Current license
The current incarnation of channel 26 dates from September 7, 1980, when Miami Valley Christian Television (MVCT) returned it to the air as a Christian-oriented station under the call sign WTJC (for "Witnessing 'Til Jesus Comes"). WTJC aired religious programming during most of its daytime and weekend schedule (including The 700 Club, PTL and Jerry Falwell), although it also aired lifestyle programming such as The Joy of Gardening, cartoons, and children's programming in late weekday afternoon slots. There were also family-friendly reruns in early evenings and a local newscast. WTJC's Saturday schedule included westerns, sportsmen/hunting/wildlife shows, and The Lawrence Welk Show.
When WRGT-TV signed on in 1984, MVCT sold most of its secular programming inventory to that station, and switched WTJC to a mostly-religious format (with the exception of a few children's shows, and Saturday morning sporting and hunting shows). Over the next few years, several ministries that bought time on WTJC became involved in scandals. Due to the scandals, donations to the ministries, and to MVCT, declined. The primary owner of MVCT, Marvin Sparks, bought out his partners' shares in 1991 and in turn sold them to Video Mall Communications. WTJC then aired home shopping and paid programming eighteen hours a day, with religious shows the rest of the broadcast day.
In the mid-1990s, Abry Communications (which had purchased WRGT-TV's owner, Act III Broadcasting) approached MVCT with a proposal to manage WTJC for 18 hours a day. MVCT declined and chose instead to sell the station to Paxson Communications in 1995. Paxson kept a similar lineup for WTJC, airing religious programming in early mornings, infomercials for most of the day and worship music overnight. On January 20, 1998, WTJC's call sign was changed to WDPX (for "Dayton Pax TV"). Accordingly, on August 31 of that year, the station became a charter affiliate of Pax (now Ion Television).
In June 1999, Paxson sold the station to ACME Communications, which dropped half of Pax's programming for a primary affiliation with The WB, along with syndicated programming. The previous WB affiliate was low-power station WUCT-LP (now WRCX-LD); WB programming in the Dayton area could also be seen on the WGN cable channel and on Columbus WB affiliate WWHO. On June 9, 1999, ACME also changed WDPX's call sign to the current WBDT. ACME ran the station as a dual WB and Pax affiliate, signing a five-year affiliation deal with Pax upon the sale of the station from Paxson. As a dual WB and Pax affiliate, WBDT aired a mix of syndicated, WB and Pax TV programming. WBDT maintained a secondary affiliation with Pax until mid-2004 at the latest, airing its prime time lineup on weekday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon, early Sunday mornings from 1 to 4 a.m., and early Monday mornings from midnight to 4 a.m. In the station's early days as a WB affiliate, Pax's flagship Touched by an Angel continued to air at its regularly scheduled time of 7 p.m., leading into WB prime time programming. In 2004, Diagnosis: Murder was moved to 1 p.m., while the remainder of Pax's programming was moved to overnights. The station finally dropped the remainder of Pax's programming in September 2004, filling the morning hours previously programmed with the network's programming with off-network sitcoms, talk shows, infomercials, and court shows.
On September 18, 2006, WBDT became the market's CW outlet after The WB and UPN merged. It became a strong affiliate with the new network in terms of prime time ratings—strong enough for The CW to designate WBDT the "#1 CW affiliate" in the nation in March 2007. In that same month, the station became the first in the area (and one of the few in the entire country) to broadcast in a 1080i high definition 16:9 format 24 hours a day, broadcasting on digital UHF channel 18.
On June 4, 2010, it was announced that the LIN TV Corporation (owner of WDTN) would begin to operate WBDT through shared service and joint sales agreements.[2][3] WBDT was to leave its longtime studios on Corporate Place, off Byers Road in Miamisburg, in October and move to WDTN's facility in Moraine. As of January 27, 2013, the former WBDT studio facility is now occupied by Sinclair Broadcast Group's virtual duopoly of ABC affiliate WKEF and Fox affiliate WRGT-TV (the move made them the last network-affiliated stations in Dayton to have upgraded their local programming, including newscasts, to high definition).
Three months after ACME and LIN TV reached their operations and sales agreements, LIN TV exercised an option to purchase WBDT along with another LIN TV-operated ACME station, fellow CW affiliate WCWF in Green Bay, Wisconsin.[4] LIN TV requested that WBDT's license be assigned to a subsidiary of Vaughan Media (owner of CW affiliate KNVA in Austin, Texas, which was also operated by LIN TV). LIN TV held a 4.5% equity stake in Vaughan Media, but controlled most of that company's voting stock, effectively making it a shell corporation for LIN TV.[5] The FCC approved the sale and license transfer in April 2011; the commission also denied objections from area cable operators Time Warner Cable and Buckeye Cablevision, who claimed that retransmission fees for WBDT would increase as a result of the sale.[6] The sale of WBDT was consummated on May 20, 2011.[7][8]
On March 21, 2014, Media General announced that it would purchase LIN Media and its stations, including WDTN and the SSA and JSA with WBDT, in a $1.6 billion merger.[9] The FCC approved the merger on December 12, 2014, but a condition of the deal required Media General to end the JSA between WBDT and WDTN due to tighter scrutiny of such deals by the FCC. Media General received a two-year waiver to end the JSA between WDTN and WBDT.[10] The merger was completed on December 19.[11]
