WISN-TV - History

History

WISN first signed on the air on October 27, 1954 with the call letters WTVW and branded itself as Wisconsin's TeleVision Window. In early 1955 the station was purchased by the Hearst Corporation, publishers of the Milwaukee Sentinel and owners of WISN radio (1130 AM); the new owners changed channel 12's call letters to the present WISN-TV. The station was originally affiliated with both ABC and DuMont. When DuMont ceased operations in 1956, WISN-TV was left with just ABC. (The former WTVW calls are now used on an independent station in Evansville, Indiana. )

WTVW's transmitter building was built under a tent, as rains threatened to delay construction. After the building was finished, a second tent was erected, and used for live automobile commercials, until it collapsed one day in early 1955.

In 1958, WISN-TV became the flagship of the short-lived local Badger Television Network, a three-station television network in Wisconsin; the other two stations were WFRV-TV in Green Bay and WKOW-TV in Madison. Programs broadcast by the network included Homemaker's Holiday, a quiz show hosted by Charlie Hanson; Good Housekeeping, hosted by Trudy Beilfuss using the name of the Hearst magazine of the same name; and Pretzel Party, a variety program originally hosted by Larry Clark. All three programs originated from WISN-TV's studios. During March 1958, the network also aired Senate Investigating Committee hearings during late-night hours. The Badger Network was launched in January 1958 and ceased operations on August 8 of that year.

In 1961, WISN-TV would undergo an affiliation switch. CBS, then carried by Storer Broadcasting-owned WITI-TV (channel 6), desired to affiliate with channel 12; the two stations swapped networks on April 2, 1961. During that tenure, WISN-TV cleared most of the CBS shows, even though by the early 1970s it would drop Search for Tomorrow so it could expand its talk show Dialing for Dollars in the daytime and pre-empt or delay several prime-time programs for Marquette University and Milwaukee Bucks basketball games.

Hearst retained WISN-TV and WISN radio in 1962 after it sold the Milwaukee Sentinel to the publishers of the Milwaukee Journal. The Journal also competed with the Sentinel in broadcasting as owners of WTMJ radio (620 AM) and WTMJ-TV (channel 4), which they continue to operate as of 2012.

In September 1976, just weeks into the 1976-77 season, CBS announced they were moving its Milwaukee affiliation back to WITI-TV. Storer Broadcasting had much better relations with CBS than they reportedly had with ABC; weeks earlier ABC opted to drop Storer's San Diego station from the network after a four year-long dispute. Meanwhile ABC had become the top-rated American television network, thanks in large part to two sitcoms based in Milwaukee: Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley. WISN-TV and ABC agreed to terms about a month later, and the 1961 affiliation switch was officially reversed on March 27, 1977; channel 12 even used Happy Days star Henry Winkler (in character as "Fonzie") to herald its return to ABC with the slogan "Happy Days are Here Again" in ad and print campaigns leading up to the switch. To this day, WISN-TV is one of ABC's most successful affiliates, and bills itself thus in promotions.

Channel 12 was the first commercial station in the market to produce an HDTV broadcast, airing the Summerfest "Big Bang" fireworks show in the format on June 29, 2006. Milwaukee Public Television assisted WISN-TV in the production of the broadcast, and have continued to do so each year since, with additional help from sister stations in Sacramento and Boston in later years.

Former sister radio stations WISN and WRNW (formerly WLTQ/WQBW, 97.3) are now owned by Clear Channel Communications, and all ties between the stations and Channel 12 were severed as of July 27, 2009, when a weather/news carriage agreement began with WITI at the end of a longtime agreement with WISN-TV to provide forecasts to Clear Channel's six local stations. After the expiration of that deal, WISN-TV now provides news, weather and sports content to the five-station Milwaukee cluster (WKLH, WHQG, WJMR-FM, WJYI, and WNRG-FM) of Saga Communications. This has an effect of having WISN-TV's news staff disclaim on-air and through their social networking channels that their station has no connections with WISN radio's conservative talk format and only holds the same calls, a point of contention and confusion during events such as live shots at the Wisconsin State Capitol for the 2011 state budget debate.