WTOG

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Coordinates: 27°50′51.5″N 82°15′49.4″W / 27.847639°N 82.263722°W / 27.847639; -82.263722
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WTOG
FCC
Facility ID74112
ERP700 kW
HAAT452.9 m (1,486 ft)
Transmitter coordinates27°50′51.5″N 82°15′49.4″W / 27.847639°N 82.263722°W / 27.847639; -82.263722
Translator(s)see § Translators
Links
Public license information
Websitewww.tampabay44.com

WTOG (channel 44) is an

independent television station licensed to St. Petersburg, Florida, United States, serving the Tampa Bay area. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group, and maintains studios on Northeast 105th Terrace in St. Petersburg, near the west end of the Gandy Bridge; its transmitter is located in Riverview, Florida
.

History

Early years

WTOG first signed on the air on November 4, 1968, operating as an independent station.[3] The station was founded by Saint Paul, Minnesota–based Hubbard Broadcasting, who also owned radio station WGTO (540 AM, now WFLF) in nearby Cypress Gardens; Hubbard originally wanted to name the station WGTO-TV, but the request was denied by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC);[4] in those days, the FCC did not allow television and radio stations to share the same base callsign if they were licensed in different cities. This led to Hubbard using a slightly modified form of the callsign.

The station began with a limited test schedule airing two hours per day,[5] but expanded to broadcasting eight hours per day on January 27, 1969, initially airing from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. daily.[6]

Initially, WTOG ran a lineup of older

cartoons. In the station's early days, its slogan was "WTOG... As Far as the Eye Can See", which was made famous by its mid-1970s station identification package. WTOG caught on with viewers immediately; so much so, in fact, that it forced competitor WSUN-TV (channel 38, frequency now occupied by WTTA) off the air in 1970. For the rest of the 1970s into the early 1980s, WTOG was the only independent station in the Tampa Bay area. During the 1970s, WTOG gradually expanded its programming hours: by 1972, the station signed on at 10:30 a.m. on weekdays and around 1 p.m. on weekends. By 1976, WTOG signed on the air daily by 7 a.m. Gradually, WTOG added better sitcoms, more cartoons, off-network dramas
, and better movies. While the station was profitable all along, its programming improved significantly in the late 1970s.

Becoming a superstation

Channel 44 finally gained competition in 1981, when Family Group Broadcasting signed on

West Palm Beach
market). It billed itself as "Florida's Super Station", which "Covered Florida Like The Sun".

There was also some consideration to put WTOG on cable in

Tallahassee, but that never came to fruition. WTOG was one of the most profitable independent stations in the country. In fact, during the late 1970s, Ted Turner
called the station to ask how WTOG made itself so profitable.

From Fox to UPN

On October 9, 1986, WTOG became a charter affiliate of the fledgling

United Television, WTOG was an affiliate of the Prime Time Entertainment Network syndication programming service from 1993 to 1995.[7]

WTOG was largely unaffected by the

affiliation swaps of 1994, which saw longtime CBS affiliate WTVT (channel 13) switch to Fox (as a result of the network's affiliation deal with then-owners, New World Communications); WFTS becoming an ABC affiliate; and longtime ABC outlet WTSP (channel 10) assuming the market's CBS affiliation. However, channel 44 did regain a network relationship when it became a charter affiliate of the United Paramount Network (UPN
) at its launch on January 16, 1995. As with its days as a Fox affiliate, WTOG continued to program itself as an independent, programming a traditional general entertainment format during the day, with UPN programming being shown during the prime time hours.

Pokémon, Sailor Moon, Garfield and Friends and Disney's Hercules) and recent sitcoms (such as Charles in Charge, Step by Step, Family Matters, Sister, Sister, Roseanne, The Simpsons, Seinfeld (now on WTTA) and Friends
) continued to air but movies also were eliminated almost completely. Viacom purchased CBS in 2000 and merged that network's owned-and-operated stations into Paramount Stations Group.

For one day in May 1999, WTOG housed the operations for

Tampa
.

Switch to The CW

Former logo as CW 44

On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation (which

Warner Bros. Entertainment unit of Time Warner announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW.[10][11]
The CW signed a 10-year affiliation agreement with 11 of CBS' UPN stations, including WTOG; channel 44 became a CW owned-and-operated station when the network launched on September 18, 2006. Under current ownership, WTOG is one of two network-owned stations in the Tampa Bay market, alongside Fox-owned WTVT. Gradually, cartoons would disappear from WTOG's schedule, as with every broadcast station in the early 2000s. More reality and court shows would begin airing in place of that programming, while sitcoms continue to run during the evening hours.

For years, WTOG had handled master control operations for its sister station, KEYE-TV in Austin, Texas. However, in November 2006, WTOG's master control facilities, along with that of Atlanta's WUPA, were moved to sister CW affiliate WGNT in Norfolk, Virginia; 20 WTOG employees were laid off, even though CBS had previously denied that such terminations would happen.[12] KEYE was later sold to Cerberus Capital Management, through its Four Points Media Group (which in turn was sold to the Sinclair Broadcast Group, then-owner of MyNetworkTV affiliate WTTA). WGNT was sold to Local TV, the owner of that market's CBS affiliate WTKR, in August 2010 (Local TV was merged with Tribune Broadcasting three years later, in August 2013; both WGNT and WTKR are now sister stations of WFTS under Scripps ownership). When CBS wound down operations at the Norfolk hub, WTOG and WUPA began handling their own master control operations once again.

Return to independence

On October 3, 2022, Nexstar Media Group acquired majority ownership of The CW.[13] Under the agreement, CBS was given the right to pull its affiliations from WTOG and its seven other CW stations. On May 5, 2023, CBS announced that it would exercise that right and WTOG would cease airing the network's programming at the end of August and become an independent station for the first time since 1995.[14] Nexstar-owned WTTA assumed The CW affiliation for the Tampa market on September 1.[15]

Programming

Sports programming

From its sign-on through 1976, WTOG carried

Grapefruit League for spring training in the Tampa Bay, Orlando, Fort Myers, and Sarasota areas. WTOG discontinued the baseball broadcasts when ESPN
became the cable partner for Major League Baseball in 1990.

WTOG aired numerous

soccer road games in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Additionally, many home and away indoor matches were shown.[16][17][18][19][20] Since 2024, WTOG has aired home matches of the current incarnation of the Rowdies, who play in the USL Championship.[21]

The station also aired

NHL Network syndication package in the late 1970s and early 1980s. From 1992 until 2003, the station was the flagship of the Tampa Bay Lightning television network; the Lightning has been cable-exclusive since the 2003–04 season
.

News operation

From its sign-on through 1982, WTOG ran daily news capsules, mainly at sign-on and sign-off, with an announcer reading the day's headlines over a slide. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the station featured an on-camera newsreader providing a news summary during its morning discussion program, Florida Daybreak. WTOG started using the Eyewitness News brand in the late 1970s, though its news was still a rather staid, low-key affair.

In 1982, Hubbard Broadcasting established a full-fledged news department for WTOG, and debuted a nightly 10 p.m. newscast. At first, WTOG continued to use the Eyewitness News name, with Barbara Callahan (former co-host of WTOG's edition of PM Magazine) and John Nicholson (formerly an anchor at WTVT) as co-anchors. During the mid-1980s, the station's newscast was renamed Tampa Bay Tonight, subsequently changing in 1988 to 44 News at Ten and then WTOG 44 News at Ten in 1992. Between 1985 and 1995, John Summer served as primary anchor with various co-anchors, including Callahan. In 1996, following Viacom's acquisition of WTOG, the 10 p.m. broadcast was retitled as the UPN44 10 O'Clock News, co-anchored by Callahan and Patrick Emory. WTOG also had a 11 a.m. newscast from 1995 to 1996.

WTOG's news department was shut down in 1998, as a result of cost-cutting measures mandated by then-parent company Viacom and competition from Fox station WTVT's own 10 p.m. newscast. From that point until 2020, WTOG did not air any newscasts, which made it one of seven CBS-owned stations that did not air any local news programming (the other six were

paid programming
and children's shows.

On January 17, 2020, CBS Television Stations announced that they will be introducing nightly 10 p.m. newscasts for WTOG, which debuted on March 9; the newscast for WTOG is produced by CBS' Miami sister station WFOR-TV. It also marked WTOG's return to airing local news programming since its own in-house news department shut down 22 years earlier.[22] This newscast was converted to the CBS News Now format (as Tampa Bay Now News) upon its launch in July 2022. The last Tampa Bay Now newscast was August 31, 2023.[23]

Notable former on-air staff

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is

multiplexed
:

Subchannels of WTOG[24]
Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
44.1 1080p
16:9
 WTOG Main WTOG programming
44.2 480p StartTV Start TV
44.3 FaveTV Fave TV
44.4 DABL Dabl
44.5 Catchy Catchy Comedy
44.6 ThisTV This TV
44.7 Story Story Television

Analog-to-digital conversion

WTOG shut down its analog signal, over

UHF channel 44, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[25]
The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 59, 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 frequency, UHF channel 44.

Translators

Former translator

WTOG previously operated a third translator, W29AB (channel 29) licensed to Ocala. In 1995, it was sold to First Media and became a translator for WCPX (now WKMG-TV) in Orlando.[26][27]

References

  1. Broadcasting
    , December 19, 1966, pg. 51.
  2. ^ "Facility Technical Data for WTOG". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  3. ^ "Channel 44: New Station Begins Partial Programming". St. Petersburg Times. November 6, 1968. p. 10-D. Retrieved August 15, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ "For the record: Station authorizations, actions–New TV stations–Call letter actions." Broadcasting, December 25, 1967, pg. 60.
  5. ^ "Bay Area TV Saturday". Evening Independent. St. Petersburg, Fla. January 24, 1969. p. 13-B. Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  6. ^ "TV Channel 44 Is Fulltime". Evening Independent. January 27, 1969. p. 9-B. Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  7. ^ Susan, King (January 23, 1994). "Space, 2258, in the Year 1994". Los Angeles Times. p. 4. Retrieved December 22, 2011.
  8. ^ Rathburn, Elizabeth A. (June 17, 1996). "Station swaps highlight week in trading" (PDF). Broadcasting and Cable. p. 13. Retrieved January 12, 2019.
  9. ^ Rathburn, Elizabeth A. (August 19, 1996). "Changing hands: Viacom, Hubbard agree to swap" (PDF). Broadcasting and Cable. p. 38. Retrieved January 12, 2019.
  10. CNNMoney.com
    , January 24, 2006.
  11. ^ UPN and WB to Combine, Forming New TV Network, The New York Times, January 24, 2006.
  12. St. Petersburg Times
    , November 5, 2006. Retrieved June 8, 2013.
  13. ^ Hayes, Dade (October 3, 2022). "New Day Dawns For Broadcast TV As Nexstar Closes Deal For Control Of The CW". Deadline. Archived from the original on October 14, 2022. Retrieved January 17, 2023.
  14. ^ "Eight CBS Stations To Ditch CW And Go Independent This Fall". Deadline. May 5, 2023. Retrieved May 5, 2023.
  15. ^ Miller, Mark K. (June 14, 2023). "Nexstar Stations In Philadelphia, San Francisco, Tampa To Become CW Affils On Sept. 1". TVNewsCheck. Retrieved June 29, 2023.
  16. ^ Williams, James (January 9, 2015). "It Was Elton John Who Brought Rodney March To The US But It Was Tampa Bay That Won Him Over". sportstalkflorida.com.
  17. ^ thecelebratedmisterk (January 28, 2011). "NASL Indoor: Tampa Bay Rowdies at Ft. Lauderdale Strikers 11/27/1979". Archived from the original on December 21, 2021 – via YouTube.
  18. ^ thecelebratedmisterk (December 19, 2010). "Indoor Soccer: Tampa Bay Rowdies vs. Zenit Leningrad 3/9/1977". Archived from the original on December 21, 2021 – via YouTube.
  19. ^ Randy Scott (July 28, 2014). "RANDY SCOTT SPORTS (3) WTOG-TV TAMPA BAY". Archived from the original on December 21, 2021 – via YouTube.
  20. ^ Randy Scott (March 19, 2015). "Randy Scott Sports (9) Tampa Bay Rowdies vs NY Cosmos 1985". Archived from the original on December 21, 2021 – via YouTube.
  21. ^ Rowdies Communications (February 29, 2024). "Rowdies Partner with TampaBay44 for Home Broadcasts". rowdiessoccer.com. Tampa Bay Rowdies. Retrieved March 16, 2024.
  22. ^ Malone, Michael (January 17, 2020). "Three CBS-Owned CW Stations Add Nightly News". Broadcasting and Cable. Retrieved January 17, 2020.
  23. ^ Malone, Michael (July 21, 2022). "CBS-Owned Stations Debut Primetime News in Ten Markets". Broadcasting & Cable. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
  24. ^ "Digital TV Market Listing for WTOG". RabbitEars.info. Retrieved March 6, 2021.
  25. ^ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and Second Rounds" (PDF). August 29, 2013. p. 33. Archived from the original on August 29, 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  26. ^ Staff, Rene Stutzman of The Sentinel. "OCALA'S 29 MAY CARRY CHANNEL 6". OrlandoSentinel.com. Retrieved March 7, 2021.
  27. ^ "Facility Details « Licensing and Management System Admin « FCC". enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov. Retrieved March 7, 2021.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=WTOG&oldid=1214065100"
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