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WTXX
Waterbury/Hartford/ New Haven, Connecticut
Branding	txx (general) Fox 61 News (newscasts)
Channels	Analog: 20 (UHF) Digital: 12 (VHF)
Affiliations	The CW
Owner	Tribune Company (WTXX, Inc.)
Founded	September 4, 1953
Call letters’ meaning	Waterbury Television XX (Roman numeral 20)
Sister station(s)	WTIC-TV
Former callsigns	WATR-TV (1953-1982)
Former channel number(s)	53 (1953-1962)
Former affiliations	DuMont (secondary, 1953-1956) ABC (secondary, 1953-1966) Independent (1956-1966 and 1982-1995) NBC (1966-1982) UPN (1995-2000) The WB (2001-2006)
Transmitter Power	2,240 kW (analog) 1.7 kW (digital)
Height	366 m (analog) 515 m (digital)
Facility ID	14050
Transmitter Coordinates	41°31′4.1″N 73°1′7.4″W / 41.517806, -73.018722 (analog) 41°42′13.1″N 72°49′54″W / 41.703639, -72.83167 (digital)
Website	wtxx.com

WTXX, channel 20, is the The CW Television Network affiliate for the state of Connecticut, licensed to Waterbury, Connecticut. WTXX is owned by Tribune Broadcasting, and is the junior partner in a duopoly with Fox affiliate WTIC-TV (channel 61). The two stations share facilities at the channel 61 studios in Hartford, while channel 20's transmitter is located in Waterbury.

History

The station commenced operations on September 4, 1953 as WATR-TV on channel 53, the second UHF station in Connecticut. The station was owned by the Thomas family along with WATR radio (1320 AM). In 1962, the station relocated to channel 20. Channel 53 is now occupied by WEDN, a PBS station in Norwich. At the time, the station's signal only covered the southern portions of the state.

WATR-TV was originally a dual secondary affiliate of both the DuMont Television Network^[1] and ABC, sharing them with New Haven-based WNHC-TV (channel 8, now WTNH-TV). DuMont ceased broadcasts in 1956, and shortly afterward, WNHC-TV became an exclusive ABC affiliate. WATR-TV then became an independent station on paper but picked up ABC shows turned down by WNHC-TV. In 1966, channel 20 switched networks and joined NBC. That network's primary affiliate in Connecticut, WHNB-TV (channel 30) in New Britain, served Hartford and eastern Connecticut but its signal was not strong enough to cover New Haven and the southwestern portions of the state. In the 1970s, channel 20 offered very little local news and instead aired older syndicated programs and religious shows such as Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's The PTL Club when NBC programs were not offered.

Viacom bought WHNB in 1978 and changed its calls to WVIT. Two years later, WVIT more than doubled its transmission power to cover New Haven. It became clear that WATR-TV would soon be forced to discontinue NBC programming when its contract ran out in 1982. In March 1982, in a move which coincided with the end of the station's network relationship, the Thomas family sold WATR-TV to Odyssey Television Partners (later to become Renaissance Broadcasting). The new owners subsequently changed the station's calls letters to the current WTXX and turned channel 20 into an independent.

Soon after taking over, Odyssey built a more powerful transmitter that more than doubled channel 20's signal and gave it a coverage area comparable with the major network stations in the market. This made WTXX the state's first full-service independent since Hartford's WHCT-TV (channel 18, now WUVN) operated under the ownership of RKO General. Programming consisted the typical independent fare of cartoons, off-network series, and movies. WTXX also carried some sports most notably New York Mets telecasts from WOR-TV (now WWOR-TV) in New York City, and Boston Celtics telecasts from WLVI-TV in Boston. WTXX prospered in its new status and continued to do so even after WTIC-TV signed on in 1984. This continued after WTIC took on the Fox affiliation two years later as a charter member of that network.

In late March 1993, Renaissance Broadcasting sold the station to a Roman Catholic group called Counterpoint Communications. Renaissance had recently purchased Chase Broadcasting, which owned WTIC-TV, and Federal Communications Commission regulations of the time did not allow common ownership of two stations in the same market. However, Renaissance retained the rights to all the programming it bought for channel 20. WTIC wanted a full-time local marketing agreement (LMA) with WTXX, which basically amounted to channel 20 being programmed by its competitor. Counterpoint balked, wanting only a part-time agreement. Renaissance then moved some of WTXX's stronger shows to WTIC leaving channel 20 with a considerably weakened schedule. Under the terms of the sale to Counterpoint, WTXX retained only some syndicated programming and movies, and began airing programming from the Home Shopping Network, which would run for fifteen hours a day (including daytime and prime time). In addition, channel 20 would air a daily Catholic Mass along with other Catholic religious programs for one hour per day. After being unable to negotiate an LMA with WTIC, WTXX entered into a part-time LMA with WVIT.

WTXX became Connecticut's UPN affiliate in April 1995. By the Spring of 1996, the station began acquire stronger syndicated programming such as sitcoms, talk, and reality shows. HSN programming was relegated to overnights and eventually disappeared from the schedule. In 1998, WTIC (now owned by Tribune Broadcasting) replaced WVIT as WTXX's LMA partner. The LMA change caused no impact on WTXX's daily broadcasts of the Catholic Mass which continues to the present day. Around this time, the station changed its on-air name from UPN 20 to Connecticut's 20. It also picked up Boston Red Sox baseball games; the station's feed (with the "Connecticut's 20" bug) was carried during Red Sox highlights aired on ESPN for much of the mid-1990s. In 1999, WTXX and WTIC consolidated their operations in a new facility in downtown Hartford.

Former WTXX CW logo used 2006-2008.

On January 1, 2001, WTXX and WBNE (channel 59, now WCTX) swapped affiliations. WTXX became Connecticut's WB and later that year Tribune purchased channel 20 outright creating a duopoly with WTIC. Tribune, having already received a temporary waiver from FCC rules barring common ownership of a newspaper and a television station in the same area when it purchased the Hartford Courant a year earlier, received an additional waiver for their purchase of WTXX. Tribune had been seeking a waiver in anticipation of the FCC relaxing its rules to allow such media combinations to exist with the agency's blessing which would include television duopolies. In March 2005, the FCC requested that Tribune sell WTXX to a new owner. In late 2007, the FCC loosened its restrictions on newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership perhaps creating an opening for Tribune (purchased by investor Sam Zell in December of 2007) to retain WTXX without a waiver.

On January 24, 2006, the WB and UPN networks announced that they would merge into a new service called The CW Television Network, owned jointly by CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner (parent of the former WB). The new network signed a ten-year affiliation agreement with most of Tribune's WB affiliates, including WTXX. The CW officially began operations on September 18, 2006.

WTXX is the television rights holder of WNBA's Connecticut Sun. The station also simulcasts some Mets games aired by sister station WPIX in New York City.

In August 2008, the station changed its branding from CW 20 to txx, in a corporate effort by Tribune to strengthen its CW affiliates' local identities and reduce the dependence on the use of network branding.

Digital television

In 2009, WTXX will remain on channel 20 when the analog to digital conversion is complete.^[2]

Newscasts

In July 1993, WTXX began to air a nightly 10 o'clock newscast produced by WVIT. When the station switched LMA partners to WTIC, it began simulcasting the first half-hour of WTIC's 10 P.M. news. On April 24, 2006, WTXX began simulcasting WTIC's full hour-long news. There is no separate news opening on WTXX for WTIC's newscasts. Whenever Fox programming or sports delays the news on WTIC, it is still shown on WTXX but under the name of News at Ten. There is also a "News at Ten" logo in place of "Fox 61 News". Beyond the Headlines, WTIC's weekly public affairs show, airs on Sunday motnings at 11 on WTXX. On March 3, 2008, WTIC launched a weekday morning newscast. However, unlike the 10 P.M. broadcast, the morning news is not simulcasted on WTXX.

Fox 61 News at 10

Weeknights (10 to 11 P.M.)

• Anchors:
  • Brent Hardin
  • Susan Christensen
• Weather:
  • Garett Argianas
• Sports:
  • Rich Coppola

Weekends (10 to 10:30 P.M.)

• Anchor:
  • Laurie Perez
• Weather:
  • Bob Cox
• Sports:
  • Bob Rumbold

WTXX features additional news personnel from WTIC. See that article for a complete listing.

References

External links

• WTXX channel 20
• WTIC-TV/DT "Fox 61"
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WTXX

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