WBTV (channel 3) is a
television station
A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...
in
Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...
, United States, affiliated with
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
and owned by
Gray Television
Gray Television, Inc. is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 stations across the United St ...
. The station's studios are located off Morehead Street, just west of
Uptown Charlotte
Uptown Charlotte, also called Center City, is the central business district of Charlotte, North Carolina. The area is split into four wards by the intersection of Trade and Tryon Streets, and bordered by Interstate 277 and Interstate 77. The a ...
, and its transmitter is located in north-central
Gaston County
Gaston County is a county in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 227,943. The county seat is Gastonia. Dallas served as the original county seat from 1846 until 1911.
Gaston County is included in the C ...
. In addition, WBTV's studios continue to house the operations of its former
sister radio stations currently owned by
Urban One
Urban One, Inc. (formerly Radio One) is a Silver Spring, Maryland-based American media conglomerate. Founded in 1980 by Cathy Hughes, the company primarily operates media properties targeting African Americans. It is the largest African-American- ...
:
WBT-AM/
FM and
WLNK
WLNK (107.9 FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to serve Charlotte, North Carolina. The station is owned by Urban One. WLNK broadcasts a hot adult contemporary radio format. Studios are located at One Julian Price Place on West Morehead S ...
, as well as
WFNZ, which was previously owned by
CBS Radio
CBS Radio was a radio broadcasting company and radio network operator owned by CBS Corporation and founded in 1928, with consolidated radio station groups owned by CBS and Westinghouse Broadcasting/Group W since the 1920s, and Infinity Broadc ...
prior to its acquisition by
Beasley Broadcast Group
Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc., based in Naples, Florida, is an owner/operator of radio stations in the United States. , the company owned 63 stations under the Beasley Media Group name.
History
The company was founded in 1961 by George G. Beasl ...
in 2014, followed by Entercom (now known as
Audacy
Audacy, previously known as Radio.com, is a free broadcast and Internet radio platform owned by the namesake company Audacy, Inc. (formerly known as Entercom). The Audacy platform functions as a music recommender system and is the national um ...
) in late 2017 and then Urban One in 2020 under a local marketing agreement.
History
The station first signed on the air on July 15, 1949. When it debuted, WBTV was the 13th television station in the United States and the first in the Carolinas; it is the oldest television station located between
Richmond
Richmond most often refers to:
* Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States
* Richmond, London, a part of London
* Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England
* Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada
* Richmond, California, ...
and
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
. Veteran Charlotte broadcaster Jim Patterson was the first person seen on the station, and remained employed there until his death in 1986. WBTV was originally owned by the
Greensboro
Greensboro (; formerly Greensborough) is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte, North Car ...
-based Jefferson Standard Life Insurance Company, owners of WBT (1110 AM), the city's oldest
radio station
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...
and the first fully licensed station in the South. At the time, the Jefferson Standard Life Insurance Company also had a 16.5% interest in the
Greensboro News Company, licensee of
WFMY-TV
WFMY-TV (channel 2) is a television station licensed to Greensboro, North Carolina, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for the Piedmont Triad region. Owned by Tegna Inc., the station maintains studios on Phillips Avenue in Greensboro, a ...
, which signed on from Greensboro two months after WBTV. Jefferson Standard had purchased WBT from CBS in 1947. Shortly before the television station went on the air, its call letters were modified from WBT-TV to WBTV. Jefferson Standard merged with Pilot Life in 1968 (although it had owned controlling interest since 1945) and became Jefferson-Pilot Corporation. In 1970, the media interests were folded into a new subsidiary, Jefferson-Pilot Communications.
WBTV received one of the last
construction permit
Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building perm ...
s issued before the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
's (FCC)
"freeze" on new television licenses, which lasted until the Commission released its ''Sixth Report and Order'' in 1952. As such, it was Charlotte's only
VHF station for eight years, carrying affiliations with all four major networks of the time—
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
,
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
,
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
and
DuMont. However, WBTV has always been a primary CBS affiliate, owing to WBT radio's long affiliation with the
CBS Radio Network
CBS News Radio, formerly known as CBS Radio News and historically known as the CBS Radio Network, is a radio network that provides news to more than 1,000 radio stations throughout the United States. The network is owned by Paramount Global. It ...
. It is the only commercial television station in the market that has never changed its primary affiliation.
Channel 3 had originally operated from a converted radio studio in the Wilder Building, alongside its sister radio station. In 1955, WBT and WBTV moved to a then state-of-the-art facility on a hill atop Morehead Street, where both stations are still based today. The studio address, One Julian Price Place, is named in honor of a longtime Jefferson Standard/Jefferson-Pilot executive.
WBTV's only competition in its early years came from a
UHF station on channel 36, known as WAYS-TV and then WQMC-TV, which broadcast briefly from 1953 to 1955. It was nominally an NBC affiliate, sharing a secondary ABC affiliation with channel 3. However, channel 36's signal was severely weak, and NBC continued to allow WBTV to cherry-pick its stronger programming. Channel 36 went dark in March 1955, and DuMont shut down roughly a year later in August 1956. Channel 3 took on secondary affiliations with NBC and ABC until Charlotte's second VHF station,
WSOC-TV
WSOC-TV (channel 9) is a television station in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States, affiliated with ABC and Telemundo. It is owned by Cox Media Group alongside Kannapolis-licensed independent station WAXN-TV (channel 64). Both stations s ...
(channel 9), took the NBC affiliation when it signed on in April 1957. Channel 36 returned to the air in November 1964 as
WCCB
WCCB (channel 18) is a television station in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States, affiliated with The CW. It serves as the flagship station of locally based Bahakel Communications. WCCB's studios are located just outside Uptown Charlotte ...
(later moving to channel 18 in November 1966), carrying whatever CBS programs that WBTV turned down in order to carry ABC programs. ABC programming continued to be split among the three stations until 1967, when WCCB became a full-time ABC affiliate.
From 1958 to 1974, WBTV's studio facilities served as the home for
Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling
Jim Crockett Promotions Inc. is a family-owned professional wrestling promotion headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States, restarted by Jim Crockett's son and Jim Crockett Jr's brother, David Crockett. Founded in 1931, the promot ...
telecasts. Since its completion in 1984, WBTV's signal has been transmitted from a -high guy-wired aerial mast transmitter tower located in north-central
Gaston County, North Carolina
Gaston County is a county in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 227,943. The county seat is Gastonia. Dallas served as the original county seat from 1846 until 1911.
Gaston County is included in t ...
, which is also shared with former radio sister
WLNK
WLNK (107.9 FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to serve Charlotte, North Carolina. The station is owned by Urban One. WLNK broadcasts a hot adult contemporary radio format. Studios are located at One Julian Price Place on West Morehead S ...
.
When
WAGA-TV
WAGA-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, airing programming from the Fox network. Owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division, the station maintains studios and transmitter facili ...
in Atlanta, which signed on the air four months before WBTV, switched to
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
in December 1994, WBTV became the longest-tenured CBS affiliate located south of
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
WFMY-TV in Greensboro, the second-oldest station in the Carolinas, is the network's second-longest tenured affiliate south of the capital; it signed on three months after WBTV. Two years later, after
KPIX-TV
KPIX-TV (channel 5) is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving as the San Francisco Bay Area's CBS network outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside CW ...
in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
became a CBS
owned-and-operated station
In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
(due to owner
Westinghouse Electric Corporation
The Westinghouse Electric Corporation was an American manufacturing company founded in 1886 by George Westinghouse. It was originally named "Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company" and was renamed "Westinghouse Electric Corporation" in ...
's merger with CBS), WBTV became the second longest-tenured affiliate that was not owned by the network, behind only Washington's
WUSA.
Jefferson Standard/Jefferson-Pilot acquired several other radio and television stations across the country, with WBTV serving as the company's flagship station. The first was
WBTW
WBTW (channel 13) is a television station licensed to Florence, South Carolina, United States, serving the Pee Dee and Grand Strand regions of South Carolina as an affiliate of CBS. The station is owned by Nexstar Media Group, and maintains st ...
in
Florence, South Carolina
Florence is a city in and the county seat of Florence County, South Carolina, United States. It lies at the intersection of Interstates 20 and 95 and is the eastern terminus of the former. It is the primary city within the Florence metropolit ...
, which was built and signed on in 1954; indeed, the call letters were chosen specifically because "W" is the next letter in the alphabet after "V." The two stations were separately programmed, but shared a microwave system from 1959 onward. Jefferson-Pilot sold WBTW in 1968 because WBTW provided a fairly strong grade B signal to the eastern portion of the Charlotte market, and neither station would have been able to expand their signals as long as Jefferson-Pilot owned both of them.
In 2006, Jefferson-Pilot merged with the
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
-based
Lincoln National Corporation
Lincoln National Corporation is a ''Fortune'' 200 American holding company, which operates multiple insurance and investment management businesses through subsidiary companies. Lincoln Financial Group is the marketing name for LNC and its subsi ...
. Lincoln Financial retained Jefferson-Pilot's broadcasting division, which was renamed
Lincoln Financial Media
Lincoln Financial Media was a subsidiary of Lincoln National Corporation that owned radio stations in the United States. The division was formed in 2006 following the company's acquisition of Jefferson-Pilot's television and radio operations, wh ...
, with WBTV retaining its status as the flagship station.
Sale to Raycom Media
On November 12, 2007, Lincoln Financial announced its intention to sell WBTV,
sister station
In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement.
Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...
s
WWBT in Richmond and
WCSC-TV
WCSC-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Charleston, South Carolina, United States, affiliated with CBS and owned by Gray Television. The station's studios are located in the West Ashley section of Charleston, and its transmitter is loca ...
in
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, the county seat of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston metropolitan area. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint o ...
, and Lincoln Financial Sports, to
Raycom Media
Raycom Media, Inc. was an American television broadcasting company based in Montgomery, Alabama. Raycom owned and/or provided services for 65 television stations and two radio stations across 44 markets in 20 states. Raycom, through its Commun ...
for $583 million. Lincoln Financial also sold its Charlotte radio stations to
Braintree, Massachusetts
Braintree (), officially the Town of Braintree, is a municipality in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Although officially known as a towBraintree is a city, with a mayor-council government, mayor-council form of government, and i ...
–based
Greater Media
Greater Media, Inc., known as Greater Media, was an American media company that specialized in radio stations. The markets where they owned radio stations included Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, Charlotte, and the state of New Jersey. The compa ...
, effectively breaking up Charlotte's last co-owned radio/television station combination. According to ''
Charlotte Observer'' TV critic Mark Washburn, Lincoln Financial decided soon after taking over the former Jefferson-Pilot properties that it would never really be able to integrate them with the rest of the company's assets, and had decided to sell them as soon as possible. The sale of the radio stations was finalized on January 31, 2008. However, WBTV still shares the Julian Price Place studio with its former radio sisters, and they also retain a news partnership.
The FCC approved the sale of WBTV on March 25, 2008, and Raycom formally took control of the station on April 1.
[Washburn, Mark]
Raycom installs new GM at WBTV
. '' Charlotte Observer'', April 2, 2008. With the purchase, WBTV became Raycom's second-largest station by market size, behind the
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
duopoly of
WOIO
WOIO (channel 19) is a television station licensed to Shaker Heights, Ohio, United States, serving the Cleveland area as an affiliate of CBS. It is owned by Gray Television alongside low-power Telemundo affiliate WTCL-LD (channel 6) and Lo ...
and
WUAB
WUAB (channel 43) is a television station licensed to Lorain, Ohio, United States, serving the Cleveland area as an affiliate of The CW. It is owned by Gray Television alongside Low-power broadcasting#Television, low-power Telemundo affiliate WT ...
. Since
Raycom Sports
Raycom Sports is an American producer of sports television programs. It is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and owned and operated by Gray Television.
It was founded in 1979 by husband and wife, Rick and Dee Ray. In the 1980s, Raycom ...
is headquartered in Charlotte, WBTV had a very important role in Raycom Media's operations, and it shared its flagship status with NBC affiliate WSFA, located in the company's homebase of
Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County. Named for the Irish soldier Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the coastal Plain of the Gulf of Mexico. In the 202 ...
.
In early 2008, Raycom Sports and Lincoln Financial Sports officially merged under the Raycom Sports banner. The merger coincided with the start of the 2008
Atlantic Coast Conference
The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
season. WBTV had been Charlotte's home station for ACC sporting events since C.D. Chesley piped in
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
's historic win in the 1957
NCAA tournament to channel 3 and several other television stations in the state. Raycom had produced ACC basketball games in partnership with Jefferson-Pilot/Lincoln Financial since 1982. The partnership was extended to
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
in 2004; Jefferson-Pilot/Lincoln Financial had been the sole producer of ACC football telecasts since 1984. From 2010 onward, the package was branded as the
ACC Network
ACC Network (ACCN) is an American multinational subscription-television channel owned and operated by ESPN Inc. Dedicated to coverage of the Atlantic Coast Conference, it was announced in July 2016 and launched on August 22, 2019. The channel o ...
.
In mid-May 2008, the former Jefferson-Pilot/Lincoln Financial stations launched redesigned websites, powered by the Local Media network division of WorldNow (which operates nearly all of the websites of Raycom's stations), assuming web platform operations from Broadcast Interactive Media. However, WBTV and WWBT retain their Jefferson-Pilot/Lincoln Financial-era logos and branding (WCSC has since changed its logo and graphics, following its switch to high definition newscasts).
On November 15, 2013, both WBTV and WBT were dedicated with a North Carolina historical marker at the corner of
Tryon and Third Streets (reading "WBT/WBTV – Oldest broadcast stations in North Carolina established 1922. WBT radio long hosted live
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
. WBTV sign-on, July 15, 1949. Studios here until 1955"). The Wilder Building, which was demolished in 1983, served as WBTV's studio facilities from 1949 to 1955.
Sale to Gray Television
On June 25, 2018, Atlanta-based
Gray Television
Gray Television, Inc. is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 stations across the United St ...
announced it had reached an agreement with Raycom to merge their respective broadcasting assets (consisting of Raycom's 63 existing owned-and/or-operated television stations, including WBTV), and Gray's 93 television stations) under Gray's corporate umbrella. The cash-and-stock merger transaction valued at $3.6 billion—in which Gray shareholders would acquire preferred stock currently held by Raycom—resulted in WBTV gaining new in-state sister stations, including NBC affiliates
WECT
WECT (channel 6) is a television station in Wilmington, North Carolina, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Gray Television, which provides certain services to Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox affiliate WSFX-TV (channel 26) under a ...
in the
Wilmington, North Carolina
Wilmington is a port city in and the county seat of New Hanover County in coastal southeastern North Carolina, United States.
With a population of 115,451 at the 2020 census, it is the eighth most populous city in the state. Wilmington is the ...
market and
WITN-TV
WITN-TV (channel 7) is a television station licensed to Washington, North Carolina, United States, serving Eastern North Carolina as an affiliate of NBC and MyNetworkTV. Owned by Gray Television, the station has primary studio facilities on Eas ...
in the
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
-
Greenville market, in addition to its current Raycom sister stations.
The sale was approved on December 20, and was completed on January 2, 2019. As was the case with Raycom, WBTV became Gray's second-largest station by market size, after Cleveland's WOIO/WUAB.
2022 helicopter crash
On November 22, 2022, at 11:57 a.m., a 1999
Robinson R44
The Robinson R44 is a four-seat light helicopter produced by Robinson Helicopter Company since 1992. Based on the company's two-seat Robinson R22, the R44 features hydraulically assisted flight controls. It was first flown on 31 March 1990 and ...
helicopter nicknamed "WBTV Sky3" crashed onto the grass verge of
I-77
Interstate 77 (I-77) is a north–south Interstate Highway in the eastern United States. It traverses diverse terrain, from the mountainous state of West Virginia to the rolling farmlands of North Carolina and Ohio. It largely supplants the ...
in south Charlotte. Both occupants, WBTV pilot Chip Tayag and WBTV meteorologist Jason Myers, were pronounced dead at the scene. Witnesses to the crash claim the helicopter was visibly faltering, and in a steeply-banked spiral as it came down. Witnesses also claim that Tayag, a pilot with over 20 years of experience, deliberately steered the falling helicopter into the grass to avoid crashing into nearby buildings or onto the Interstate itself, which was crowded with
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden and ...
week traffic at the time. The
FAA
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...
and
NTSB
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and incid ...
began an investigation into the incident, only releasing their preliminary findings to the public; these and the
RadarBox
AirNav Systems is a Tampa-based global flight tracking and data services company founded in 2001. The company operates a flight tracking website and mobile app called Radarbox which offers worldwide tracking of commercial and general aviation flig ...
findings indicate the helicopter was initially traveling at , and made three 360-degree turns just before it crashed. WBTV anchors Molly Grantham and Jamie Boll covered the incident live on the air, before receiving confirmation it was their own station's helicopter and crewmen involved in the crash; the station released a statement citing the incident as a "terrible loss" to the WBTV family. WBTV received an immediate outpouring of support from the community, sister stations, and other media outlets;
Governor
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
Roy Cooper
Roy Asberry Cooper III (born June 13, 1957) is an American attorney and politician, serving as the 75th governor of North Carolina since 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th attorney general of North Carolina from 20 ...
and Pastor
Franklin Graham
William Franklin Graham III (born July 14, 1952) is an American evangelist and missionary. He frequently engages in Christian revival tours and political commentary. He is president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) and ...
posted condolences on social media, and the
Carolina Panthers
The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Panthers compete in the National Football League (NFL), as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. T ...
and
Charlotte FC
Charlotte FC is an American professional soccer club based in Charlotte. The team competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference. The team is owned by David Tepper, who was awarded the expansion franchise ...
delayed their 2022
Christmas tree
A Christmas tree is a decorated tree, usually an evergreen conifer, such as a spruce, pine or fir, or an artificial tree of similar appearance, associated with the celebration of Christmas. The custom was further developed in early modern ...
lighting ceremony at
Bank of America Stadium for a moment of silence in honor of Tayag and Myers.
Programming
For many years, WBTV was one of the country's most dominant television stations. This was in part due to being the only reliably viewable station in town for nine years, as well as the station's long tradition of strong local news coverage. In fact, its dominance was so absolute that it was once said the dials of most Charlotteans' television sets were "rusted on channel 3." To this day, WBTV has been one of CBS' strongest affiliates.
The station claims credit for a number of television "firsts", among them being the construction of the first building in the United States built specifically for
color television
Color television or Colour television is a television transmission technology that includes color information for the picture, so the video image can be displayed in color on the television set. It improves on the monochrome or black-and-white t ...
broadcasting. WBTV also claims to have been the first station in the world to record and rebroadcast programs on color
videotape
Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassett ...
; to use a live camera and microwave relay inside a race car; and to have a fully computerized news operation. It claims to have been the first station in the country to develop computerized election return projections, to broadcast CBS' ''
ExtraVision
ExtraVision was a short-lived teletext service created and operated by the American television network CBS in the early to mid-1980s. It was carried in the vertical blanking interval of the video from local affiliate stations of the CBS network. ...
''
teletext
A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories
Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...
service, and to produce a local newscast for a
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
member station (
WTVI
WTVI (channel 42) is a PBS member television station in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States, owned by Central Piedmont Community College. The station's studios are located in the Chantilly-Commonwealth section of east Charlotte, and its tra ...
, channel 42). It claims to be the first station in the Southern U.S. to air color test patterns and color ID slides. WBTV was granted the first full-power construction permit for a digital television signal in the United States in 1998, which went on the air that year operating at 1 million
watt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...
s
–equivalent to 5 million watts for an analog transmitter.
A much-remembered women's/homemaker's show, ''The Betty Feezor Show'', aired on channel 3 from the 1950s until 1977 (usually after the soap opera ''
Search for Tomorrow
''Search for Tomorrow'' is an American television soap opera. It began its run on CBS on September 3, 1951, and concluded on NBC, 35 years later, on December 26, 1986.
Set in the fictional town of Henderson in an unspecified state, the show focu ...
'', and in its 15-minute format, ''
Guiding Light
''Guiding Light'' (known as ''The Guiding Light'' before 1975) is an American radio and television soap opera. It is listed in ''Guinness World Records'' as the third longest-running drama in television in American history. ''Guiding Light'' a ...
''). Feezor gave viewers tips on
cooking
Cooking, cookery, or culinary arts is the art, science and craft of using heat to Outline of food preparation, prepare food for consumption. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire to using electric ...
,
sewing
Sewing is the craft of fastening or attaching objects using stitches made with a sewing needle and thread. Sewing is one of the oldest of the textile arts, arising in the Paleolithic era. Before the invention of spinning yarn or weaving fabr ...
,
floral arranging, and other topics of interest to housewives and mothers. In 1965, the show was the third most-watched women's program in the United States.
Feezor's show was also carried on Richmond sister station WWBT after Jefferson-Pilot bought the station in 1968. Feezor retired in 1977 due to a brain tumor, an illness from which she died in 1978.
''The Betty Feezor Show'' was replaced by an hour-long midday news and variety show, ''Top O' the Day''. Segments on the program included ''On the Square'', in which Doug Mayes solicited opinions from various Charlotte-area residents about current news topics, as well as C. J. Underwood's ''Down Home with the Carolina Camera'', where otherwise unknown or low-profile Carolinians were temporarily given celebrity status for their whimsical talents, novel collections, or for the way they impacted their communities. For its first five years, the show aired at 12:00 p.m., preempting ''
The Young and the Restless
''The Young and the Restless'' (often abbreviated as ''Y&R'') is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. The show is set in fictional Genoa City (not the real-life similarly-named Genoa City, Wi ...
''. It shifted to 11:30 a.m. in 1982. To make room for ''Top O' the Day'', WBTV aired ''
The Price Is Right
''The Price Is Right'' is a television game show franchise created by Bob Stewart, originally produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman; currently it is produced and owned by Fremantle. The franchise centers on television game shows, but also inc ...
'' on a
one-day delay at 10:30 a.m., preempting whatever game show CBS aired at that time. As a result, ''
Child's Play'', ''
Press Your Luck
''Press Your Luck'' is an American television game show created by Bill Carruthers and Jan McCormack. It premiered on CBS daytime on September 19, 1983, and ended on September 26, 1986. The format is a retooling of an earlier Carruthers productio ...
'', ''
Card Sharks
''Card Sharks'' is an American television game show. It was created by Chester Feldman for Mark Goodson- Bill Todman Productions. The game features two contestants who attempt to predict the outcome of survey questions to gain control of a ro ...
'', and ''
Now You See It'' never aired in Charlotte. The station didn't air the CBS version of ''
Wheel of Fortune The Wheel of Fortune or ''Rota Fortunae'' has been a concept and metaphor since ancient times referring to the capricious nature of Fate. Wheel of Fortune may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Art
* ''The Wheel of Fortune'' (Burne-Jo ...
'' until late in that show's run. ''Top O' the Day'' ended in 1992, and was replaced by a conventional half-hour noon newscast. For most of the 1980s, WBTV aired the ''
CBS Evening News
The ''CBS Evening News'' is the flagship evening television news program of CBS News, the news division of the CBS television network in the United States. The ''CBS Evening News'' is a daily evening broadcast featuring news reports, feature s ...
'' on a half-hour delay at 7 p.m., due to its 6:00 p.m. newscast lasting an hour.
For many years, WBTV occasionally preempted some of CBS'
Saturday morning cartoon
"Saturday-morning cartoon" is a colloquial term for the original animated series programming that was typically scheduled on Saturday and Sunday mornings in the United States on the "Big Three" television networks. The genre's popularity had a br ...
s as well. However, area viewers could watch those preempted shows on WSPA-TV in Spartanburg, South Carolina, Spartanburg or WFMY through a strong antenna (WFMY and WSPA were and still are available on some cable systems in the Charlotte market, although non-local programming is subject to blackout (broadcasting), blackout due to network non-duplication and syndication exclusivity rules). Before the arrival of the Carolina Panthers, WSPA was also known to air a different NFL on CBS, NFL game than what aired on WBTV, giving most Charlotte-area viewers a second option for NFL games. This was especially true if the Washington Commanders, Washington Redskins and Atlanta Falcons played at the same time. WBTV favored the Redskins while WSPA favored the Falcons, in tandem with most CBS affiliates in their respective states.
Since the early 1990s, WBTV has generally cleared most of the CBS programming schedule in pattern, with the exception of ACC football and basketball games from Raycom Sports. For many years, WBTV aired ''Face the Nation'' on Sundays at 11:30 a.m.; most CBS affiliates in the Eastern Time Zone air it at 10:30 a.m. However, when ''Face the Nation'' was permanently expanded to an hour in 2012, WBTV moved the show to 10:30 a.m.
WBTV gained a major ratings windfall in 1981–82, when College Basketball on CBS, CBS won the television rights to the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Due to North Carolina's status as a college basketball hotbed and local teams North Carolina and Duke Blue Devils men's basketball, Duke being mainstays in the tournament, NCAA tournament games are consistently among the highest-rated programs in the market during playoff season. In 2008, for instance, NCAA games on WBTV attracted a 13.4 rating and a 24 share, the third-highest in the nation (behind only WLKY, WLKY-TV in Louisville, Kentucky, Louisville and WREG-TV in Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis).
The popularity of a series of specials commemorating the station's 25th anniversary in 1974 led to a long-running program, ''Those Were the Years'', hosted by Mike McKay and featuring episodes of classic television shows such as ''Dragnet (TV series), Dragnet'', ''You Bet Your Life'' and ''Alfred Hitchcock Presents''. It was seen for several years at 11:30 p.m. on Fridays, preempting the The CBS Late Movie, CBS late-night shows which competed poorly against ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Tonight Show''.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, WBTV aired a Sunday morning program that featured singing cowboy Fred Kirby and his sidekick "Uncle Jim" (played by Jim Patterson). The show was known at various times as ''Tiny Town'', ''Whistle Stop'', ''Fred Kirby's Little Rascals'' and ''Kirby's Corral''. Giving the "hi-sign" to his young fans, Kirby was a fixture for many years at the Western (genre), western-themed park Tweetsie Railroad in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, Blowing Rock (an hour northwest of Charlotte). In addition to Fred and Uncle Jim, viewers were treated to classic episodes of ''The Little Rascals'' (Hal Roach's ''Our Gang'') as well as frequent appearances by the local bluegrass music, bluegrass band The Br'arhoppers. Patterson was killed in a single-car accident in Charlotte in 1986; Kirby died in 1996 at age 85.
Sports programming
From 1982 to 2019, WBTV was the flagship station of syndicated over-the-air coverage of Atlantic Coast Conference sports. Then-owner Jefferson-Pilot took over coverage of men's basketball from longtime producer C. D. Chesley in 1982 in partnership with Raycom, and became the sole producer of ACC football in 1984. Those rights passed to Lincoln Financial after its merger with Jefferson-Pilot in 2006. Both have been produced by Raycom Sports after their acquisition of Lincoln Financial's sports division during the 2007–2008 season. Most ACC games that were not televised by WBTV aired on either WJZY (channel 46) or WMYT-TV (channel 55). Raycom Sports has rights to the ACC until at least the 2026–27 season. The ACC syndication package moved to cable's ACC Network in 2019.
WBTV also airs any Panthers games carried on CBS' NFL package. The station airs at least two games a year, typically when the team plays host to an American Football Conference, AFC opponent at
Bank of America Stadium; starting in 2014, through the NFL's new "cross-flex" broadcast rules, games that would normally air on NFL on Fox, Fox (locally on WJZY) can be moved arbitrarily to CBS and vice versa. WBTV also aired both of the Panthers' Super Bowl appearances locally, as CBS had the rights to Super Bowls Super Bowl XXXVIII, XXXVIII and Super Bowl 50, 50.
News operation
WBTV presently broadcasts 38½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 6½ hours each weekday, four hours on Saturdays and two hours on Sundays).
For most of its first 30 years on the air, WBTV's newscasts dominated the Nielsen ratings in the Charlotte market. In addition to its legacy as the state's first television station, it also benefited from its ties to WBT, one of the most respected radio news operations in the Southeastern United States. Channel 3 did not face a serious challenge by any other news-producing station in the market until 1981. That year, Doug Mayes, the station's main anchorman since it began producing daily newscasts in 1952, jumped to WSOC-TV. Mayes said years later that channel 9 offered him a deal that was too lucrative for him to resist, considering that he had kids in college. Jefferson-Pilot management, who only a few years earlier had touted Mayes as part of the station's campaign, "Turn to People You Know," wanted to make its newscasts appeal to a younger audience and made little effort to retain him. Within a few months, WBTV's late-evening newscast lost the lead at 11 p.m. to channel 9, and it would not regain first place in that timeslot until 2004. WSOC-TV gained a large lead in ratings for most other news timeslots beginning in 1990. WBTV returned to a strong position in the late 1990s, culminating in wrestling the #1 spot at noon in 1998 from WSOC-TV. The two stations have gone back and forth at first place in most timeslots since then. During the July 2013 ratings period, WBTV took the lead at noon and 11 p.m., while WSOC led at all other news timeslots.
Soon after Raycom took control of the station, WBTV began airing local newscasts and CBS programs in high-definition television, high definition. During the 2016 February sweeps, WBTV surged to first place in all timeslots, including the 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts, for the first time in 26 years. WBTV credited its strong social media presence and its talent continuity for the ratings win, while WSOC lost much of its main talent in the previous year. Historically, WBTV has dominated the market west of the Catawba River, a legacy from its nine-year head start.
Diana Williams (later at WABC-TV in New York City; now retired) served as an anchor at WBTV during the early 1980s; she was succeeded as the station's main female anchor by Sara James (now a reporter for ''Dateline NBC''). Following the 2005 retirement of longtime WSOC anchorman Bill Walker, WBTV began billing lead anchorman Paul Cameron as "The Voice of Experience." Cameron joined WBTV in 1981 as the station's sports director, and then succeeded longtime anchor Bob Inman upon his retirement in 1996. He was only the third main anchor in the station's history, following Mayes and Inman. Cameron served as the station's top male anchor until his retirement on December 31, 2018.
Prior to joining in 2004, evening anchor Maureen O'Boyle, a Charlotte native and graduate of West Charlotte High School, served as anchor of the syndicated newsmagazines ''A Current Affair (American TV program), A Current Affair'' and ''Extra (American TV program), Extra''. Morning and midday anchor John Carter formerly served as a North Carolina state senator prior to joining the station. Other notable on-air personalities include Western bureau chief Steve Ohnesorge, who started as a photographer at WBTV in 1975.
In 1994, WBTV entered into a news share agreement to produce a 10:00 p.m. newscast for then-independent station (North America), independent station WJZY; the newscast later moved to PBS member station WTVI, before returning to WJZY in 2003 and then to that station's duopoly (broadcasting), duopoly partner, MyNetworkTV affiliate WMYT-TV in April 2012. Following Fox's purchase of WJZY and WMYT, the WBTV-produced newscast returned to WJZY when it became the market's Fox owned-and-operated station on July 1, 2013, which continued to air until the station launched its own news department (and hour-long 10:00 p.m. newscast) on January 1, 2014. It placed third among local newscasts during the July 2013 ratings period, behind the WSOC-produced newscast on WAXN, and WCCB's in-house newscast.
In September 2010, WBTV debuted an hour-long 4 p.m. newscast, which competes with what at the time was a half-hour newscast (which has since expanded to one hour) on WCNC-TV. On January 22, 2014, WBTV began producing a two-hour extension of its weekday morning newscast, airing from 7:00–9:00 a.m. as well as an hour-long prime time newscast at 8:00 p.m. for WBTV-DT2. The morning newscast ended in spring 2018, and the 8 p.m. newscast ended on August 17, 2018.
Since 2008, WBTV has partnered with its sister stations in South Carolina—WCSC, WIS (TV), WIS in Columbia, South Carolina, Columbia and WMBF-TV in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Myrtle Beach and WHNS in Greenville, South Carolina, Greenville—to cover stories in South Carolina. Between them, the five stations cover almost all of South Carolina. It is the second time that WBTV has had a sister station in the Florence/Myrtle Beach market; as mentioned above, Jefferson-Pilot was the founding owner of WBTW from 1954 to 1968.
Notable former on-air staff
* Shannon Bream – anchor; now at Fox News, Fox News Channel
* Jan Jeffcoat – anchor; now hosting ''The National Desk'' in
Washington, D.C.
)
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, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
* Fred Kirby – performer and host of children's programming
* Michael Marsh (journalist), Michael Marsh – now anchor at WBRZ-TV in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
* Maureen O'Boyle – anchor
* Lori Stokes – anchor (1988–1990); now at WNYW in New York City
* Diana Williams – anchor (1983–1986); later at WABC-TV in New York City until 2019; now retired
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's digital signal is Multiplex (TV), multiplexed:
WBTV had previously carried a Standard-definition television, standard-definition simulcast of the station's main channel on its second digital subchannel. On July 12, 2010, the simulcast was replaced with This TV. WBTV's weather radar was previously shown on its third subchannel, but the subchannel itself was removed prior to the digital transition. The third subchannel resumed operations upon the launch of Bounce TV on September 26, 2011. On January 1, 2012, WBTV switched the subchannels for This TV and Bounce TV, due to a contractual obligation to carry Bounce TV on the station's second subchannel. On April 1, 2012, This TV was dropped and the third subchannel was once again removed to make room for WBTV's Mobile television, mobile DTV service, but was brought back on October 8, 2014, with the Grit network. On January 1, 2020, Circle, a country music and lifestyle channel was launched and added as a fourth subchannel at 3.3, moving Grit to subchannel 3.4.
Analog-to-digital conversion
WBTV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 3, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States Digital television transition 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 23. Through the use of Program and System Information Protocol, PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 3.
NextGen TV
WBTV upgraded to ATSC 3.0 on July 7, 2021.
Out-of-market cable carriage
In recent years, WBTV has been carried on Cable television, cable in several areas outside of the Charlotte media market, television market, including cable systems within the adjacent Greensboro–Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Winston-Salem–High Point, North Carolina, High Point and Asheville, North Carolina, Asheville markets in North Carolina and South Carolina, and the Tri-Cities, Tennessee, Tri-Cities market in Tennessee and Virginia.
See also
*Channel 23 digital TV stations in the United States
*Channel 3 virtual TV stations in the United States
References
External links
*
WBTV History*
*
FCC WBTV-Tower's Antenna Structure RegistrationDrawings of Jefferson Pilot Comm. Tower – SkyscraperPage.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wbtv
Television stations in Charlotte, North Carolina, BTV
CBS network affiliates
Bounce TV affiliates
Circle (TV network) affiliates
Grit (TV network) affiliates
Television channels and stations established in 1949
Gray Television
1949 establishments in North Carolina