Fiktiv USA - WTIC-TV

WTIC-TV, virtual channel 61 (UHF digital channel 34), is a Fox-affiliated television station licensed to Hartford, Connecticut, United States and serving the Hartford–New Haven, Connecticut television market. The station is owned by Tegna Inc., as part of a duopoly with Waterbury-licensed CW affiliate WCCT-TV (channel 20). The two stations share studios on Broad Street in downtown Hartford; WTIC-TV's transmitter is located on Rattlesnake Mountain in Farmington, Connecticut. On cable, WTIC-TV is carried primarily on channel 6 throughout the market.

A group led by Arnold Chase and his company, Arch Communications, was granted a construction permit for channel 61 in September 1983. Chase originally planned to call his new station WETG, in memory of Ella T. Grasso, the first woman to serve as governor of Connecticut, who died in 1981; these call letters were assigned on February 3, 1984. Grasso's son was a minority partner in Chase's group.

However, changes in Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations during this time allowed separately-owned stations in the same market to obtain consent to share a call sign. Chase then asked his father, owner of WTIC radio (1080 AM and 96.5 FM) to allow Arch to use the historic WTIC-TV call letters. After securing consent, Arch applied for a waiver to use the call sign in June 1984; the call change took effect on August 4 (the WETG call letters were subsequently used by a station in Erie, Pennsylvania, now fellow Fox affiliate WFXP). The WTIC-TV call sign had last been used by what is now WFSB (channel 3) from 1957 to 1974. In memory of Grasso, WTIC showed clips during their nightly sign-off of Grasso at work while church bells played "The Star-Spangled Banner". A graphic at the end of the sequence mentioned that the station was dedicated to Grasso's memory.

WTIC-TV began operation on September 17, 1984, with a special live broadcast of a gala event hosted by TV star Eddie Albert and longtime WTIC radio personality Bob Steele. On this date, the station became the first station in New England to broadcast a stereo audio signal. Former President Jimmy Carter was in attendance. Originally, it was a general entertainment independent station running cartoons, sitcoms, old movies, CBS shows pre-empted by WFSB, ABC shows pre-empted by WTNH (channel 8), NBC shows pre-empted by WVIT (channel 30), drama series, and sports in competition with the established independent station in the market, WTXX (channel 20, now CW-affiliated sister station WCCT-TV). During 1985 and 1986, the station invested in stronger programming.

WTIC later became a charter Fox affiliate when the network launched on October 9, 1986. However, by 1987, Arch encountered financial problems and WTIC nearly filed for bankruptcy. Many syndication distributors went unpaid and responded by pulling their programming from channel 61. Extensive litigation followed as the contracts that were standard in the industry at that time stated that if a single payment was missed, no more programs would be provided, but the station was still required to pay the full amount due under the contract. As the litigation progressed, the shows were replaced by low-budget barter programming. Central to the litigation were allegations of illegal "tie-in" sales by program syndicators that artificially drove up the cost of programming to WTIC. The cases soon settled on terms favorable to Chase and WTIC. From the time it joined the network, WTIC-TV had served as the default Fox affiliate for the majority of the Springfield–Holyoke market in western Massachusetts, as that area had been one of the few television markets in the Eastern Time Zone without an affiliate of its own; Berkshire County was served by Albany affiliate WXXA-TV instead, as that county had been considered to be part of the Capital District region. This changed on March 31, 2008 when ABC affiliate WGGB-TV added Fox programming on its second digital subchannel.

Chase Broadcasting (owned by Arnold Chase's father's organization) acquired WTIC on October 2, 1987. Although the barter programming continued, the station began to realize some sustained success in part due to the early success of the Fox network and shows like 21 Jump Street and Married...With Children. A milestone was reached in 1992, when WTIC began to regularly beat WTXX in the ratings. That year, Chase agreed to sell its four television stations—WTIC-TV, WATL in Atlanta, KDVR in Denver, and WXIN in Indianapolis—to Renaissance Broadcasting, owner of WTXX. The sale did not include the WTIC radio stations, which Chase retained until 1996. To comply with prevailing FCC regulations, Renaissance sold WTXX to a Roman Catholic non-profit group, Counterpoint Communications; both deals were completed in March 1993. Renaissance tried to negotiate a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Counterpoint in which it would buy WTXX's entire broadcast day, except for overnights and an hour during the day in which WTXX was to run Catholic programming. During negotiations, which lasted from the time the sale became final until July 1993, Renaissance agreed to have WTXX run The Disney Afternoon from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and some off network sitcoms from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. weekdays free of charge, as well as first run syndicated shows on weekends in this slot. However, Counterpoint wanted only a part-time arrangement, and negotiations ultimately fell through. Eventually, WTXX entered into a part-time LMA with WVIT (channel 30).

After talks with Counterpoint fell through, Renaissance moved most of WTXX's stronger programming to WTIC, creating a stronger lineup for channel 61. Some programming (such as older sitcoms), however, was returned to their syndication distributors and wound up first on WTWS (channel 26, now Ion Television owned-and-operated station WHPX-TV) and then WTVU (channel 59, now MyNetworkTV affiliate WCTX). The cartoons that did not move to WTIC were sold to WVIT, which ultimately moved them back to WTXX.

On July 1, 1996, Chicago-based Tribune Broadcasting (then-owner of New York City superstation WPIX) announced that it would acquire Renaissance Communications for $1.13 billion. Two years later, WTIC-TV replaced WVIT as the LMA partner for WTXX (then a UPN affiliate, later with The WB, currently a CW affiliate). In 2001, Tribune bought WTXX outright. Both stations became sister properties of the Hartford Courant after Times Mirror merged with Tribune in 2000. As time went on, WTIC began dropping cartoons, movies, and older sitcoms in favor of more talk and reality shows. The weekday cartoons ended at the end of 2001 when Fox ended its weekday kids' block.

On July 10, 2013, Tribune announced plans to spin off its publishing division into a separate company. Once the split was finalized in 2014, WTIC-TV and WCCT-TV remained with the Tribune Company (which retained all non-publishing assets, including the broadcasting, digital media and Media Services units), while its newspapers (including the Hartford Courant) became part of the similarly named Tribune Publishing Company. Despite the split, the stations remained in the Courant building.

On October 19, 2015, the station announced that it would drop the "Fox CT" name and return to its previous "Fox 61" designation (which had been phased out in 2010). The decision came after viewers were asked which title they preferred and to share their feelings in a special social media campaign. Responses were overwhelmingly in favor of a return to the original branding, with many citing the nostalgia of the broadcast's original analog signal appearing on channel 61.

On December 3, 2018, Irving, Texas-based Nexstar Media Group—which has owned ABC affiliate WTNH and MyNetworkTV affiliate WCTX since January 2017—announced it would acquire the assets of Tribune Media for $6.4 billion in cash and debt. As FCC regulations prohibit common ownership of more than two stations in the same media market, or two or more of the four highest-rated stations in the market, Nexstar was required to sell two of the stations (including one ranking among the top four in total-day viewership) to a separate, unrelated company to address the ownership conflict. On March 20, 2019, McLean, Virginia-based Tegna Inc. announced it would purchase WTIC and WCCT from Nexstar upon consummation of the merger, as part of the company's sale of certain Nexstar- and Tribune-operated stations to Tegna and the E. W. Scripps Company in separate deals worth $1.32 billion; this made the WTIC/WCCT duopoly the first television properties in Connecticut and southern New England for Tegna. The sale was completed on September 19, 2019.

Since Fox began airing sports programming in 1994, WTIC has had to deal with issues regarding Major League Baseball and NFL coverage. Connecticut is split between the traditional home territories for Boston and New York City teams. The football issue is not typically as stark because the New York Giants and New England Patriots play in separate conferences, each with their own network television deals, so there is little overlap. However, it used to be a source of frustration during baseball season. On occasion, Fox will pick both the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox for its baseball broadcast windows. Usually, MLB limits Fox to a single game and does not allow any other station to broadcast baseball in that window (from 3:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., and since 2012, alternately from 7:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.), including the cable channels that usually air Yankees and Red Sox games, YES and NESN. This historically resulted in numerous complaints among Connecticut baseball fans when WTIC would only be able to broadcast either the Yankees or the Red Sox. The network has since relented, and now allows WCCT to broadcast the other game in the case of a Yankees/Red Sox conflict, as well as in the case of a Red Sox/Mets conflict. Beginning with the 2008 season to alleviate coverage issues, game broadcasts of the New York Mets from sister station WPIX have alternated between WTIC and WCCT.

WTIC-TV presently broadcasts 56½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 9½ hours each weekday and 4½ hours each on Saturdays and Sundays); in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the highest local newscast output of any television station in the state of Connecticut.

The station broadcasts the Xfinity Sports Desk at 10:45 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday nights. WTIC also produces a weekly public affairs show, The Real Story, which airs Sunday mornings at 10:00 a.m. Along with obtaining world and national news footage from Fox News, WTIC also receives news footage from CNN Newsource and the Associated Press.

In 1989, WTIC launched its news department with the debut of a nightly half-hour 10:00 p.m. newscast, which was the second in the market after a short-lived attempt on WHCT-TV (channel 18, now Univision affiliate WUVN) in 1969; original WTIC news anchor Pat Sheehan had previously served as the anchor for WHCT's program. The 10:00 p.m. newscast was joined in June 1995 by an in-depth news program at 10:30 p.m. similar in style to the original format of Nightline called Tonight in Connecticut; after two months of low ratings, Tonight in Connecticut was dropped in August 1995 in favor of a half-hour extension of the existing 10:00 p.m. newscast. In 1998, when WTIC replaced WVIT as WTXX's LMA partner, the WVIT-produced 10:00 p.m. broadcast was replaced with a simulcast of the first half-hour of channel 61's primetime newscast. On April 24, 2006, WTXX began to simulcast the entire hour of the program. That station does not have a separate news open for the nightly broadcasts; whenever Fox programming or sports delays the news on WTIC, it still airs on WCCT but under the name of News at Ten. There is also a News at Ten logo bug in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen in place of the Fox 61 bug.

The station launched a weekday morning newscast on March 3, 2008. The 7:00 a.m. hour competes with WCTX's morning show (which is produced by sister station WTNH), and airs for one hour. On August 4, 2009, the weekday morning newscast was expanded to 4½ hours and began airing from 4:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. During the 8:00 a.m. hour, the format of the program includes several interview segments focusing on entertainment, lifestyle and health. This hour is simulcast on WCCT; the station's simulcasts of portions of the morning newscast have been intermittent throughout the newscast's existence. Since launching the morning broadcast, WTIC-TV has entered into a weather department partnership with WTIC radio (1080 AM). The weather center now features meteorologists from the radio and television stations. Weather reports can also be heard on WTIC, WTIC-FM (96.5 FM), WRCH (100.5 FM), WZMX (93.7 FM), and WZBG (97.3 FM).

On September 8, 2008, WTIC debuted a weeknight 11:00 p.m. newscast. On September 21, the station launched a weekday midday newscast at 11:00 a.m. A weeknight 6:00 p.m. newscast was planned, but did not debut on that date. On August 23, 2010, WTIC launched an hour-long late afternoon newscast at 4:00 p.m. on weekdays.

In July 2009, news reporter Shelly Sindland filed both state and federal complaints alleging age and sex discrimination in the station's newsroom. Media websites also raised questions about the way the case was covered by the Hartford Courant, which operates under the same management as WTIC.

On December 12, 2009, WTIC, WCCT (then WTXX) and the Hartford Courant moved into their new combined newsroom facilities in Downtown Hartford, and WTIC rebranded from "Fox 61" to "Fox CT" (a transition that was completed in July 2010). In addition, WTIC became the second station in the market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition, with WCCT's newscasts also making the transition. On January 22, 2011, WTIC launched weekend morning newscasts, airing for two hours from 7:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.; it is the third Tribune-owned station with a weekend morning newscast (now-independent station and Tribune flagship WGN-TV in Chicago and Fox affiliate WXIN in Indianapolis debuted weekend morning newscasts before WTIC, CW affiliate KTLA in Los Angeles launched a weekend morning newscast a few months later in April 2011). On September 26, 2011, WTIC expanded its weekday morning newscast to 5½ hours from 4:30 a.m. -10:00 a.m.; with the expansion, the 11:00 a.m. newscast was dropped from the schedule. On January 28, 2013, WTIC launched an hour-long 5:00 p.m. newscast. On September 9, 2013, WTIC expanded its weekday morning newscast to six hours with the addition of a half-hour, now starting at 4:00 a.m. At some point afterwards, the weekend morning news was also expanded, this time by an hour and it now airs from 6:00 a.m. -9:00 a.m.

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WCCT-TV, virtual channel 20 (UHF digital channel 33), branded on-air as CW 20, is a CW-affiliated television station licensed to Waterbury, Connecticut, United States and serving the Hartford–New Haven television market. The station is owned by Tegna Inc., as part of a duopoly with Hartford-licensed Fox affiliate WTIC-TV (channel 61). The two stations share studios on Broad Street in downtown Hartford; WCCT-TV's transmitter is located on Rattlesnake Mountain in Farmington, Connecticut.

The station commenced operations on September 10, 1953 as WATR-TV on channel 53, the second UHF station in Connecticut. It was owned by the Thomas and Gilmore families, along with WATR radio (1320 AM). The station's studios and transmitter were located on West Peak in Meriden. At the time, the station's signal only covered Waterbury, New Haven and the southern portion of the state.

WATR-TV was originally a dual secondary affiliate of both DuMont and ABC, sharing them with New Haven-based WNHC-TV (channel 8, now WTNH). DuMont ceased operations in 1956, and shortly afterward, WNHC-TV became an exclusive ABC affiliate, as did WATR-TV. Both stations carried ABC programming through Connecticut.

In 1962, the station relocated to UHF channel 20 and moved to a new studio and transmitter site in Prospect, south of Waterbury. Channel 53 was later occupied by WEDN, Connecticut Public Television's outlet in Norwich.

In August 1966, WATR-TV joined NBC. At the time, the network's primary affiliate in Connecticut, WHNB-TV (channel 30) in New Britain, was hampered by a weak signal in New Haven and the southwestern portions of the state. In the 1970s, the station offered limited local news and instead aired older syndicated programs and religious shows such as The PTL Club when NBC programs were not offered. A notable local production was Journeys to the Mind, a half-hour talk show with host Joel Dobbin, which approached topics of the occult with a serious and sober tone. Journeys ran from 1976 to 1981.

The original Viacom bought WHNB-TV in 1978 and changed its call letters to WVIT. Two years later, after WVIT more than doubled its transmission power to cover New Haven, it became clear that WATR-TV's NBC affiliation was now in jeopardy. In 1981, the Thomas/Gilmore interests opted to sell channel 20 to a joint venture of Odyssey Television Partners (later to become Renaissance Broadcasting) and Oppenheimer and Company. The sale was announced in May 1981 and gained FCC approval that December.

The new owners of channel 20 ultimately opted to drop NBC and convert the station into an independent outlet (though NBC was considering ending its affiliation in any event). NBC programming aired on channel 20 for the last time on April 10, 1982. On the next day (Easter Sunday), the station stayed off the air, preparing to relaunch as an independent. On April 12—two days after the NBC affiliation ended—channel 20 returned to the air as WTXX (for Television XX, with XX referring to 20 in Roman numerals), and subsequently became Connecticut's first full-service independent station since Hartford's WHCT-TV (channel 18, now Univision affiliate WUVN) served as an independent from 1957 to 1975. Soon after taking over, Odyssey replaced channel 20's tiny 250-foot (76 m) tower with a more powerful transmitter that more than doubled its signal and gave it a coverage area comparable with the major network stations in the state. It was a typical general entertainment independent, carrying off-network series, movies, and cartoons presented by the local children's show Kidstime with T.X. Critter, a puppet created by and puppeteered by Paul Fusco who later created ALF. WTXX also carried some sports, most notably New York Mets telecasts from WOR-TV in New York City (now MyNetworkTV flagship WWOR-TV in Secaucus, New Jersey) and Boston Celtics telecasts from WLVI-TV in Boston. WTXX prospered in its new status, and continued to do so even after WTIC-TV signed on in 1984 and took on the Fox affiliation two years later.

In October 1992, Renaissance Broadcasting sold WTXX to Counterpoint Communications, a non-profit media firm with close ties to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford. Renaissance had recently acquired several stations, including WTIC-TV, from Chase Broadcasting, and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations of the time did not allow common ownership of two stations in the same market. However, Renaissance retained the rights to all the programming it bought for WTXX. WTIC-TV wanted to establish a full-time local marketing agreement (LMA) with WTXX, which basically amounted to channel 20 being programmed by its main competitor. Counterpoint balked, wanting only a part-time agreement. Renaissance then moved some of WTXX's stronger shows to WTIC-TV, leaving the station with a considerably weakened schedule.

Renaissance's sale of WTXX to Counterpoint, and Renaissance's subsequent acquisition of WTIC-TV, became official in March 1993. Under the terms of the sale to Counterpoint, WTXX retained few syndicated programs and some movies, and began airing programming from the Home Shopping Network (HSN) for 15 hours a day (including daytime and prime time). In addition, channel 20 would air a daily Catholic Mass, along with other Catholic religious programs, for one hour per day. While trying to negotiate an LMA, WTXX continued to run some Renaissance-owned programming daily from 3 to 7 p.m. free of charge. These shows were the Disney Afternoon cartoon block, double runs of The Cosby Show and Growing Pains on weekdays, and some hour-long first-run syndicated dramas on weekends. Renaissance sold the ad time for the slot and WTXX paid nothing to run the programming during these hours. That July, after negotiations with WTIC collapsed, WTXX entered into a part-time LMA with WVIT. Its schedule now included cartoons and children's programs during the morning and afternoon hours, and syndicated shows whose local rights were owned by WVIT during the early evenings. Most of the cartoons were shows WTXX previously had on a barter basis that WTIC couldn't fit on its schedule. The Disney Afternoon and other syndicated shows previously on WTXX moved to WTIC or stopped airing in the market. HSN programming remained during middays, prime time, and the overnight hours.

WTXX became Connecticut's UPN affiliate on April 3, 1995; for the 2½ months prior to that, Hartford viewers who wanted to watch UPN programming had to view it on cable, by way of WSBK-TV from Boston; viewers in Fairfield County were able to watch UPN programming over-the-air and on cable via WWOR-TV. Initially, it continued to run Home Shopping Network in prime time on nights without UPN programming. By spring 1996, the station expanded its LMA with WVIT to cover the entire day, except for overnights and the hours when the Catholic Mass aired. By this point, WTXX upgraded its syndicated programming, and HSN was relegated to overnights before being dropped completely.

In 1998, WVIT was sold to NBC, and WTIC (now owned by Tribune Broadcasting) replaced WVIT as WTXX's LMA partner. As part of the deal, some of the shows previously owned by WVIT were kept by WTXX and WTIC. The LMA change caused no impact on WTXX's daily broadcasts of the Catholic Mass, which continues to the present day. Around this time, the station changed its on-air name from "UPN 20" to "Connecticut's 20". It also picked up Boston Red Sox baseball games; the station's feed (with the "Connecticut's 20" bug) was carried during Red Sox highlights airing on ESPN for much of the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 1999, WTXX and WTIC consolidated their operations in a new facility at One Corporate Center on Church Street in Downtown Hartford.

On January 1, 2001, WTXX and WBNE (channel 59, now WCTX) swapped affiliations, with WTXX joining The WB and rebranding as "Connecticut's WB". Later that year, Tribune purchased WTXX outright, creating a duopoly with WTIC. Tribune, having already received a temporary waiver from FCC rules barring common ownership of a newspaper and a television station in the same area when it purchased the Hartford Courant a year earlier, received an additional waiver for its purchase of WTXX. Tribune had been seeking a waiver in anticipation of the FCC relaxing its rules to allow such media combinations to exist with the agency's blessing, which would include television duopolies. In March 2005, the FCC requested that Tribune sell WTXX to a new owner, but did not raise any additional pressure outside the request to force a sale or threaten a license forfeiture. In late 2007, the FCC loosened its restrictions on newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership perhaps creating an opening for Tribune (which was purchased by investor Sam Zell in December 2007) to retain WTXX without a waiver.

On January 24, 2006, Time Warner announced that the company would merge the operations of The WB with CBS Corporation's UPN (which CBS acquired one month earlier in December 2005 following its split from Viacom), to form a 50/50 joint venture called The CW Television Network. The network signed a ten-year affiliation agreement with Tribune Broadcasting for 16 of the 19 WB affiliates that the company owned at the time, including WTXX.

In June 2009, after 56 years of transmitting from various locations in New Haven County, WTXX shut down its analog transmitter in Prospect, solely utilizing a slot WTIC-TV's tower in Farmington for its full launch into the digital age. In June 18, 2010, the station changed its call letters to WCCT-TV.

On July 10, 2013, Tribune announced plans to spin off its publishing division into a separate company, with the split finalized in 2014. WTIC-TV and WCCT-TV remained with the Tribune Company (which also retained all non-publishing assets, including the broadcasting, digital media and Media Services units), while its newspapers (including the Hartford Courant) became part of the similarly named Tribune Publishing Company.

On December 3, 2018, Irving, Texas-based Nexstar Media Group—which has owned ABC affiliate WTNH and MyNetworkTV affiliate WCTX since January 2017—announced it would acquire the assets of Tribune Media for $6.4 billion in cash and debt. As FCC regulations prohibit common ownership of more than two stations in the same media market, or two or more of the four highest-rated stations in the market, Nexstar was required to sell two of the stations (including one ranking among the top four stations in total-day viewership) to a separate, unrelated company to address the ownership conflict. On March 20, 2019, McLean, Virginia-based Tegna Inc. announced it would purchase WTIC and WCCT from Nexstar upon consummation of the merger, as part of the company's sale of certain Nexstar- and Tribune-operated stations to Tegna and the E. W. Scripps Company in separate deals worth $1.32 billion; this made the WTIC/WCCT duopoly the first television properties in Connecticut and southern New England for Tegna. The sale was completed on September 19, 2019.

WCCT holds the local broadcast television rights to the WNBA's Connecticut Sun. Prior to airing Sun games, the station held the over-the-air broadcast rights to the NHL's Hartford Whalers. The station also simulcasts most New York Yankees and New York Mets games aired by WPIX.

In July 1993, WTXX debuted a nightly 10 p.m. newscast produced by NBC station WVIT, called Connecticut News Live at 10. The news team consisted of WVIT's evening news team (anchors Gerry Brooks and Joanne Nesti, weather from Brad Field, Beasley Reece with sports), along with reporters from WVIT. In 1998, when WTIC replaced WVIT as WTXX's LMA partner, the WVIT-produced broadcasts were replaced with a simulcast of the first half-hour of WTIC's nightly 10 p.m. newscast; on April 24, 2006, the station began simulcasting the entire newscast. The station does not use a separate news open for the broadcasts; however when Fox entertainment or sports programming delays the newscast on WTIC, it is aired on WCCT under the title News at Ten and uses a News at Ten logo bug in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen in place of WTIC's news branding.

On December 12, 2009; WTIC, WCCT (then WTXX), and the Hartford Courant moved into new combined newsroom facilities in downtown Hartford, and WTIC rebranded from Fox 61 to Fox CT (a transition completed in July 2010); in addition, WTIC became the second station in the market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition. The news simulcasts on WCCT were included in the transition.

The station also carries the 8 a.m. hour of WTIC's weekday morning newscast (a previous simulcast of Fox 61 Morning News had aired at one point, but was later dropped). WTIC also produces a weekly public affairs show called The Real Story, which airs Sunday mornings at 8:30 a.m. with a repeat on WCCT at 11 a.m.