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WTVT is a television station in Tampa, Florida. It is an owned and operated station of the Fox Broadcasting Company. It broadcasts its analog signal on VHF channel 13, and its digital signal on VHF channel 12. WTVT is an atypical FOX station as it focuses on news coverage and not off-network sitcoms and syndicated shows like many other FOX stations. The station has more news than any other station in the area, as Fox does not air a network evening newscast. The station also has the most meteorologists on a news team, with 5 meteorologists, and the only station with all of them AMS certified. Its transmitter is located in Riverview, Florida.

History

The station first started broadcasting on April 1, 1955, April Fool's Day, as a CBS affiliate. It was the third station in Tampa Bay, behind WSUN-TV (now WTTA) channel 38, and WFLA-TV channel 8. WTVT is also the second-oldest surviving station, behind WFLA.

Originally, the Federal Communications Commission had awarded the channel 13 license to the Tampa Times, which was a now-defunct newspaper that owned WDAE-AM 620. The Times intended to call the station WDAE-TV. However, the FCC began to have second thoughts on whether they should have awarded the license to a newspaper, and so, a few months later, the FCC reversed itself and awarded the station to a group headed by Tampa Bay radio veteran Walter Tison. Tison intended to open a studio in nearby St. Petersburg, which was a first for the area. The Times, however, refused to give up, and so, they appealed. However, the Times lost, and Tison gave the station its WTVT call letters, which don't stand for "We're TeleVision in Tampa", but for the initials of Tison and his wife, Virginia. The station finally took to the airwaves two months after WFLA.

A year later, Tison's group, the Tampa Television Company, merged with the Gaylord family's Oklahoma Publishing Company of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The Gaylords would serve as WTVT's longest-standing owner, owning the station for 31 years. Like many other stations located on "unlucky" channel 13, WTVT used a black cat as its mascot for several years.

The Gaylords, with their newspaper background, immediately beefed up the news operation. In 1958, WTVT became the second station in the country to introduce daily editorials, and the first Florida station to run an hour-long news block: 45 minutes of local news combined with the then-15-minute CBS Evening News. By 1962, WTVT had overtaken WFLA, also owned by a newspaper (the Tampa Tribune) as the #1 station in the Tampa Bay market. WTVT would remain in first place for over 25 years. This was largely because many of its personalities stayed at the station for a long time. For instance, Roy Leep was the station's weatherman from 1957 until 1997. Hugh Smith was the station's main anchor from 1963 to 1991, most of that time as news director. For many years, from 1958 until the late 1980s, its news operation was called "Pulse 13," they then adopted the Eyewitness News name.

An era of ownership by the Gaylords would come to an end in 1987, when they sold WTVT to Gillett Broadcasting. Gillett restructerd in the early 1990s, changing its name to SCI Broadcasting. Soon afterwards, SCI would file for bankruptcy, and its stations (including WTVT) would be sold to New World Communications in 1993. By that point, WTVT was pre-empting CBS News This Morning for a morning news show, as well as all but one hour of Saturday cartoons. This would be a precursor of things to come.

In late 1993, the Fox Broadcasting Company won the rights to air the games of the National Football Conference of the National Football League from CBS, beginning in 1994. Fox, as a result, began looking for more VHF affiliates, and so, they signed a long term deal with New World, switching most of its stations to Fox, including WTVT. Several of New World's stations CBS affiliates were in markets with NFC teams: Tampa Bay was home to the Buccaneers, who had most of its games aired on WTVT since they moved to the NFC in 1977. As a result, WTVT would drop its CBS affiliation in December 1994, becoming a Fox affiliate, while the former Fox affiliate, WFTS-TV, affilaited with ABC as part of a deal between ABC and WFTS' owners, the E.W. Scripps Company, and the longtime ABC affiliate, WTSP became a CBS affiliate. However, WTVT was not interested in Fox Kids at all, allowing WTTA, and later, WMOR-TV, to air it.

With its Fox affiliation, came a big change in its newscast schedule. Since Fox did not air any national shows, WTVT could now air more local news than ever, and so, they began to air almost 50 hours of local news a week. At one point, WTVT aired more hours of local news than any other station in the country. News became WTVT's focus, as the station chose not to renew the more expensive syndicated programming it ran during its CBS affiliation, and ran cheaper first-run syndicated talk and reality shows instead.

Fox bought most of the New World stations in 1997, making WTVT a Fox owned-and-operated station. Under Fox ownership, the station added more high-budget syndicated shows and a few off-network sitcoms to its lineup, and changed its branding to Fox 13.

WTVT was the first TV news station to use radar in its weather presentation, and has made many advancements with the technology. Its newest advancement is SkyTower VIPIR, combining the already existent and powerful SkyTower radar system with VIPIR technology, which is also used by competitor WFLA and Bay News 9. On May 25, 2006, the station's radar became more powerful and is now "SkyTower HD VIPIR", making it the most powerful high definition broadcast Doppler radar in America. * WTVT was also one of the first to use computer graphics in weather forecasts in the late-1970s, which they originally called "Weathervision" (no relation to the weather reporting company of the same name).

WTVT began to adopt its current logo, which is similar to that of the Fox News Channel, in December 2005 as part of 00, although it did not completely switch to it until February 2006. The station was the first Fox O&O to use this logo style, which is gradually being adopted by its sister stations in other markets.

Newscasts/Locally Produced Programming

Weekdays

  • Good Day Tampa Bay: 5:00-9:00 a.m. (Anchors: Anne Dwyer (5-9 a.m.), Tom Curran (5-7 a.m.), & Russell Rhodes (7-9 a.m.), Weather: Dave Osterberg, Traffic: Jennifer Epstein)
The early afternoon block
  • FOX13 News at Noon: 12:00-12:30 p.m. (Anchor: Denise White, Weather: Howard Shapiro)
  • Your Turn (local debate/discussion show) 12:30-1:00 p.m. (Host: Kathy Fountain)
The early evening 2-hour news block
  • FOX13 5:00 News: 5:00-5:30 p.m. (Anchors: Denise White & Kathy Fountain, Weather: Paul Dellegatto)
  • FOX13 5:30 News: 5:30-6:00 p.m. (Anchors: Frank Robertson & Cynthia Smoot, Weather: Paul Dellegato, Sports: Chip Carter*)
  • FOX13 6:00 News: 6:00-7:00 p.m. (Anchors: John Wilson & Kelly Ring, Weather: Paul Dellegatto, Sports: Chip Carter*)
The 95-minute late news block
  • FOX13 10:00 News: 10:00-11:00 p.m. (Anchors: John Wilson & Kelly Ring, Weather: Paul Dellegatto, Sports: Chip Carter*)
  • NewsEdge at 11:00: 11:00-11:35 p.m. (Anchor: Mark Wilson, Weather: Paul Dellegatto, Sports: Chip Carter, NewsEdge Reporter: Gloria Gomez)

*excluding Fridays; Chris Field anchors sports on Fridays.

Weekends

  • Good Day Tampa Bay Weekend: 7:00-9:00 a.m. (Anchor: Bill Murphy, Weather: Andy Johnson, Traffic: Varies)
  • FOX Thirteen Magazine: (Teen produced newscast) 10:30-11:00 a.m. (Saturdays)
  • FOX13 6:00 News: 6:00-7:00 p.m. (Anchors: Lloyd Sowers & Deborah Bowden, Weather: Jim Weber, Sports: Chris Field (Saturday), Chip Carter (Sunday))
  • FOX13 10:00 News: 10:00-11:00 p.m. (Anchors: Lloyd Sowers & Deborah Bowden, Weather: Jim Weber, Sports: Chris Field (Saturday), Chip Carter (Sunday))

NewsEdge at 11:00

NewsEdge at 11:00 is an 11:00-11:35 p.m. newscast on WTVT hosted by Mark Wilson (with Lloyd Sowers or Frank Robertson filling in if Wilson is off). It is described as a fast-paced, Fox News Channel-type news show, with shorter report segments, and a more tabloid-feel. The newscast is split in to multiple parts, which mainly are: "Top Stories", "48 Hour Forecast", "FOX Up Front", "FloridaEdge", "NationalEdge", "FOX Focus", "WeatherEdge", "SportsEdge", and "The Lightning Round". The Lightning Round is a 5-minute debate/opinion segment which features the host, the meteorologist, and the sports anchor, along with a "special guest" debating somewhat controversial news topics. NewsEdge was, and still is somewhat, considered independent from WTVT's main news operation, and at one point, NewsEdge had different graphics and a different theme than the main news operation until the NewsEdge graphics and theme were integrated into the main news operation in February of 2006. Fox Television Stations Group, which owns WTVT, is using Tampa as the test market for this 11:00 p.m. newscast format. If successful, the plan is to have all Fox owned and operated stations producing news at 11:00 p.m.. Similar to this, sister stations KDFW in Dallas-Fort Worth, WDAF in Kansas City, WITI in Milwaukee, and KSAZ in Phoenix currently have a 10 p.m. newscast as a Fox O&O in the Central and Mountain Time Zones.
Screenshots
Image:NewsEdge2.PNG|Mark Wilson Image:NewsEdge3.PNG|Lightning Round

Logos

Image:WTVTearly60s.PNG|WTVT logo used in the early 1960s Image:WTVT70s.PNG|WTVT logo used from the late 1960s to 1976. Image:WTVT76.PNG|WTVT logo used in 1976 to celebrate America's bicentennial. Image:WTVTlate70s.PNG|WTVT logo used from 1977 to 1989. Image:90slogocc.JPG|WTVT logo used in the early 1990s. The "13" in the logo would be used in all of WTVT's later logos. Image:Wtvt1996.jpg|Variation of WTVT's early-1990s logo, from 1996. Image:WTVTewnews1996.jpg|WTVT's Eyewitness News logo, from 1996. Image:Wtvt_fox13_tampabay.jpg|WTVT logo used from 1997 until the start of February 2006. Image:WTVTWHBQ.PNG|Present logo used for NewsEdge at 11 starting December 2005, and the whole station in February 2006

Syndicated Programming

Key Personalities

Current Personalities

Former Personalities

External links

Fox network affiliates | Fox Television Stations Group | Channel 13 TV stations in the United States

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "WTVT".

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