History
The station's first broadcast was on December 15, 1956 that was an airing of the 1947 movie Miracle on 34th Street. Alfred Johnson "A.J." Fletcher's Capitol Broadcasting, which began in 1939 with WRAL radio (1240 AM, now WPJL), had won the license in something of an upset over the much larger Durham Life Insurance Company, owners of the Triangle's oldest continuous radio station, WPTF.
At its launch channel 5 was originally an NBC affiliate, taking that network from Durham-based WTVD (channel 11, which counted Fletcher's son, Floyd, among its founders). When WNAO-TV (channel 28), the Triangle's ABC affiliate, went dark at the end of 1957, WRAL shared ABC with WTVD until August 1, 1962, at which point channel 5 took the ABC affiliation full-time. This was somewhat unusual for a two-station market. especially since ABC was not on an equal footing with NBC and CBS, in terms of both ratings and affiliated stations, until the early 1970s. The reason for the switch has never been made clear. WRAL did continue to carry The Huntley-Brinkley Report until January 3, 1967, when ABC's own evening newscasts expanded to 30 minutes (WTVD preferred to use CBS newscasts). The station also continued to carry My Three Sons for several years after that show switched to CBS.
WTVD shoehorned NBC and CBS programming onto its schedule until 1971 when WRDU-TV, which began operations in 1968 on channel 28, finally got the exclusive NBC affiliation. Ironically, Durham Life bought WRDU in 1978 and changed its call letters to WPTF-TV (it is now MyNetworkTV affiliate WRDC-TV, owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group).
From 1960 until his election to the United States Senate in 1972, Jesse Helms was a regular editorial commentator on WRAL-TV's news broadcasts. In fact, because his politically conservative commentaries became so popular, WRAL pushed up the starting time of the ABC evening network newscasts (or, for a time in the mid-1960s, NBC's Huntley-Brinkley Report) to give Helms a ten-minute nightly program to himself. This had political implications for Triangle-area viewers because the newsmen usually gave commentaries during the part of the newscast that WRAL cut off. NBC and ABC's news anchors were staunch supporters of the Civil Rights Movement and other liberal positions, all things Helms strongly opposed. Despite this de facto censorship, neither ABC nor NBC ever took retributive action against the station, nor did other parties complain to the Federal Communications Commission about WRAL doing this.
In 1985, WTVD's owner, Capital Cities Communications, purchased ABC, resulting in WTVD becoming an ABC owned and operated station. The CBS affiliation moved to WRAL-TV on August 4, 1985. Within six months of the switch, WRAL-TV had become one of the strongest CBS affiliates in network's chain.
In December 1989, WRAL was knocked off the air when a severe ice storm caused the station's 2,000-foot (610 m) tower to collapse. Within hours, channel 5 cut a deal with the then-struggling Fayetteville station WKFT-TV (now WUVC-TV), allowing WRAL to return to the air in only three hours. WKFT ran the entire WRAL schedule during this time. The station's new, stronger tower was launched on October 25, 1990, at which point WKFT reverted to airing its own programming.
In the early 1990s, WRAL broadcasted its programming via C-Band satellite as part of the Primetime 24 package. That offered network affiliates to viewers in the Caribbean and Latin America, as well as the few rural areas of the United States and Canada where local signals were not available. It was replaced in the late 1990s with fellow CBS affiliate WSEE-TV from Erie, Pennsylvania.
WRAL-TV is still viewed and is quite popular with many outside of the Triangle, mainly in portions of the Piedmont Triad, Eastern North Carolina, and even into parts of Southside Virginia and the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. It has long been available on cable as far east as Wilmington. The popularity of WRAL outside of the Raleigh market, especially in the Triad, Eastern North Carolina, and Southside Virginia, stems from WRAL's advanced technology in news gathering and weather coverage, which has largely been unmatched by broadcasters in other markets. The station is also known for its award winning documentaries, children's shows, and news staff, which has attracted viewers from outside of the Raleigh market. Halifax County in Southside Virginia is frequently mentioned by WRAL, although it is not part of the Raleigh market.
Read more about this topic: WRAL-TV
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I believe that history has shape, order, and meaning; that exceptional men, as much as economic forces, produce change; and that passé abstractions like beauty, nobility, and greatness have a shifting but continuing validity.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“The steps toward the emancipation of women are first intellectual, then industrial, lastly legal and political. Great strides in the first two of these stages already have been made of millions of women who do not yet perceive that it is surely carrying them towards the last.”
—Ellen Battelle Dietrick, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)