WGNT

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = WGNT
city =
station_
station_slogan =
station_branding = CW 27
analog = 27 (UHF)
digital = 50 (UHF)
other_chs =
affiliations = The CW
network =
founded =
airdate = October 1, 1961
location = Portsmouth - Norfolk -
Newport News, Virginia
callsign_meaning = Greater Norfolk Television, as in Hampton Roads
former_callsigns = WYAH-TV (1961-1989)
former_channel_numbers =
owner = CBS Corporation
licensee = The CW Television Stations, Inc.
sister_stations =
former_affiliations = Independent (1961-1995)
UPN (1995-2006)
effective_radiated_power = 2340 kW (analog)
800 kW (digital)
HAAT = 296 m (analog)
264 m (digital)
class =
facility_id = 9762
coordinates = coord|36|48|43.8|N|76|27|44.1|W|type:landmark_scale:2000
homepage = [http://www.cw27.com/ www.cw27.com]

WGNT, channel 27, is a CW Television Network-owned and operated station licensed to Portsmouth, Virginia, and serving the Portsmouth-Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Newport News, Virginia (known collectively as Hampton Roads) television market. WGNT is owned by the CBS Corporation, which also owns a 50-percent share of the CW. The station's studios are located in Portsmouth, and its transmitter is located in Suffolk, Virginia.

History

WGNT is one of the oldest surviving UHF licenses in the country. It first appeared on December 6, 1953 as WTOV-TV, a commercial independent owned by Commonwealth Broadcasting. It was the third television station in the Hampton Roads area, and the second on UHF (WVEC-TV signed on over channel 15 three months earlier). WTOV later became an affiliate of the DuMont network. Channel 27 was on the air for limited hours, and had very limited viewership because it was impossible at the time to watch UHF stations without buying a converter. Even with a converter, WTOV's picture wasn't very clear. With low viewership, poor advertising revenues, and the impending loss of DuMont programming, WTOV went dark in 1956.

The CBN Years

In 1961, M.G. "Pat" Robertson, an attorney and Southern Baptist minister (though with a strong pentecostal tinge) purchased the license for channel 27. Under the ownership of Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, the station returned to the air as WYAH-TV in October, with "YAH" standing for "Yahweh" according to some sources and "You are Holy" according to others. At first it was on the air eight hours a day with a locally produced program which was the ancestor of what would become "The 700 Club", with Pat Robertson as the host. In 1962, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker joined as hosts. The station almost went dark in 1963 and so they did a special telethon urging 700 people to donate 10 dollars a month. They did such telethons bi-monthly. A few years later the locally produced daily talk program would be named the 700 Club. Beginning in 1964, The Bakkers also hosted produced and hosted a local children's program called "Come On Over". This consisted of puppet shows, skits, prayers, stories and Davey and Goliath reruns. Pat Robertson also appeared on-camera as well as host of additional Bible-teaching programs. Weekends consisted of televangelists such as Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, Jerry Falwell, and Billy Graham, local church services. WYAH was one of the first Christian television stations in the United States and was a viewer-supported non-commercial station, though it sold blocks of time to other ministries.

In 1966, WYAH expanded to 12 hours a day of broadcasting and begun construction of a new tower increasing Grade A coverage as far as Williamsburg, Virginia. The station even reached parts of the Richmond, Virginia market. The station also began color transmissions of show produced in color. In mid 1967, WYAH began producing all their programs in color as well.

In September 1967 WYAH expanded its broadcast day to about 15 hours a day and began commercial operation part-time with old westerns, public domain movies, and classic cartoons except on Sundays. Some of the shows included Lassie, Lone Ranger, Cisco Kid, Little Rascals, among others. By the early 1970s WYAH had expanded its broadcast day to 19 hours and was a traditional independent station running cartoons, off-network sitcoms, and religious programming, including thrice-daily airings of the "700 Club". Sundays were devoted entirely to religious programs. Some of the shows included Flintstones, Brady Bunch, Star Trek, Bugs Bunny, Casper, Popeye, Tom and Jerry, The Addams Family, Leave It To Beaver, The Munsters, Dennis The Menace, Hogan's Heroes, The Jetsons, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Hazel (TV series), The Flying Nun, Gilligan's Island, Father Knows Best, and many others. WYAH also offered Japanese cartoons and live action serials dubbed into English including, "Ultraman", "Astro Boy", "Johnny Sokko", "Marine Boy", "Space Giants", "King Kong", "Kimba the White Lion", "Speed Racer", "Gigantor", "8 Man" and "Amazing 3". About this time, the Bakkers left for the California-based Trinity Broadcasting Network before going on their own in 1975. Hampton Roads was one of the smallest markets with a commercial independent station. While keeping with Robertson's evangelical views, its programming policy was only somewhat conservative. WYAH indeed offered a wide variety of programming and was a stronger independent than many secular owned stations at that time (As late as 1976 many independent stations did not even sign on until 10 AM). Still, Hampton Roads viewers with Cable TV had other choices, though, as WTTG and WDCA-TV from Washington, D.C. were available on cable systems as well.

In June 1971, CBN signed on WHAE-TV (now WGCL-TV) in Atlanta, followed with the January 1973 purchase of KBFI-TV (now KDAF) in Dallas. CBN later changed the calls of that station to KXTX-TV and, in April 1973, merged it with KDTV (the current KXTX-TV). CBN's fourth station, WXNE-TV (now WFXT) in Boston was signed-on in October 1977. These stations formed the Continental Broadcasting Network, a wholly owned subsidiary of Christian Broadcasting Network, and of which WYAH was the flagship station.

In the late 1970s, WYAH continued to acquire off network sitcoms and more movie packages. In 1980 WYAH, along with the rest of the Continental stations, began eight hours of general entertainment programming on Sundays, mostly extending the non-religious programming to syndicated theatrical shorts from Warner Bros., MGM, and Paramount and weekly "theaters" dedicated to Shirley Temple, Abbott & Costello, and "Blondie and Dagwood" movies. Some of the other shows added included Jeffersons, WKRP In Cincinnati, Diff'rent Strokes, One Day At A Time, and others. Because of CBN's evangelical bent, profanity that was permitted on broadcast television was often muted for family viewing. However, it lost some ground to WTVZ (channel 33), which signed on in 1979 and aired programming that was too racy for Robertson's liking -- mostly uncensored off-network programming and syndicated fare.

In the late 1980s, Robertson began selling off the over-the-air stations that he owned. In 1989 WYAH was sold to Centennial Broadcasting. The new owners renamed the station WGNT, which calls stand for Greater Norfolk Television.

After CBN: WGNT Today

WGNT initially ran shows inherited from the CBN days but began mixing in far racier programming after Centennial purchased the station, leading to talk that its call letters stood for God's Not There. It also ended its decades-long practice of censoring profanity from off-network syndicated programming. As the 1990s began, WGNT began showing controversial talk shows like "Rush Limbaugh", "The Ricki Lake Show" and "The Jerry Springer Show" and syndicated fare like the "Universal Action Pack" , "PTEN" and "Baywatch", and dropped the 11 p.m. repeat of the "700 Club" in 1991. By 2003, the series was completely off the air on WGNT, though it aired on numerous outlets in the area in the years since. ("The 700 Club" currently airs on two stations in the area: NBC affiliate WAVY-TV and TBN affiliate WHRE.)

In 1995, WGNT became a charter UPN affiliate and branded itself as "UPN 27". In 1997, Paramount Stations Group bought WGNT, making it a UPN owned-and-operated station. Viacom, Paramount's owner, later bought CBS as well. When Viacom spun off its broadcasting properties into CBS Corporation at the end of 2005, WGNT and the other UPN O&Os became part of the new company.

On January 24, 2006, the UPN and WB networks announced they would merge into a new service, the CW Television Network, jointly owned by CBS and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. WGNT became the Hampton Roads area's CW affiliate on September 18, 2006.

On January 1, 2007, WGNT began hosting the master control operations of sister stations WTOG in St. Petersburg, Florida and WUPA in Atlanta, Georgia.

Local programming

In 1995, WTKR produced "TV3 News"/"NewsChannel 3 News at 10 on UPN 27," the area's first 10 PM newscast [http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1995/vp950921/09210058.htm] . The newscast was short-lived and cancelled in late 1997. Since then, the time period has been used for off-network repeats such as "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", "Martin", "Becker", and "The Cosby Show", among others.

Currently WGNT airs the syndicated weekday morning program, "The Daily Buzz". The station also produces a public affairs program, called "Here and Now on The CW", airs every week on Sunday at 7 AM. Kafi Rouse, the program's host, is also the marketing and public affairs director for the channel 27. The program covers topics including community affairs, politics, government, social issues, and business that affects the Hampton Roads area.

Trivia

*The WTOV call letters are now used by the NBC affiliate in Steubenville, Ohio on channel 9.
*During WGNT's first years on air as WTOV, future ABC anchorman Max Robinson was hired as a newsreader. Relegated to reading from behind a slide with the station's ID and logo, a frustrated Robinson, who was African-American, removed the slide one night and read the news while appearing on camera; he was promptly fired the next morning after the station received complaints from dissatisfied white viewers.Fact|date=May 2008
*The WYAH call letters are now currently used by a Christian music radio station based in Winchester, Kentucky. [http://www.wyahradio.com]

External links

* [http://www.cw27.com/ WGNT Website]
*TVQ|WGNT
*BIA|WGNT|TV|TV