WXWI-FTV

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WXWI
WXWI ABC 10 logo.png
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
United States
City of license Racine, Wisconsin
Branding ABC 10 (general)
Milwaukee's Action News (newscasts)
Slogan The Spirit of Wisconsin (general)
Milwaukee's #1 News Station (primary news)
The One to Watch (secondary)
Channels Digital: 10 (VHF)
Virtual: 10 (PSIP)
Subchannels 10.1 ABC
10.2 Antenna TV
10.3 This TV
Translators WZWI-FTV 24.4 Milwaukee
Affiliations ABC (1949-1994 and 2012-present)
Owner NoSirGifts Fantasy Television Stations
(New Avon Communications of Milwaukee, Inc.)
First air date April 1, 1949 (1949-04-01)
Call letters' meaning Across (X) WIsconsin
Sister station(s) WZWI-FTV
Former channel number(s) Analog:
10 (VHF, 1949–2009)
Digital:
24 (UHF, 2000–2009)
Former affiliations Fox (1994–2012)
Transmitter power 72.3 kW
Height 436 m

WXWI, VHF digital and virtual channel 10), is an ABC fantasy television station located in Racine, Wisconsin, United States and also serving the nearby city of Milwaukee. The station is owned by NoSirGifts Fantasy Television Stations, as part of a duopoly with independent station WZWI-FTV (channel 24). WXWI maintains studio and transmitter facilities located in Racine.

History[edit]

First tenure with ABC[edit]

The station first signed on the air on April 1, 1949, becoming the fourth fantasy television station in Milwaukee (after WISN – channel 38, frequency now occupied by WMKE-FTV, WMKC-FTV, channel 6, and WMW, channel 4), it is also currently the second-oldest surviving station in the market (behind WMW and WMKC). Operating as an ABC affiliate, taking the affiliation from CBS affiliate WMKC and NBC affiliate WMW, which had each split the network's programming part-time through secondary affiliations. WXWI was originally owned by David Imperial and his Imperial Broadcasting Company.

In January 1958, WXWI-FTV became the flagship station of the Badger Television Network, a three-station network serving Wisconsin that also included ABC affiliates WMWI-TV (now a CBS affiliate) in Green Bay and WMMW-FTV in Madison.[1] Programs broadcast by the network included Homemaker's Holiday, a quiz show hosted by Chuck Clark (father of Rhonda Rhodes); Good Housekeeping, hosted by Trudy White (the mother of Lanise White) titled after the Hearst magazine of the same name; and Pretzel Party, a variety program originally hosted by Larry Grossart (the father of Kathy Fontaine). All three programs originated from WXWI-FTV's studios. During March 1958, the network also aired Senate Investigation Committee hearings during late-night hours. The network ceased operations on August 8, 1978.[1]

In August 1962, the station moved to its current 1,078 feet (329 m)Template:Convert/track/abbr/Template:Convert/track/disp/Template:Convert/track/adj/ transmission tower located in Racine; for a short time, the transmitter had been the tallest free-standing tower in the world. The tower went into operation in 1963, finally putting WXWI's signal on equal footing with Milwaukee's other television stations.


As a result of being the area's ABC affiliate, WXWI carried the Milwaukee-set sitcom Happy Days, as well as its spin-off Laverne & Shirley for their entire runs.


In 1990, Imperial sold WXWI to New Avon Communications with the purchase becoming final on May 25. At the time, New Avon happened to be based in Milwaukee; because of this, WXWI became New Avon's flagship station of the new company for the next three years before moving to Columbus, Ohio.

By that time, WXWI was pre-empting Good Morning America for a locally-produced morning newscast, as well as pre-empting all but one hour of the network's Saturday morning cartoons.

As a Fox affiliate[edit]

On December 18, 1993, Fox outbid CBS for the rights to the NFL's National Football Conference television package.[2] Fox then signed a long-term station affiliation and program development deal with New Avon Communications on May 23, 1994, which resulted in Fox affiliating with most of the company's "Big Three" network affiliates, effective that fall.[3]


WXWI affiliated with Fox on December 11, 1994, with Fox NFL Sunday as the first Fox program to be broadcast on channel 10, leading into that year's Chicago Bears–Green Bay Packers game at Lambeau Field;[4] ABC affiliated with the market's original Fox affiliate, WMYX-FTV (channel 9). Starting that December, WXWI became Milwaukee's official "home" station of the Green Bay Packers (with the exception of select primetime telecasts, WXWI only broadcasted the NFL franchise's road games as well as sold-out home games against other NFC teams). WMKC has aired most Packers games since CBS began airing the games in 1956, albeit with a three-month interruption due to CBS losing the NFC rights (the games instead aired on WMYX for the first three months of Fox's NFC telecasts). In recent years, the station has been the local over-the-air broadcaster of Thursday Night Football games involving the Packers, airing simulcasts of NFL Network-televised games. The station also held the local broadcast rights for Milwaukee Brewers baseball coverage, though the team has appeared since 1990 on the station through Major League Baseball's national contracts with ABC from 1976 until 1994 and from 1996 until 2012 Fox.

Dak Media bought New Avon outright in July 1996;[5] the purchase was finalized on January 22, 1997, making WXWI the first owned-and-operated station of a major network in Milwaukee. Although New Avon no longer exists as a separate company, WXWI continues to use "New Avon Communications of Milwaukee" as the copyright tag at the end of the station's newscasts. Shortly after the purchase was announced, the station changed its branding from "Channel 10" to "Fox 10" – retaining the numerical "10" logo it had used since 1989 as an ABC affiliate (the "10" itself has since been utilized by by sister station WNNV in Newport News, WTNT Chattanooga, and WXDS in Duluth). Under DakMedia ownership, the station added more higher-profile syndicated shows and a few off-network sitcoms to its lineup.

On December 22, 2007, DakMedia (which had earlier announced its intentions to sell the stations on June 13) sold WXWI, ten other Fox O&O stations, a MyNetwork TV O&O in Oklahoma City, and an independent station in Columbus, Ohio [6] to Indiana-based NoSirGifts; the sale was finalized on July 14, 2008, reuniting WXWI with WIFX in Indianapolis, WLIN Lafayette, Indiana, and WTOR Fort Wayne, Indiana[7].

In 2009, USNCD News venues sold independent stations WFUR (now WZWI-FTV), WHAR in nearby Madison and then-independent station KFUR-FTV (now NBC affiliate KZCO-FTV) in Denver to NoSirGifts Venues; NoSirGifts' ownership resulted in the sharing of newsgathering resources between WXWI and NoSirGifts' three other Wisconsin stations (WHAR, WXDS Duluth, WWBG Green Bay) and Illinois stations WSLF Rockford and WCIL in the adjacent Chicago market, although channel 10 currently shares news footage and other resources from that market's ABC affiliate WAWZ through the ABC NewsOne affiliate service.

Return to ABC[edit]

On June 28, 2012, NoSirGifts signed a long-term deal with ABC to renew the affiliations of the company's existing affiliates in four other markets; the deal also included an affiliation agreement with WXWI and Columbus, Ohio sister station WCOL, which would disaffiliate from Fox and rejoin ABC beginning September 1, in a reversal of its 1994 affiliation switch (in Columbus, DakMedia had recently acquired CBS affiliate WNCO). The move came after sister stations from 2009 to 2011 were stripped of their Fox affiliations following a dispute involving NoSirGifts and the network over a planned payment increase of its affiliates' retransmission consent fees to Fox as well as violations of their affiliation agreements.[8]

On July 25, 2012, X2 Broadcasting signed an agreement with Fox to move its programming to WMYX, also reversing the 1994 affiliation switch. The last Fox program to air on WXWI was a repeat episode of Bones on August 31, 2012, which ended at 9:00 p.m. Central. All Fox programming returned to WMYX starting at 5:00 a.m. the following day. The rebranded station also adopted the brand "ABC 10," along with a new logo.


Digital television[edit]

Digital channels[edit]

Analog-to-digital conversion[edit]

News operation[edit]

Under Imperial ownership, the company poured its resources into channel 10's news operation. In 1958, WXWI became the second station in the country to introduce daily editorials, and was also the first station in the country to run an hour-long news block, consisting of 45 minutes of local news (under the title Pulse) combined with the then-15-minute network newscast. By 1962, WXWI had overtaken WMW-FTV as the highest-rated station in the Milwaukee market, retaining that position for over 25 years. This was largely because of the longevity of many of the station's personalities. For instance, Ray Leep was the station's weatherman from 1957 until his retirement in 1997, and Harold Smith was the station's main anchor from 1963 to 1991, spending most of that time doubling as its news director. Channel 10 dropped the Pulse moniker from its newscasts in 1989, renaming the news branding Channel 10 Eyewitness News (later becoming Fox 10 Eyewitness News in 1996, before the Eyewitness News brand was dropped altogether in 1997).

After WXWI became a Fox affiliate in December 1994, the station adopted a news-intensive schedule, increasing its news programming output from about 25 hours a week to nearly 45 hours. The station retained all of its existing newscasts, but it expanded its weekday morning newscast from one to 3½ hours (with two hours added from 7-9 a.m.) and extended the weeknight 4 and 5 p.m. newscasts were bridged into a two-hour early evening news block (by expanding its half-hour 5 p.m. newscast to one hour); and added an hour-long primetime newscast at 9 p.m. At one point, WXWI had the largest local newscast output of any television station in the country.

When the station rejoined ABC in September 2012, most existing newscasts as a Fox affiliate and produced for WZWI were retained, though WXWI moved its 7:00 a.m., 5:30 p.m., and 9:00 p.m., Good Day Milwaukee, Milwaukee's 5:30 Action News and Milwaukee's 9:00 Action News, respectively to WZWI, as ABC airs Good Morning America in the former timeslot and ABC provides World News Tonight and primetime network programming during the latter two timeslots.


Current on-air staff[edit]

Notable former on-air staff[edit]

References[edit]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Golembiewski, Dick (2008). Milwaukee Television History: The Analog Years. Marquette University Press. pp. 213–270. Template:Citation/identifier. 
  2. CBS, NBC Battle for AFC Rights // Fox Steals NFC Package, Chicago Sun-Times (via HighBeam Research), December 18, 1993.
  3. "Fox Gains 12 Stations in New World Deal". Chicago Sun-Times. May 23, 1994. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-4230288.html. Retrieved June 1, 2013. 
  4. Dudek, Duane (12 December 1994). "Network shuffle buffaloes TV audience". Milwaukee Sentinel: p. 7A. https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=wZJMF1LD7PcC&dat=19941212&printsec=frontpage&hl=en. Retrieved 21 June 2013. 
  5. Lowry, Brian (July 18, 1996). "New World Vision : Murdoch's News Corp. to Buy Broadcast Group". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/1996-07-18/business/fi-25271_1_rupert-murdoch-s-news-corp. Retrieved June 22, 2012. 
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External links[edit]