WMUR-TV - History

History

WMUR-TV was established by former New Hampshire governor Francis P. Murphy, owner of WMUR radio (610 AM; now WGIR), on March 28, 1954. Murphy beat out several challengers, including William Loeb III, publisher of the Manchester Union-Leader.

It was the first television station in the state and aired daily newscasts, local game shows, and movies. In 1955, channel 9 significantly boosted its signal, providing a strong signal well into the Boston area. Only a year later, however, Murphy decided to sell the WMUR stations. While a buyer was immediately found for the AM station, there were few takers for channel 9. Finally, in early 1957 he agreed in principle to sell WMUR-TV to Storer Broadcasting. However, Storer came under fire when it announced it planned to move the station's transmitter to just outside Haverhill, Massachusetts--only 20 miles north of Boston. It soon became apparent that Storer intended to move all of channel 9's operations across the border to Massachusetts and reorient it as the Boston market's third VHF station. The outcry led regulators to reject Storer's request to build a new tower near Haverhill, and Storer backed out of the deal. The station remained in Murphy's hands until his death in December 1958; his estate finally sold the station a few months later, to Richard Eaton's United Broadcasting.

Soon after taking over, United laid off all but nine of WMUR's employees, and reduced local programming to its two daily newscasts. For the next 22 years, the station more-or-less ran on a shoestring budget. It continued to broadcast in black-and-white well into the 1970s, long after the Boston stations all upgraded to color capability. United paid almost no attention to the station, instead devoting most of its efforts in New Hampshire to managing the Manchester cable system. Two of the few things the station had going for it during this time were The Uncle Gus Show, hosted by Gus Bernier for more than 20 years, and an increasingly active news department led by Tom Bonnar and Fred Kocher.

Eaton began running into regulatory problems at his other stations that nearly resulted in the FCC revoking all of his licenses, including WMUR's, in the 1970s. As a result, the station continued to be run very cheaply. In July 1981, following Richard Eaton's death, WMUR was sold to Columbus, Mississippi businessman Birney Imes Jr., who also owned that city's WCBI-TV, as well as WBOY-TV in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Imes made WMUR a major influence in New Hampshire by upgrading its facilities and news department. In September 1987, the station moved from its original studios on Elm Street in Manchester to facilities in the historic Millyard area of the city. Then in 1995, WMUR purchased land and a building at its current location. This building was rebuilt as a state-of-the-art broadcast center with 80,000 square feet (7,400 m2) available. It went on-the-air from this new location in January 1996.

In November 1998, WMUR's digital signal began broadcasting on UHF channel 59.

During 1996 to 2000, WMUR was a national leader in developing a presence on the internet for a regional broadcast television channel. During this time WMUR hired a Webmaster, was the first TV station to stream a newscast live and archive it for later viewing. It was the first TV station to post the Megan's Law list, first to have a virtual tour of its TV studio online and have 24/7 (morning, noon and night) weather coverage from a professional Meteorologist.

In September 2000, a deal was reached in which Imes Communications would sell the station to Emmis Communications, which then traded WMUR to Hearst-Argyle Television for that company's three radio stations in Phoenix, Arizona: KTAR, KMVP, and KKLT.

In 2004, WMUR-TV celebrated fifty years of broadcasting.

On September 24, 2005, WMUR became available on satellite via DirecTV in Coos, Carroll, Grafton, and Sullivan counties in northern New Hampshire.

In the sixth season of The West Wing, congressman Matt Santos running in the Democratic Party Presidential Primary went to the studio of WMUR to run a live ad for his campaign.

WMUR used to sign-off with "New Hampshire Naturally" by The Shaw Brothers. The music was synchronized to bucolic scenes of a fly fisherman casting his line into a mountain stream, a covered bridge, the Old Man of the Mountain, flowers, fall foliage, etc. This theme was replaced at some point by The Star Spangled Banner.

In February 2010, WMUR introduced a new slogan, "It's how you know." This slogan often promotes its local news, weather, its picture sharing site, "uLocal," and other ideas of interest that would lead to its website. Hearst affiliates KCRA and KSBW also uses this slogan, which is seen at the beginning of each video segment on YouTube.

On October 3, 2011, WMUR added subchannel 9.2 with programming from classic television network Me-TV.