Diemazz

WVTM-TV
Birmingham, Alabama
Branding	NBC13 HD (general) NBC13 HD News (newscasts)
Slogan	Where Accuracy Matters
Channels	Analog: 13 (VHF) Digital: 13 (VHF)
Subchannels	13.1 NBC 13.2 NBC Weather Plus 13.3 RTN
Owner	Media General, Inc. (Media General Communications Holdings, LLC)
First air date	May 29, 1949
Call letters’ meaning	Vulcan (in reference to statue) Times Mirror (former owners)
Former callsigns	WAFM-TV (1949-1953) WABT (1953-1958) WAPI-TV (1958-1980)
Former affiliations	Primary: CBS (1949-1954) Secondary: ABC (1949-1961) CBS (1961-1970)
Transmitter Power	316 kW (analog) 1000 kW (digital) 20 kW (after 2009)
Height	408 m (analog) 399 m (digital)
Facility ID	74173
Transmitter Coordinates	33°29′25.9″N 86°47′47.7″W / 33.490528, -86.796583
Website	www.nbc13.com

WVTM-TV is the NBC affiliate television station in the Birmingham-Anniston-Tuscaloosa, Alabama television market. The station is owned by Media General. Its transmitter tower is located atop Red Mountain in Birmingham.

Post-analog shutdown

After the analog television shutdown scheduled for February 17, 2009 ^[1], WVTM-TV will move back to channel 13. ^[2]

History

The station signed on the air on May 29, 1949, as WAFM-TV, owned by The Voice of Alabama, Inc. along with radio stations WAPI) (AM 1070), and WAFM (FM 94.5, now WJOX). It is Alabama's oldest television station. It was originally a CBS affiliate with a secondary ABC affiliation.

In 1953, the Birmingham News bought the Voice of Alabama and changed WAFM-TV's calls to WABT (for Alabama's Best Television). A year later, WABT swapped primary affiliations with WBRC-TV and became an NBC affiliate. In 1956, the Newhouse newspaper chain bought the News.

The station changed call signs again in 1958 when it became WAPI-TV to match its sister radio stations. (The calls stood for Alabama Polytechnic Institute, who owned WAPI from 1925 through 1932.)

WBRC-TV took the ABC affiliation on a full-time basis in 1961, forcing WAPI-TV to shoehorn both NBC and CBS programs into its schedule. This was rather unusual, since in most two-station markets both stations either divided up the ABC programming, or one station carried ABC as a secondary affiliation. Although Birmingham was large enough to support three full network affiliates, UHF was not considered viable at the time, especially for markets with significant areas of rugged terrain. The only other VHF channels in the area had been given to Alabama Educational Television.

While channel 13 tried to carry the most popular NBC and CBS shows, a lot of quite popular shows did not air in Birmingham because of this arrangement. One of the more popular shows that WAPI-TV did not carry was The Ed Sullivan Show, meaning that north-central Alabama viewers missed The Beatles' American debut unless they were lucky enough to pick up stations in Atlanta, Huntsville or Montgomery. Oddly, one of the NBC shows that channel 13 turned down was The Tonight Show. WAPI-TV strongly favored NBC for news, so when CBS and NBC expanded their news programs to 30 minutes in the early 1960s, Walter Cronkite on CBS was not seen on Birmingham-area television screens for several years. This was due, of course, to both networks' feeding their newscasts to affiliates at 5:30 p.m. Central Time (like today). Channel 13 had its local newscast at 6 p.m. Central time, and prior to 1971, prime-time network programming began at 6:30 p.m. Central time. This left no room on the schedule for the CBS Evening News to air, even if the station management had wanted to broadcast it. This meant that, for some years, NBC's Huntley-Brinkley Report was the only national evening television newscast available to central Alabama viewers, since WBRC-TV did not carry ABC's evening news at the time (and would not for some years to come).

When WBMG-TV (channel 42, now WIAT) started telecasting in 1965, it nominally had a CBS affiliation, but CBS allowed WAPI-TV to continue airing its higher-rated programming. This was largely because WBMG had only started one year after the Federal Communications Commission required that new television sets include all-channel tuning. To fill out the schedule, WBMG aired some NBC programming that WAPI-TV turned down (such as The Tonight Show). Both stations listed "CBS/NBC" as their affiliation. However, in May 1970, for a number of reasons, WAPI-TV became the exclusive NBC affiliate, sending all of CBS's programming to WBMG. At the same time that channel 13 became an exclusive affiliate of NBC and WBMG aligned with CBS, WCFT in Tuscaloosa and WHMA in Anniston also affiliated with CBS. Prior to that time, the primetime schedule of WCFT and WHMA virtually mirrored that of WBMG.

The Newhouse company, Advance Publications, withdrew from broadcasting in the early 1980s. WAPI-TV was sold to Times-Mirror Broadcasting in 1980, and as a result the station became WVTM (for Vulcan Times-Mirror), and remains with those call letters to this day.

In the early 1990s, the station was purchased by Argyle Broadcasting. In 1994, New World Communications, which had recently cut an affiliation deal with Fox Broadcasting Company, agreed to purchase WVTM along with its sister stations KTVI in St. Louis, Missouri, KDFW in Dallas, Texas, and KTBC in Austin, Texas. However, New World also decided to purchase several stations from Great American Broadcasting, including WBRC. Great American agreed to exclude WBRC from its deal with New World, and to sell WBRC directly to Fox instead. As such, WVTM retained its NBC affiliation, while KTVI (the former St. Louis ABC affiliate), KDFW (the former Dallas/Fort Worth CBS affiliate), and KTBC (the former Austin CBS affiliate) became Fox affiliates. Fox operated WBRC as an ABC affiliate until 1996.

New World sold off all its stations in late 1996. Its Fox affiliates were sold to Fox outright, while its two NBC stations (WVTM and KNSD channel 39 in San Diego, California) were sold to NBC.

The station also went through numerous name changes from NewsCenter13, to NewsWatch13 and its AM newscast 13 Alive to 13 Action News and then 13 and You, an ode to NBC and You to Alabama's 13, People Who Care, NBC13, We've Got You Covered, to today's NBC13, Accuracy Matters. WVTM, currently known on air as NBC13, runs more than 35 hours of local news a week along with NBC network news.

Also, in 2004, WVTM became the first television station in Alabama to obtain a 1-million watt Doppler weather radar system originally dubbed "Skywatch Doppler One Million", now called "WeatherPlus Doppler One Million", located on Bald Rock Mountain in St. Clair County, Alabama.

WVTM was one of four NBC-owned stations in smaller markets that were put up for sale on January 9, 2006, along with WJAR-TV in Providence, Rhode Island, WCMH-TV in Columbus, Ohio, and WNCN in Raleigh, North Carolina. On April 6, 2006, NBC Universal and Media General announced that Media General would purchase WVTM-TV as part of a $600 million four-station deal between the two companies[1]. Media General has announced that it will sell its existing station in Birmingham, WIAT, since the FCC does not allow for one company to own two of the four largest stations in a single market. Media General closed the deal on all four stations on June 26, 2006 - after the FCC granted the company a temporary waiver allowing it to keep both WVTM and WIAT for six months. On August 2, it was announced that Media General sold WIAT to New Vision Television. [2]

For several months after Media General acquired the stations from NBC Universal, WVTM's Web site and those of the other three stations remained in the format used by the Web sites of NBC owned & operated stations. In December 2006, the Web sites for all four of the stations were redesigned. They now credit Media General in their copyright notices, and they are no longer operated by the Internet Broadcasting company.

On October 17, 2007, WVTM began broadcasting local news in high definition (HDTV). WVTM is the first station in Alabama to broadcast local news in HD.

In 2008, WVTM announced it would add the Retro Television Network to one of its digital channels. [3]

Previous owners of Channel 13

• 1949–1953: The Voice of Alabama, Inc.
• 1953–1956: The Birmingham News Company
• 1956–1980: Newhouse family (Advance Publications)
• 1980–1993: Times-Mirror Company
• 1993–1995: Argyle Television
• 1995–1996: New World Communications
• 1996–2006: NBC
• 2006–present: Media General

Chronology

Anchors

• Mike Royer - weekdays 4:30, 5, 6, and 10PM
• Gina Redmond - weekdays 5, 6, and 10PM
• Rod Carter - weekday mornings/midday
• Andrea Lindenberg - weekday mornings/midday

Weather Anchors:

• Jerry Tracey - weekday evenings / Chief Meteorologist
• Stephanie Walker - weekday mornings
• Richard Jacks - weekends/fill in

Sports Anchors:

• Don Hawes - weekday evenings / Sports Director
• Rob Jones - weekends/fill in

Traffic Anchor:

• Brooke Smith

Station Logos

WVTM-TV's logo used from 2005 to the present.

Notable past personalities

• Joe Langston: News Anchor
• Bob Jones: News Anchor
• Wendell Harris: News Anchor
• Ken Snow: News Anchor
• Pam Huff: News Anchor (currently on Birmingham's WBMA/WCFT/WJSU)
• Phil Rozen: News Anchor
• Steve Sanders: News Reporter (currently on WGN-TV, Chicago)
• David Mattingly: News Reporter (currently on CNN and NPR)
• Gene Lively: News Anchor
• Mike Moore: News Anchor (currently on WGCL-TV, Atlanta)
• Theresa Durden: News Anchor
• Terri Merrimman: News Anchor (currently on WSMV, Nashville)
• Janice Rogers: News Reporter (now at WBRC, Birmingham)
• Bill Fitzgerald: News Reporter (now at WNCN, Raleigh/Durham)
• Rene Syler: News Anchor
• Buddy Rutledge: Sports Anchor
• David Smith: News Reporter 1981-1989 (now with Turner Broadcasting, Atlanta)
• Gary Sanders: Sports Anchor
• Scott Palmer: Sports Anchor
• Herb Winches: Sports Anchor (was at WJOX-AM, Birmingham, from 1990-2006; later on WIAT-TV in Birmingham)
• Ken Lass: Sports Anchor, later Morning News Anchor
• Wendy Garner: Anchor/Reporter
• Jim Dunaway: Sports Anchor, later Morning News Anchor (currently on WSPZ, Birmingham and WIAT-TV, Birmingham)
• Rosemary Lucas: Weather Reporter
• Larry Nobles: Meteorologist
• Jay Prater: Meteorologist (currently on KAKE-TV, Wichita, KS)
• James Spann: Meteorologist (currently on WBMA/WCFT/WJSU)
• Fran Curry: News Anchor
• Trevor Pettiford: Weekend Anchor
• Jenny Burleson: Medical Reporter
• Juliette Meeus: News Reporter
• Matt Coulter: Sports Anchor
• Teresa Racine: Weekend Anchor
• Renee Kemp: Weekend Anchor

News/Station Presentation

Newscast Titles

• 13 Action News (1970s)
• NewsWatch 13 / 13 Alive (morning newscast) (1970s)
• NewsCenter 13 (1970s)
• NBC13 News (1995-present)

Station Slogans

• 13, Proud as a Peacock! (1979-1981; localized version of NBC ad campaign)
• 13 and You (early 1990s)
• Alabama's 13, People Who Care (mid thru late 1990s)
• NBC13, We've Got You Covered (2000s-2006)
• NBC13: Accuracy Matters (2006-present)

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External links

• WVTM Homepage
• Birmingham TV News: Station Histories
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WVTM
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WVTM-TV
• Program Information for WVTM at TitanTV.com

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