighting, though

5487-408: The line-of-sight horizon distance (on Earth) is: These approximations are only valid for antennas at heights that are small compared to the radius of the Earth. They may not necessarily be accurate in mountainous areas, since the landscape may not be transparent enough for radio waves. In engineered communications systems, more complex calculations are required to assess the probable coverage area of

5580-399: The maintenance costs of the lighting were already high due to winter and spring atmospheric icing which would rain higher-up icicles onto the lighting, constantly breaking bulbs (the icing also occasionally requires the area around the tower to be closed for safety reasons). The strands remained dormant upon the tower legs until 2003, when they, along with the giant "6" sign, were removed as

5673-415: The market's CBS affiliation in 1959, then switched to ABC in 1961, with that affiliate switch partially due to WISN-TV (channel 12)'s more central signal. The station would continue to campaign the FCC to relocate its city of license to Milwaukee, along with its transmitter site, and finally was successful in doing so in 1962. However, the appropriate area to build the tower was Milwaukee's north side (as

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5766-572: The more urban fare presented by Milwaukee's other stations. Longtime staples on WVTV included Hee Haw (which was produced by sister division Gaylord Entertainment), The Lawrence Welk Show as well as syndicated reruns of Green Acres and The Andy Griffith Show . The station also aired All Star Wrestling during the 1970s and 1980s. The station aired the CBS version of The Merv Griffin Show after WISN-TV (channel 12) rejected it. After Griffin

5859-523: The nearest adjacent channel 4 being WWJ-TV in Detroit , while WISN-TV 's channel 12 was unfettered for two more years before Flint, Michigan 's WJRT-TV came on the air. The FCC also cited that WOC-TV of Davenport, Iowa had some interference from WITI in small portions of their own market area (another station in the Quad Cities region, WHBF-TV , also broadcast on channel 4, which later forced

5952-431: The offer down as well. CBS then aligned itself with then low-profile independent WDJT-TV (channel 58). When The WB launched in January 1995, Milwaukee became the second-largest market in the country without an affiliate. Milwaukee viewers were forced to watch The WB's programming on cable through Chicago-based WGN-TV , which was then carrying the network nationally (although the station could also be received via antenna in

6045-520: The outset, which made the prospect of WVTV as a multi-market Fox affiliate unattractive to Gaylord. Sister station KSTW passed on the Fox affiliation for Seattle –Tacoma for this reason. The Fox affiliation went to six-year-old upstart WCGV-TV . WVTV continued to be the leading independent station in the market until Fox came into its own, resulting in a boost in WCGV's ratings. The station's ownership went into

6138-526: The owner had to buy a new TV. Several TV stations were allocated to VHF channels 3, 4 and 5, which were within the FM radio bands although not yet used for that purpose. A couple of notable examples were NBN-3 Newcastle , WIN-4 Wollongong and ABC Newcastle on channel 5. While some Channel 5 stations were moved to 5A in the 1970s and 80s, beginning in the 1990s, the Australian Broadcasting Authority began

6231-624: The owner of Cream City Broadcasting and others. The WXIX studios moved to a small area at the top of Milwaukee's Schroeder Hotel (renamed the Sheraton Schroeder Hotel in 1965; renamed the Marc Plaza in 1972; currently known as the Hilton Milwaukee City Center hotel). From this point on, WXIX was an independent station, and in 1963 changed its call letters to WUHF after another ownership change. Both

6324-496: The picture quality left a lot to be desired. However, unlike many early UHF stations, it managed to survive into the All-Channel era. The station moved to channel 18 in 1958 in a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) channel alignment change. However, this saw little improvement in the ratings. CBS concluded that it was better to have its programming on a VHF station, even if it was only an affiliate. The obvious candidate

6417-708: The program in a later timeslot so that it could air syndicated programs after its late evening newscast. As cable television became more popular, WVTV became a regional superstation in the mold of sister stations KTVT in Fort Worth , KHTV (now KIAH ) in Houston and KSTW in Tacoma . At its height, it was available on nearly every cable system in Wisconsin, as well as a few providers in Michigan , Minnesota , and

6510-442: The south side's Mitchell International Airport prevented any location of broadcast towers in that area), and with most of the prime in-city sites already taken by other radio and television stations, WITI would instead be required to locate the tower in a nearby suburb just outside the Milwaukee city limits. The village of Shorewood allowed WITI to build the tower on a piece of privately owned land that otherwise would have completed

6603-502: The southern edges of the Milwaukee market). By this time, channel 18 was airing more syndicated talk shows during the day, and aired first-run syndicated programming such as Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys in primetime under the branding "VTV Prime". On July 24, 1995, Gaylord sold WVTV to Glencairn Ltd. Glencairn had tried to buy WVTV a year earlier, but the sale had fallen through. A few months earlier, Sinclair Broadcast Group had become WCGV's owner as

6696-472: The station fitted the tower for digital broadcasting. Outside WITI, the city's public broadcasting and religious broadcasters have an extensive history with the structure. Milwaukee Public Television leased space on the tower for WMVS (channel 10) and WMVT (channel 36) until a move to WVTV 's tower in 1981 (with all three stations, and WCGV-TV (channel 24) moving to the nearby digital-ready Milwaukee PBS Tower in 1999, which does have guy wires over

6789-615: The station formed a full-time news department and began producing an hour-long primetime newscast called The 9 O'Clock Nightly News , which was anchored by Liz Talbot and Duane Gay. Shortly after entering into the LMA with WCGV in 1994, WVTV decided to discontinue the 9 p.m. newscast. Duane Gay would then move on to WISN-TV, where he continued on as a reporter, even after being diagnosed with a vicious form of soft tissue cancer in 1997; Gay would continue to work for channel 12 in any capacity he physically could, and spoke well of his time at WVTV until he died on April 26, 2005. Newscasts returned to

6882-539: The station in August 2003 with the launch of WB18 News at 9 , an hour-long program which featured a mix of local news stories from staff at WVTV's facility (anchored by Lisa Fielding on weeknights, and Tami Hughes on weekends), and national and international reports, weather forecasts and sports segments from Sinclair's News Central local/national hybrid operation based at the company's headquarters on Beaver Dam Road in Hunt Valley, Maryland . It also aired The Point ,

6975-563: The station on its path to becoming one of the most popular independent stations in the country, with strong local programming such as The Bowling Game (which would eventually be syndicated across the Midwest), along with a strong slate of syndicated programs such as cartoons , classic off-network sitcoms , more recent sitcoms, drama series , sports , and movies . Like its Gaylord stablemates, channel 18 focused on programming geared to Milwaukee's outer suburbs and rural areas, as opposed to

7068-468: The station was rebranded as Super 18, The CW , reviving the branding it used from 1987 to 1995. (WVTV reinstated the "CW 18" branding in September 2017, mainly in order to streamline its promotions with those of Sinclair's other CW affiliates.) On May 8, 2017, Sinclair entered into an agreement to acquire Tribune Media – owner of Fox affiliate WITI – for $ 3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $ 2.7 billion in debt held by Tribune, pending regulatory approval by

7161-456: The station would shut down its analog signal on the original transition date of February 17. WVTV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 18, at 9 a.m. on that date. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 61, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era UHF channel 18 for post-transition operations. As part of

7254-456: The station's paid programming and other timeslots where the Sinclair facility did not have an episode of a particular series within the schedule replaced with reruns of Coach and advertisements were replaced with direct response national advertising. Both stations eventually resumed local operations later during the week of July 25, but broadcast in 480i standard definition and did not display digital on-screen bugs at all due to damage to

7347-502: The station's high definition broadcasting equipment for most of the following month. HD programming was restored on August 20, 2010. Because the flooding caused irreparable damage to the building, forcing most operations for the stations up to transition to smaller facilities on the second floor of the building, Sinclair immediately began a search for new facilities for WVTV and WCGV, which would allow locally produced and syndicated programs to be broadcast in high definition full-time without

7440-546: The station's local programming output is limited to the public affairs program Connect MKE which airs several times a week on both WVTV subchannels. The program was previously known as Our Issues Milwaukee from 2013 until the end of 2021. The station's signal is multiplexed , with the former WCGV channels numbered with virtual channel 24: On June 23, 2014, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Sony Pictures Entertainment announced an affiliation agreement for Sony's digital subchannel movie network, getTV , which included WVTV for

7533-497: The structure. Shortly thereafter, approximately 2,000 lights, each light 25 watts , were installed. Station manager Roger LeGrand then coined the phrase "Milwaukee's Tower of Light". Some neighbors objected. The Shorewood village attorney opined that a lighted "6" sign (rendered in the Eurostile font used by the station from 1962 until 1973, then again from 1998 until 2002) might violate the village's lighted sign ordinance, but that

7626-519: The summer months, officially switching to the new "CW 18" branding on September 18, though the station's logo bug was changed the week before to the "CW18" logo while promoting the network's pending launch. On June 28, 2007, Time Warner Cable began carrying WVTV's high definition digital signal on its southeastern Wisconsin systems on digital channel 1018, along with WCGV on channel 1024 (formerly 518 and 524, respectively, before an October 2009 channel remapping), after Sinclair and Time Warner struck

7719-596: The then-likely move of the WVTV/My 24 intellectual unit to WITI's Brown Deer facility). On July 18, 2018, the FCC voted to have the Sinclair–Tribune acquisition reviewed by an administrative law judge amid "serious concerns" about Sinclair's forthrightness in its applications to sell certain conflict properties. Three weeks later on August 9, Tribune announced it would terminate the Sinclair deal, intending to seek other M&A opportunities. Tribune also filed

7812-524: The tower in 2018 as part of a channel sharing agreement using WITI's existing spectrum (which was relocated to digital channel 31 in fall 2019, requiring new transmitter work that year). In November 2019, W269DL (101.7), a translator of WGKB (1510), began to also transmit from the tower. The Tower is located off of the Oak Leaf Trail, just north of Capitol Drive in Shorewood, Wisconsin (north of

7905-459: The transmitter building itself is of faux- Georgian architecture design. In August 1962, construction of the 1,081 feet (329 m) tower was completed. It was formally dedicated on October 9, 1962. Storer looked for a way to make the tower a Milwaukee landmark, and in October 1963, the station received permission from the Shorewood village board to install additional non- navigational lights on

7998-599: Was independent station WITI-TV (channel 6), which had just signed on two years earlier. CBS officially moved its programming to WITI on April 1, 1959 (although WXIX would later make a secondary arrangement to carry any CBS shows that WISN-TV pre-empted after the latter's switch to the network in 1961). WITI also took over the WXIX studio facilities on North 27th Street, the same facilities once occupied by former CBS affiliate WCAN-TV. WXIX went dark that same day but returned on July 20 of that year after being purchased by Gene Posner,

8091-529: Was added to WVTV in 2019, allowing access to Descriptive Video Service for CW programming, along with the Spanish dub available for their program Jane the Virgin . On February 2, 2009, Sinclair told cable and satellite television providers via e-mail that regardless of the exact mandatory switchover date to digital-only broadcasting for full-power stations (which Congress rescheduled for June 12 days later),

8184-437: Was canceled by CBS, WVTV aired The Dick Cavett Show , which had been preempted by WITI; interestingly enough, a majority of ABC shows WITI had passed during its tenure with the network was picked up by WVTV until the secondary arrangement deal between the parties ended in 1972. The station also aired The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson from 1984 to 1988, due to WTMJ-TV (channel 4) being denied permission by NBC to air

8277-406: Was deleted and several channels changed frequencies, then in 1946 with television going from 18 channels to 13 channels, again with different frequencies, and finally in 1948 with the removal of Channel 1 (analog channels 2–13 remain as they were, even on cable television ). Channels 14–19 later appeared on the UHF band, while channel 1 remains unused. 87.5–87.9 MHz

8370-536: Was due to launch in 1994, but when it was delayed to 1995 instead, Gaylord sued to void the agreement. However, the New World/Fox affiliation deal in 1994 shifted network affiliations in many markets; Gaylord was able to reach an affiliation deal with CBS to switch KSTW and KTVT to the network. Locally, the deal included WITI, which would switch from CBS to Fox in December 1994. After being turned down by WISN-TV and WTMJ-TV, CBS approached WVTV. However, WVTV turned

8463-399: Was in black and white with 405-line format (although there were experiments with all three colour systems- NTSC , PAL , and SECAM -adapted for the 405-line system in the late 1950s and early 1960s). British colour television was broadcast on UHF (channels 21–69), beginning in the late 1960s. From then on, TV was broadcast on both VHF and UHF (VHF being a monochromatic downconversion from

8556-484: Was moving its programming there from its original affiliate in the city, WCAN-TV (channel 25, now defunct). The purchase resulted in a call letter change to WXIX (referencing the Roman numeral for 19) on February 27, 1955. It then moved into WCAN's former studio on North 27th Street, where it remained until being sold by CBS less than four years later. This made the station the first network owned-and-operated station in

8649-589: Was required to sell. Because of non-preemptable coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics on NBC affiliate WTMJ-TV, WVTV aired two Green Bay Packers preseason games against the San Francisco 49ers and Denver Broncos respectively on August 16 and 22 of that year, a role previously taken by Ion Television station WPXE-TV (channel 55) during the 2004 preseason. From 1979 to 1986, WVTV aired local news and weather updates running in varying lengths of between two and five minutes between programs. In 1989,

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