WCSH - History

History

WCSH-TV signed on December 20, 1953 from studios at the Congress Square Hotel in downtown Portland. The station was owned by the Rines family through their Maine Broadcasting System; the family had built the hotel in 1896, and established WCSH radio (970 AM, now WZAN) on the top floor in 1925. It has always been an NBC affiliate, although during the late-1950s, the station was also briefly associated with the NTA Film Network. In 1958, the Rines family acquired WTWO in Bangor from Murray Carpenter, and renamed it WLBZ-TV (after WLBZ radio, now WZON, which the family had owned since 1944). Although the two television stations were now sister stations, they remained completely separate entities. At various points, the Maine Broadcasting System also included WRDO radio in Augusta and KMEG in Sioux City, Iowa, with WCSH-AM-TV as its flagship.

In 1977, WCSH-TV moved to new facilities across the street from the hotel at One Congress Square, where it remains today. The radio stations were sold off in 1981; in 1997, the -TV suffix was dropped. In the mid-1990s, WCSH added a website providing 24-hour news and weather coverage outside newscasts.

In 1998, the Maine Broadcasting System (by this time controlled by the Rines-Thompson family) sold WCSH and WLBZ to current owner Gannett. Since 2000, WLBZ has for all intents and purposes been a semi-satellite of WCSH; as early as 1989, WLBZ had been reducing its personnel and consolidating some internal operations with WCSH.

WCSH's digital signal on UHF channel 44 signed on in 2002, bringing high definition network television to the area. On June 12, 2009, WCSH ceased normal programming on analog VHF channel 6 and began providing a "nightlight" service. Until that date, the station's analog audio signal transmitted on a frequency of 87.75 MHz (+10 kHz shift). As a result, it could be picked up on the lower end of the dial on most FM radios at 87.7 MHz. This was true of all other analog channel 6 stations in the United States. The station often promoted this additional way of coverage. After the transition, the station continued its digital broadcasts on channel 44.