History
The station first went to air on January 1, 1956 as WREC-TV. Owned by electrical engineer and radio dealer Hoyt Wooten along with WREC radio (AM 600 and FM 102.7, now WEGR), the station began regular broadcasts the next day. The calls stood for Wooten's radio store, the Wooten Radio-Electric Company. It took the CBS affiliation from WHBQ-TV because WREC-AM had been a CBS affiliate since 1929. Studios were located in the Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis. Wooten had actually applied for one of the first television licenses in the country, in 1928.
For its first six years, WREC-TV was the only locally-owned station in Memphis (WHBQ-TV was owned by General Tire and WMC-TV was owned by Scripps). However, in 1963, Wooten sold WREC-AM-FM-TV to Cowles Communications. In turn, Cowles sold WREC-TV to the New York Times in 1971 and the call letters changed to the current WREG-TV; it later sold the radio stations to other interests. Four years later in 1975, the Times built new facilities for WREG on one of the highest points on Chickasaw Bluff, overlooking the Mississippi River. The station also maintained studio space in the Peabody Place shopping center, adjacent to the Peabody Hotel, marking a partial return of sorts to its early years. The studio was closed in 2011 when Peabody Place Closed.
For more than two decades, WREG has been in a Nielsen ratings war for first place with longtime powerhouse WMC-TV. But WREG never actually won a ratings period until February, 2006. That was the debut of a new anchor team with years of experience at other stations in the Memphis market. Claudia Barr was previously a main anchor at competitor WHBQ (Memphis's FOX affiliate) and Richard Ransom was previously a morning anchor and reporter at WMC (Memphis's NBC affiliate). Ransom and Barr replaced longtime anchors Jerry Tate and Pam McKelvy. Since that time, WREG has won the all-important 10pm ratings battle three times more often than WMC. The number of victories for the important morning news battle anchored by Kris Anderson and Markova Reed is just as dominant.
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“Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
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That the history of creation proceeds according to
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“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)