WTSP - History

History

The station began broadcasting on July 18, 1965, as WLCY-TV after a lengthy court battle that lasted nearly ten years between five prospective owners seeking the license, including the St. Petersburg Times. It was owned by Rahall Communications along with WLCY radio (AM 1380, now WWMI; and FM 94.9, now WWRM). Until 1981 it was licensed to Largo, north of St. Petersburg, but its studios have always been in St. Petersburg. The station's first studios were at 2426 Central Avenue. Its current studios on Gandy Boulevard, originally known as the "Rahall Color Communications Center," were dedicated on October 15, 1968. Studio broadcasts were fully in color by 1966 but field reports remained in black and white until 1972.

The station was affiliated with ABC, but spent the first month-and-a-half as an independent station, as previous ABC affiliate WSUN-TV (channel 38; the frequency is now occupied by WTTA) went to court to keep the affiliation. The city of St. Petersburg, owners of WSUN-TV, had been one of the applicants for the channel 10 license, having jumped in out of fear of losing its ABC affiliation. WLCY ultimately won, and formally switched to ABC in a special ceremony on September 1, 1965. As a condition for being placed on VHF channel 10 instead of a UHF placement, the station was required to produce 20 hours of public service programming a week by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The station aired other local children's programs as Submarine 10, Romper Room with June Hurley, 10 Ultimate and This Side Up, and local talk shows such as Russ Byrd's Morning Show, The John Eastman Show, The Liz Richards Show and Murphy in the Morning. From 1966-67, the station produced 10 á Go Go, a teenage dance show hosted by Roy Nilson, a disc jockey on WLCY-AM. Another early local program was a morning exercise show, The Fran Carlton Show. The most popular Channel 10 program in that era was the syndicated The Lawrence Welk Show. In the mid 1970s, the station aired Bowling for Dollars with host Jim Bradley.

In 1971, WXLT (now WWSB, channel 40) signed on from Sarasota to provide ABC network programming since WLCY's signal could not come in well in most of Sarasota County. WLCY's transmitter was in Holiday, Florida (and would remain there until 2011). Tampa Bay residents had to have a special VHF antenna that faced away from Riverview in order to view WLCY. This setup was called the "Tampa Bay Special". Ratings for the station during the early to mid 1970s were dismal, however, compared to longtime Bay Area stations WTVT and WFLA-TV and, as a result, the station nearly lost its ABC affiliation. Part of the problem was its transmitter location in the southwestern corner of Pasco County (all other stations broadcasted from Riverview, in Hillsborough County). It also operated at a lower power than the Tampa stations.

In 1977, WLCY-TV was purchased by Gulf United Broadcasting of Dallas, Texas. New owner Alan Henry (of WINS New York fame), General Manager Larry Clamage, and news director George "Bud" Faulder began to turn the station around, changing the call letters to WTSP-TV on September 12, 1978, hiring several new on-air staff who changed the face of the station.

WTSP is also a station of firsts: in October 1979, the station acquired "Sky 10," Tampa Bay's first television news helicopter. This stunned the local news community and showed that Channel 10 was serious about local news coverage. It was the only local news helicopter to broadcast the aftermath of the infamous Skyway Bridge disaster on live television in May 1980. Another technological advance was Tampa Bay's first satellite news truck (1984) called "Star 10" that beamed signals from far away locations to WTSP's Gandy Blvd. studios. WTSP also acquired Tampa Bay's first Doppler weather radar called "StormSeeker" in 1980 and was one of the first television stations in the country to use a computer in weather forecasting called "WeatherEye" (1979) and was the first station in the market with a 7-day forecast (1992). The station pioneered the use of satellite technology among local television stations in the United States, deploying its own satellite dish in 1979.

In 1979, the station launched an aggressive marketing campaign. By 1982, WTSP had passed WFLA (channel 8) in the evening news ratings and did so until the later part of the decade. WTSP has won many prestigious awards, including the George Foster Peabody award in 1983. Taft Broadcasting purchased the station along with four other Gulf properties in 1985. Then, in 1988, Taft sold its independent stations and Fox affiliates to TVX, and sold most of its network affiliates, including WTSP, to Great American Broadcasting (which became known as Citicasters by 1995).

In 1994, Scripps Howard arranged for several of its stations (including WFTS-TV (channel 28), which was about to lose its Fox affiliation to then-CBS affiliate WTVT (channel 13) due to a corporate deal between New World Communications, WTVT's owner at the time, and Fox) to affiliate with ABC. As a result, WTSP lost its ABC affiliation, and gained the CBS affiliation from WTVT. CBS's programming moved to WTSP on December 12, 1994, in a three-way affiliation switch that caused much viewer confusion. The change to CBS occurred on December 12, 1994, and resulted in the station moving from third to second place in the local news ratings although a later resurgent WTVT and competition from newly started WFTS would make second place a toss-up for the rest of the 1990s. WFLA was the market leader, until dipping to second after the premiere of the 10 p.m. The Jay Leno Show.

Citicasters (which held on to WTSP and WKRC-TV in Cincinnati, Ohio after it sold its other television stations to New World and Fox Television Stations) merged with Jacor in September 1996. Three months later, in December 1996, Gannett acquired WTSP in a swap deal, selling six of its radio stations — WDAE and WUSA-FM (now WMTX) in Tampa, KIIS AM (now KTLK) and KIIS-FM in Los Angeles, and KSDO AM and KSDO-FM (now KLQV) in San Diego — to Jacor in return.

In the spring of 1999, WTSP debuted "Double Doppler" and it remains the only station in Florida to own two radar sites. On January 14, 2008, WTSP became the third station in the Tampa Bay area to broadcast its local newscasts in high definition, behind rivals WFTS-TV and WFLA-TV. Along with the new HD format came a brand-new news set, graphics, and music package. The new HD set was designed by broadcast powerhouse Jack Morton Design/PDG and fabricated by HD specialists blackwalnut, llc. The set was lit by Mick Smith of Ferri Lighting Design Associates.