WFTC - Early History

Early History

The station signed on air on September 13, 1982 as WFBT (for "Family Bible Television"). It was a Christian station offering a family-oriented lineup consisting of classic reruns and religious programming. On May 6, 1984, the station was sold to the Beverly Hills Hotel Corporation, headed by prominent arbitrageur Ivan Boesky, who changed its call letters to KITN-TV (which stood for Independent Twenty-Nine, known colloquially as Kitten as in, "The KITN That Roars!"). The station became a mainstream independent station, airing syndicated programing such as The Beverly Hillbillies, the 1960s Batman television show, and Star Trek: The Original Series. It also acquired broadcast rights to the NHL's Minnesota North Stars, and also aired University of Minnesota college football games. BHHC sold it a year later to Nationwide Communications, the broadcasting subsidiary of Columbus, Ohio-based Nationwide Insurance.

Channel 29 picked up the Fox affiliation from KMSP-TV in 1988 and became known as Fox 29. The station again changed its call sign to WFTC in 1994 (for "Fox Twin Cities"), with the additional change using the W first-letter identifier over the K, allowed for by its transmitter location on the eastern side of the Mississippi River. Until 1998, it was the de facto Fox affiliate for almost all of Minnesota; the state's other two markets, Duluth and Rochester, didn't have Fox affiliates of their own. In 1998, however, KXLT-TV became Rochester's Fox station, and a year later KQDS-TV became the Fox affiliate for Duluth.

As part of its liquidation of its broadcasting interests, Nationwide Communications sold WFTC to Clear Channel Communications in 1994. (It was the last remaining television station under Nationwide's ownership, the company having sold its other three stations—which were all affiliated with ABC—to Young Broadcasting the year before.) In 2001, Clear Channel spun off the station to Fox Television Stations in exchange for KMOL-TV (now WOAI-TV) in San Antonio and KTVX in Salt Lake City. Both stations were acquired by Fox through its purchase of Chris-Craft Industries' broadcast properties, which included then-UPN affiliate KMSP-TV. As soon as its newest duopoly was in place, Fox then switched the affiliations of the stations on September 8, 2002: Fox programming returned to KMSP, and UPN shows moved from KMSP to WFTC. Channel 9 had a stronger signal and higher ratings than channel 29.