WFSB - History

History

Connecticut's second analog VHF station debuted on September 21, 1957 as WTIC-TV, owned by the Hartford-based Travelers Insurance Company along with WTIC radio (1080 AM and 96.5 FM). WTIC-TV was one of the most powerful stations in New England, not only covering the entire state but a large chunk of western Massachusetts and providing secondary coverage to much of southern sections of Vermont and New Hampshire. For its first year on the air, Channel 3 was an independent station, as ABC was affiliated with the state's other VHF outlet, WNHC-TV (channel 8, now WTNH) in New Haven; while CBS and NBC had owned-and-operated stations on the UHF band in the market, WHCT-TV (channel 18) in Hartford and WNBC (channel 30, now WVIT) in New Britain, respectively.

In 1958, CBS was looking to sell WHCT-TV (now WUVN). The network's ratings had been alarmingly low in the market because television manufacturers were not required to have UHF tuners at the time. Many viewers northeast of Hartford got a better signal for CBS programming from WNAC-TV (now WHDH-TV) in Boston, while those southwest of Hartford with an outdoor antenna were able to watch the network via New York City flagship station WCBS-TV. Network head William S. Paley decided that it was better to have CBS air its programming on a VHF station, and channel 3 became the network's new affiliate in the fall of 1958, in part due to the station's strong signal. Ironically, WTIC-AM had been with NBC Radio for over thirty years.

The switch to WTIC-TV for CBS had repercussions in Springfield, Massachusetts, as it forced WHYN-TV (now WGGB-TV) to drop its original CBS affiliation, which it replaced with ABC (previously, some ABC programs had been seen on WWLP). Over the years, WTIC-TV repeatedly blocked WHYN's attempts to switch back to CBS.

In 1962, the WTIC stations moved to Broadcast House, a state-of-the-art facility in the Constitution Plaza development in downtown Hartford. A decade later, in late 1972, Travelers Insurance decided to exit broadcasting, with WTIC-TV going to the Washington Post Company in March 1973. On January 21, 1974, the Post's broadcasting division, Post-Newsweek Stations, changed channel 3's call letters to the current WFSB in honor of broadcasting division president Frederick S. Beebe. To get those call letters, the Post had to convince Framingham State College in Massachusetts to give up those call letters, which were used on the college's low-power FM radio station. The WTIC call letters returned to Connecticut television in 1984 when Arch Communications, then-owners of WTIC radio, signed on as part-owners of a new independent station on channel 61.

In the late-1980s, Post-Newsweek moved its corporate offices from Washington D.C. to space located alongside Broadcast House making the station the company's flagship. This was part of a strategy move by the Post to give its various sub-corporations their own independent identities which worked well at first. By the mid-1990s, however, WFSB found itself in a shrinking market without any significant growth opportunities. In June 1997, Post-Newsweek sold the station to the Meredith Corporation in exchange for WCPX-TV (now WKMG-TV) in Orlando, Florida. The sale closed that October although the Post-Newsweek group maintained its base in Hartford until 2000 when the company relocated to its then-largest station, WDIV in Detroit.

On June 12, 2009, WFSB ended its analog broadcasts on VHF channel 3 as part of the completion of the coversion to digital, moving its operations to digital channel 33. WFSB is the only Connecticut station that participated in the "analog nightlight" program and did so through June 26.

Weeknights, WFSB airs a repeat of the evening's Entertainment Tonight after Late Show with David Letterman, placing The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on a thirty-minute tape delay. Additionally, until January 2008, the station pre-empted the first hour of The Early Show in favor of a third hour of local morning news. The change was made after CBS began requiring all affiliates to carry The Early Show in its entirety.