History
The station began broadcasting on May 6, 1956 on analog Channel 3 as WRGP-TV. The call letters came from its founder, Raymond G. Patterson. It picked up the NBC affiliation from WROM-TV (now WTVC). Its studios were first located on McCallie Avenue, between downtown and Missionary Ridge.
The station has belonged to several owners over the years. In 1959, Friendly Broadcasting, owner of WSTV-TV in Steubenville, Ohio (now WTOV-TV) bought WRGP from Patterson's group. In 1961 WSTV and WRGP were sold to the Massachusetts-based United Printers And Publishers, who later became Rust Craft Broadcasting, named after its greeting card line, which has since been acquired by American Greetings. These owners changed the station's call letters to WRCB-TV in 1963, to reflect the initials of the licensee. In 1968 the station moved to new facilities on Whitehall Road, on Chattanooga's north side, across the Tennessee River from downtown. Those new studios and equipment enabled channel 3 to begin broadcasting in color. In 1979, Rust Craft merged with magazine publisher Ziff Davis, who, in turn, sold WRCB to current owner Sarkes Tarzian, Inc. of Bloomington, Indiana, in 1982.
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