WTVP: Early years
Decatur was assigned ultra high frequency (UHF) channels 17 and 23 when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lifted its four-year freeze on TV station grants in 1952.[2] While Decatur radio stations WSOY and WDZ announced plans to apply, neither had done so by October 1952, when the Prairie Television Company applied for channel 17. Its president was W. L. Shellabarger, who had previously led a soy mill company.[3] The commission quickly issued Prairie a construction permit on November 20,[4] and the station shortly after took the call sign WTVP.[5]
Construction began on a facility south of the city along the Sangamon River, including an interim transmitter facility (a 1-kilowatt transmitter was all that was available, leaving a 10-kilowatt unit to be installed at a later date).[6] Fabrication of the station's transmitting antenna had become the principal obstacle to going on the air by the start of July,[7][8] with eight changes in the promised shipping date from the manufacturer, RCA.[9] Even while construction was drawing to a close, issues were emerging involving another station planning to get on the air: WCIA (channel 3) of Champaign, which had hoped to move its transmitter slightly to the east and improve its coverage of Decatur. WTVP contended that WCIA's proposed relocation had hampered its efforts to obtain a network affiliation, even though it had announced plans months earlier to affiliate with CBS, WCIA-TV wound up with that affiliation.[10][11][12]
The antenna arrived in Decatur and was erected on August 2; 10,000 people turned out at the studios for a previously scheduled open house and to see the antenna hoisted atop the 550 ft tower.[13] The first test pattern went out two days later,[14] and WTVP began telecasting on August 16, 1953.[15] The station was a primary affiliate of ABC, though in the first months, programming from all the major networks—ABC, CBS, NBC, and DuMont Television Network—was shown.[16]
Months after going on the air, the station was roiled by a management crisis. The station did not sign on as scheduled on January 20, 1954. Soon afterward, it emerged that three executives—general manager Harold Cowgill, chief engineer James Wulliman, and program director Paul Taff—had resigned instead of complying with an ultimatum from principal owner Shellabarger. Station stockholders sought to cut expenses by reducing staff and reassigning job duties. The station did not return to the air until that evening; even then, it could only air the audio portion of the Backstage for Polio benefit concert. Normal operations resumed the following afternoon.[17][18] A total of 20 employees resigned, all of them identically claiming "an unstable administrative situation" and "proposed changes in program policy".[19] At the time, the station had 47 employees, more than double the number of staffers employed by WCIA and WICS in Springfield and three times as many as WBLN in Bloomington.[20] One of the departing executives, Cowgill, went as far as to announce his intention to apply for channel 23 so as to compete with WTVP.[21]
WTVP also had to contend with the uneven structure of television in Central Illinois. WCIA, as a very high frequency (VHF) station, had a larger coverage area, better ratings, and more advertiser support than WTVP, WICS, or other UHF outlets. Shortly after WTVP and WICS failed at the end of 1957 in their joint bid to force WCIA to move to a UHF channel,[22] in April 1958, Shellabarger sold controlling interest in the station to a group of Chicago businessmen fronted by advertising executive George Bolas.[23][24] Several members of the Swanson family were also represented in the ownership.[25]
In January 1960, Prairie Television announced the sale of the station to Metropolitan Broadcasting of New York City,[26] which then renamed itself Metromedia in 1961.[27] The $570,000 purchase of the station was a near-tripling of its value in two years.[28]
Under Metromedia, some operations of the station were shared with WTVH in Peoria, including senior leadership. Metromedia purchased the first video tape recorder at a central Illinois TV station for WTVP in 1961.[29] Metromedia also set about expanding WTVP's coverage area. It applied for and built a translator on channel 77 to extend its signal into the Champaign–Urbana area.[30]
WAND: LIN ownership
Metromedia grew rapidly during the time it owned WTVP, and it began to signal that it wanted to shed its Illinois stations in pursuit of larger markets. In March 1965, the company sold WTVH in Peoria to make room for the potential acquisition of a major-market UHF outlet.[34] In October, it announced the $2 million sale of WTVP to LIN Broadcasting Company of Nashville, Tennessee; LIN operated four Southern radio stations and a series of cable television systems but no TV stations.[35] As the WTVP sale awaited FCC approval, Metromedia was already negotiating to acquire KSAN-TV, a UHF station in San Francisco.[36]
Nearly immediately after the FCC approved the transfer of ownership, LIN announced its plan for changes: a substantial power increase, increased local programming, and new call letters — WAND.[37] The call sign changed on February 14, and other changes came throughout the year, including expanded news coverage.
Block ownership; affiliation switch to NBC
LIN wholly owned WAND until March 2000, when it sold 67 percent of the station to Block Communications in exchange for 100 percent of WLFI-TV in Lafayette, Indiana. However, LIN continued to own a third of WAND and operate the station as part of the deal and did not sell the remaining stake to Block until November 2007.[50][51] The continued LIN connection would have a material impact. In 2004, NBC and LIN negotiated a new affiliation agreement that included clauses for switching two LIN-operated ABC affiliates to NBC: WAND and WDTN in Dayton, Ohio. At the time, NBC had higher ratings.[52][53] As a result, on September 5, 2005, WAND became an NBC affiliate, with WICS/WICD
