Move to channel 15; Forward ownership
Wometco owned the station less than a year before Forward Television, a subsidiary of Lee Enterprises of Mason City, Iowa, acquired WMTV in 1958; the Forward name came from the Wisconsin state motto.[17][18] During Forward Television's ownership, in April 1961, the FCC inserted channel 15 at Madison; WMTV applied to move from channel 33 to channel 15, which would increase its reception range.[19] After postponements caused by weather and delays in fabricating the antenna needed to broadcast the channel 15 signal, the move took effect on October 25, 1961.[20]
Lee accepted an offer from Wisconsin Valley Television Corporation to acquire WMTV in December 1962. Wisconsin Valley was a consortium of newspaper interests that owned WSAU radio and television in Wausau.[21] The FCC only narrowly approved the transaction on a 4–3 vote in May 1963. The sale's opposition was largely due to an investigation underway as to whether Wisconsin Valley was associating with an educational TV group in Wausau so as to prevent a second commercial station from being built there. As a result, a condition was attached to sale approval that allowed the FCC to force a divestiture of the station were the commission to rule against Wisconsin Valley in the Wausau proceeding.[22] That September, the FCC voted 5–0 to allow the sale to stand after Midcontinent Broadcasting, owner of WKOW-TV, asked it to reconsider its earlier ruling.[23]
Wisconsin Valley gave channel 15 a significant technical overhaul, including an upgraded transmitter facility which increased the effective radiated power to 950,000 watts in 1965.[24] Wisconsin Valley renamed itself Forward Communications Corporation at the start of 1967 in the wake of acquiring its first broadcast property outside the state of Wisconsin, KVTV in Sioux City, Iowa.[26] Despite an improved product and Forward's ability to pull WMTV out of its status as a "financial loser", the Madison station continued to face an inherent disadvantage because of its UHF signal against WISC-TV, the only local very high frequency (VHF) station.[29]
Forward was sold in late 1984 to Wesray Capital Corporation, which retained the Forward name for its media holdings.[30] However, Wesray, as with many private equity firms of the era, cut what it felt were unnecessary expenses. Prior to the sale, WMTV competed with WISC for the lead in local news ratings, finding stronger viewership outside the Madison Beltline in Dane County itself.[31][32] However, the station was hit by cutbacks in the newsroom and in the production of non-news local programming,[33] as well as declining news ratings.[34] The departures of sports director Jack Eich, who was fired, and Paula Dilworth, who was passed over for a promotion and departed the station for a job Las Vegas, made headlines and put general manager Leslie Leonard in the spotlight.[35][36]
