WTOG

WTOG

St. Petersburg - Tampa, Florida United States
City	St. Petersburg, Florida
Branding	CW 44
Slogan	CW 44 Rules, TV Now
Channels	Digital: 44 (UHF) Virtual: 44 (PSIP)
Translators	W23CN-D Sebring W26DP-D Inverness
Affiliations	.1: The CW .2: Decades
Owner	CBS Corporation (CBS Operations, Inc.)
Founded	December 1966[1]
First air date	November 4, 1968 (1968-11-04)
Call letters' meaning	Disambiguation of former sister radio station WGTO (now WFLF)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 44 (UHF, 1968–2009) Digital: 59 (UHF, 1995–2009)
Former affiliations	Independent (1968–1986, 1988–1995) Fox (1986–1988) UPN (1995–2006)
Transmitter power	550 kW
Height	454 m (1,490 ft)
Facility ID	74112
Transmitter coordinates	27°49′46″N 82°15′59″W / 27.82944°N 82.26639°W / 27.82944; -82.26639Coordinates: 27°49′46″N 82°15′59″W / 27.82944°N 82.26639°W / 27.82944; -82.26639
Licensing authority	FCC
Public license information:	Profile CDBS
Website	cwtampa.cbslocal.com

WTOG, channel 44, is a CW owned-and-operated television station located in St. Petersburg, Florida, USA. The station is owned by the CBS Television Stations subsidiary of CBS Corporation. WTOG maintains studio facilities located on Northeast 105th Terrace in St. Petersburg, near the west end of the Gandy Bridge; its transmitter is located in Riverview, Florida.

WTOG's signal is relayed through two translators: W23CN-D (channel 23) in Sebring and W26DP-D (channel 26) in Inverness. On cable, WTOG is available on Bright House Networks and Verizon FiOS channel 4 throughout the Tampa Bay area and on Comcast channel 9 in Sarasota and Venice.

History

Early years

WTOG first signed on the air on November 4, 1968, operating as an independent station. 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.^[2]

Initially, WTOG ran a lineup of older movies, some low-budget syndicated programs, a few off-network westerns and sitcoms, and some cartoons. The station had broadcast for about eight hours a day. In the station's early days, its slogan was "WTOG... As Far as the Eye Can See", which was made famous by channel 44's 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 had improved significantly in the late 1970s.

Becoming a superstation

Channel 44 finally gained competition in 1981, when Family Group Broadcasting signed on WFTS-TV (channel 28) as a family-oriented independent station. However, WTOG remained the clear leader in the market for the next two decades. During the 1970s and 1980s, the station was carried on many cable providers in central and southwestern Florida. In the 1980s, WTOG also maintained a network of low-powered repeaters, located in Sebring, Inverness, Arcadia (in the Fort Myers market; that translator has since shut down), Ocala (part of the Orlando market; that translator, W29AB, has since become a translator for Orlando's WKMG-TV) and Okeechobee (part of the 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. It is believed that WTBS (now WPCH-TV) in Atlanta modeled its programming format after WTOG.

From Fox to UPN

On October 6, 1986, WTOG became a charter affiliate of the fledgling Fox network. The station, however, was still effectively programmed as an independent during its time as a Fox affiliate as the network's programming only comprised two hours of its primetime lineup on Saturday and Sunday evenings early on (they would not expand their programming to seven days a week until 1993). However, over time, channel 44 became one of several Fox affiliates nationwide that were disappointed with the network's weak programming offerings, particularly on Saturday nights, which were bogging down WTOG's otherwise successful lineup. Channel 44's relationship with the network lasted only less than two years, as WTOG dropped its Fox affiliation in 1988, sending it to WFTS (which was acquired by the E. W. Scripps Company in 1986). Through the early 1990s, WTOG was still running mostly cartoons (both classic and recent), classic and recent sitcoms, drama series and older movies. As part of deal with United Television, WTOG was an affiliate of the Prime Time Entertainment Network syndication programming service from 1993 to 1995.^[3]

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-TV 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 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 primetime hours.

Paramount Stations Group, a subsidiary of Viacom (which jointly owned the All News Channel cable network with Hubbard) purchased the station in the spring of 1996; at the time, Paramount Stations Group was in the process of selling stations it owned that were not UPN owned-and-operated stations, and traded NBC affiliates WNYT in Albany, New York and WHEC-TV in Rochester, New York to Hubbard.^[4][5] The purchase by Viacom made WTOG a UPN owned-and-operated station, becoming the first network-owned station in the Tampa Bay market. Soon after taking control, Paramount changed WTOG's on-air branding to "UPN44", which remained in use for the remainder of the network's run. By the late 1990s, older sitcoms (such as All in the Family) and older cartoons made way for talk shows, court shows and reality programs (such as People's Court and Judge Mills Lane) during the daytime. Recent cartoons (such as Pokemon, 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 WFLA-TV (channel 8), after a power outage occurred at that station's main studios in Downtown Tampa.

Switch to The CW

On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation (which split from Viacom, one month earlier) and the 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.^[6][7] The CW signed a 10-year affiliation agreement with 11 of CBS's 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.

WTOG had handled master control operations for its sister station, KEYE-TV in Austin, Texas, until 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.^[8] KEYE was later sold to Cerberus Capital Management, through its Four Points Media Group (which in turn was sold to the Sinclair Broadcast Group, owners of MyNetworkTV affiliate WTTA). WGNT was sold to Local TV, the owner of that market's CBS affiliate WTKR, in August 2010 (which Local TV was merged with the Tribune Broadcasting 3 years later, in August 2013.) CBS is in the process of winding down operations at the Norfolk hub; when that is completed, WTOG and WUPA will once again be handling their own master controls in-house.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

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.^[10] 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.

Programming

Syndicated programming seen on WTOG includes Steve Harvey, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Cold Case, 'Til Death and CSI: Miami. The last three are distributed by corporate cousin CBS Television Distribution. WTOG formerly produced a Saturday afternoon horror movie showcase, Creature Feature, which ran on the station from 1971 to 1995.

Sports programming

From its sign-on through 1976, WTOG carried Atlanta Braves baseball games through a syndication package that aired regionally on stations across the Southern United States before the cable/satellite launch of Superstation TBS the same year effectively ended the Braves regional network. From 1977 until 1989, it aired a variety of Major League Baseball games from various team networks on a daily basis (with the exception of Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays). These included games from the Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Tigers, Houston Astros, Kansas City Royals, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals and the Toronto Blue Jays, as those teams were mainly in the 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 Tampa Bay Rowdies professional NASL soccer, away games in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Additionally, many home and away indoor matches were shown.^{[11][12][13][14][15]}

The station also aired NHL games televised by NBC that were preempted by WFLA-TV in the 1970s. It later aired games from the 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 NHL 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'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. WTOG has not aired any newscasts since that time, making it one of seven CBS-owned stations that do not currently air any local news programming (the other six are KSTW in Seattle, Washington and WUPA in Atlanta, Georgia – both of which last aired outsourced newscasts in 2005, KTXA in Dallas–Fort Worth and WBFS-TV in Miami, Florida – both of which canceled newscasts produced by a sister station in 2011, though KTXA retains a sports show, and the Detroit duopoly of WWJ-TV and WKBD-TV – which canceled their morning newscast in 2012, although, WWJ-TV still airs weather updates). WTOG had aired the syndicated morning show The Daily Buzz from 2004 until its sudden cancellation in 2015. It replaced its former time slot with paid programming and children's shows.

Notable former on-air staff

• Jane Akre – anchor (1996)
• Ray Perkins - host of The Buc Report
• Beasley Reece - sports (1986–1988, 1997–1998; now at KYW-TV in Philadelphia)
• Carmen Roberts - reporter (1980s)
• Mary Rogers - anchor (–1993)
• Rob Stone - sports (late 1990s)
• Ken Suarez - reporter (1988–1998, now at WTVT)
• Dick Bennick - host of Creature Feature as "Dr. Paul Bearer" (1973-1995)

References

External links

• Official website
• Channel 44 Station IDs - 1970s
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WTOG
  • Query the FCC's TV station database for W23CN-D
  • Query the FCC's TV station database for W26DP-D
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WTOG-TV