WAIM-TV
On February 29, 1952, Wilton E. Hall, publisher of the Anderson Independent and Daily Mail (since merged as the Anderson Independent-Mail) and owner of radio stations WAIM (1230 AM) and WCAC-FM (101.1 FM, now WROQ), applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for approval to build a new television station in Anderson on channel 58.[1] Another application was filed for channel 58 by the Anderson Television Company, and in August 1953, at Hall's request, the FCC added channel 40 to Anderson.[2] The FCC then granted the construction permit for WAIM-TV on September 30, 1953. The station was quickly built and began broadcasting on December 11, 1953.
Originally an affiliate of CBS, the station's financial viability was nearly immediately jeopardized. Spartanburg radio station WORD held a construction permit for very high frequency (VHF) channel 7 and sought to use it on an interim basis from Paris Mountain, 27 mi west of Spartanburg and closer to Anderson than the originally proposed site of Hogback Mountain. The threat of a new VHF station which, unlike the UHF station Hall operated, could reach all homes without sets having to be converted immediately dimmed WAIM-TV's prospects. In February 1954, Hall petitioned the FCC to set aside its earlier grant of temporary authority for WORD-TV, later changed to WSPA-TV, to broadcast from Paris Mountain, having already lost nearly $60,000 in canceled advertising contracts and lost CBS revenue; he feared losing his CBS affiliation altogether.[3] WAIM-TV was one of three stations protesting this relocation of channel 7, along with WGVL (channel 23) in Greenville and the never-built WSCV (channel 17) in Spartanburg; all three protests were denied.[4]
WGVL and WAIM-TV took the case to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, seeking injunctive relief from the FCC ruling, in the summer of 1954.[5] On January 31, 1955, the appeals court heard arguments by WGVL and WAIM against the WSPA-TV authorization on Paris Mountain, having obtained six months prior a restraining order preventing Spartan from building its transmitter facility until the case was heard (though the studios were near completion and initial preparations had been made on Paris Mountain).[6] While WGVL and WAIM-TV claimed that the FCC should not have granted the application without giving them a hearing, the commission argued that they did not have standing to show injury that would be caused by WSPA-TV going on air and that the procedure the stations sought to use was the improper forum to delay such a grant. Even though the two UHF stations won a hearing at the FCC, the hearing examiner's recommendation would not be favorable to them. Examiner James D. Cunningham recommended the FCC approve the WSPA-TV move to Paris Mountain, saying that the UHF stations "failed to make a satisfactory showing" as to the economic damages they would incur and that, because UHF converters were widely distributed in their broadcast areas, they would not be at a disadvantage.[7] WGVL and WAIM-TV counsel asked for oral argument on the decision, warning that it would be "aggravating the forces now making for unequal competition in the television field and hastening the trend towards complete obliteration of UHF".[8]
The FCC made a final decision in favor of Spartan on March 9, 1956, reaffirming many of the arguments made by the hearing examiner.[9] When the appeals court gave its approval for WSPA-TV, WGVL and WAIM-TV announced their intentions to leave the air.[10] On Sunday, April 29, 1956, WSPA-TV signed on;[11] channel 23 left the air that day,[12] Concurrently, the station also unsuccessfully sought relief in the form of moving channel 7 out of the Upstate and to Knoxville, Tennessee,[13] while Hall engaged with equipment manufacturer Federal Telecommunications Laboratories in a legal dispute; he stopped paying what he owed on a transmitter he claimed was defective, "worthless and useless"[14] because it could not broadcast network color programming in color.[15]
WAIM-TV temporarily suspended operation on May 27,[16] only to return two days later after securing additional programming.[17] In July, it became an affiliate of ABC.[18] In addition to a secondary affiliation with CBS, the station also broadcast South Carolina Educational Television daytime programs for schools for a time in the 1960s.[19] While WAIM-TV's ABC affiliation agreement allowed it to carry any network program not aired by WLOS in Asheville, which was not receivable in the Anderson area, WLOS permitted the station to rebroadcast all ABC programs it aired. The station aired a limited schedule and sold very little local advertising.
In 1977, Hall announced the sale of his broadcasting properties to Frank L. Outlaw II of Greenville;[20] the $850,000 transaction marked his retirement.[21] Outlaw promised to begin live TV broadcasts from the Anderson studio.[22] The sale was approved by the FCC the next year—with Outlaw selling a half-stake to Bob Nations and doing business under the name "The ONE Corporation" (Outlaw-Nations Entertainment)[23]—but it also started the clock ticking on the need to reinvent channel 40. The owners had feared that they could have had to shutter the station on July 1, but ABC gave the station an extra six months to continue broadcasting its programming through the end of 1978.[24] In the last two months of the year, the station began to transition its schedule to that of an independent. During this time, it began broadcasting in color.[25] On January 1, 1979, WAIM-TV became a full-time independent station.[26]
Rather quickly, Nations and Outlaw found that Anderson merchants were not ready to do much television advertising. The station needed to get on cable across the Upstate to be viable as an independent. While some systems added WAIM-TV, cable penetration was too low in those days to meaningfully increase the station's potential audience. The station had begun airing 18 hours per day after becoming an independent but was forced to cut back to eight hours per day later in January. Nations and Outlaw initially planned to return the dropped programming to the schedule once advertising picked up, but by April, Nations and Outlaw put the station back on the market.[27] In mid-May 1979, the transmitter broke down, plunging channel 40 into a silence that would last five years.[28]
Nations and Outlaw sold a minority stake in the station to Ivey Communications of Orlando, Florida. Plans were formulated to return the station to service by the summer of 1980 with an upgraded physical plant.[29] By December 1980, mid-1981 was cited as a date for the station's return.[30]
Simulcast of WLOS
In March 1989, it was reported that AnchorMedia, the owner of WLOS, was interested in acquiring WAXA.[44] The next month, a sale contract was announced, as were plans for AnchorMedia to run the station as a satellite of WLOS for the benefit of viewers who received a marginal signal from that station.[45]
The AnchorMedia deal required FCC approval, which was its own wrinkle because it would have created overlap with WLOS. At the time, one company could not own two television stations in the same media market. Awaiting this approval, and with many program contracts expiring, WAXA went off the air on September 1, 1989.[46] Six months later, the FCC ruled; it found that the purchase of WAXA was not in the public interest and denied the transaction.[47] However, the two parties continued to negotiate a simulcast agreement by which the station would not be sold outright but still simulcast WLOS.[48]
