WSMV-TV

Early years

WSMV first signed on the air as WSM-TV on September 30, 1950, at 1:10 p.m. CT.[2] It was Nashville's first television station and the second in Tennessee, behind fellow NBC affiliate WMCT (now sister station WMC-TV, then also on channel 4) in Memphis. As a result of the WSM-TV sign-on, WMCT was forced to switch to channel 5 to avoid co-channel interference. WSM-TV was owned by WSM, Inc., a subsidiary of the locally based National Life and Accident Insurance Company, which also owned WSM radio (650 AM) and the original WSM-FM (103.3; shut down in 1951); the AM station is renowned for broadcasts of the country music show The Grand Ole Opry, which has been heard on the station since 1925. The station took its call letters from its parent's slogan, "We Shield Millions".

The television station has been an NBC affiliate from its sign-on, although it also carried some programming from CBS, DuMont, and ABC. Its secondary affiliation with CBS ended in 1953, when WSIX-TV (channel 8, now WKRN-TV on channel 2) signed on as a primary CBS affiliate. WSM-TV shared ABC programming with WSIX-TV for a year until WLAC-TV (channel 5, now WTVF) signed on in 1954 as the market's new primary CBS affiliate, leaving WSIX-TV to take the ABC affiliation. In the late 1950s, the station also shared a short-lived affiliation with the NTA Film Network with WSIX-TV by airing one of its programs, Sheriff of Cochise.[3] During the first few years of operation, AT&T would not run telephone lines for WSM-TV to receive network programming until there was another TV station in town. This problem was solved by the station running a private microwave relay transmission from fellow NBC affiliate and now sister station WAVE-TV in Louisville, Kentucky; this was the longest privately-operated microwave relay link at the time.[4][5]

WSM-TV's studios were originally located at 15th Avenue South and Compton Avenue in south Nashville, near the present Belmont University. In 1957, the station attempted to a build a larger tower in west Nashville, near Charlotte Avenue. During the construction process, the new tower's supporting wires failed. This caused the tower to collapse, which took the lives of several people.[6] Afterward, WSM-TV purchased its present property on Knob Road (farther west than the previous site, and allowable since WMCT in Memphis had switched to channel 5 from channel 4) and built a tower there in a forested section away from potential damage to life and property.[7]

Growth into the 1960s and 1970s

WSM-TV shared its broadcast facilities with non-commercial station WDCN-TV (channel 2, now WNPT on channel 8) when that station signed on in 1962. In 1963, National Life and Accident Insurance built new studios for WSM-AM-TV adjacent to the transmission tower on Knob Road. This left WDCN-TV as the sole occupant of the south Nashville building, where that station remained until 1976. WSM-TV was the first station in Nashville to begin broadcasting in color in 1965. In 1974, NL&AI reorganized itself as a holding company, NLT Corporation, with the WSM stations (by then including a new WSM-FM at 95.5) as a major subsidiary.

Ownership changes

Beginning in 1980, Houston-based insurer American General—which owned the WLAC stations until 1975—began purchasing blocks of NLT stock, eventually becoming NLT's largest shareholder and setting the stage for an outright takeover. However, American General was not interested in NLT's non-insurance businesses. It opted to sell off the broadcasting interests, the Grand Ole Opry, the then-decrepit Ryman Auditorium, and the now-defunct Opryland USA. Gillett Broadcasting (operated by George N. Gillett Jr.) bought WSM-TV on November 3, 1981, and changed the station's callsign to WSMV on the same day (officially modified to WSMV-TV on July 15, 1982).[8] The new callsign allowed channel 4 to continue trading on the well-known WSM calls while at the same time separating it from its former radio sisters. The change was brought on due to an FCC rule in place at that time forbidding TV and radio stations in the same city but with different owners from sharing the same call letters. However, channel 4 would later engage in news department cross promotions with WSM-AM-FM.

Gaylord Entertainment Company purchased the remainder of WSM, Inc. nearly two years later, in 1983. Soon afterward, the radio stations moved out of the Knob Road facility into new studios on the Opryland Hotel campus.

WSMV-TV was sold on June 8, 1989, to Cook Inlet Television Partners, an Alaska-based company which was a subsidiary of Cook Inlet Region, Inc., an Alaska Native Regional Corporation.

Meredith Corporation ownership

Cook Inlet sold WSMV on January 5, 1995, to the Meredith Corporation.[10] WSMV was not part of the affiliation deal between several Meredith stations and CBS (which included Meredith's only other NBC affiliate at the time, WNEM-TV in Bay City, Michigan) because the purchase was announced after the affiliation deal had been finalized. As a result, WSMV became the only NBC affiliate in Meredith's portfolio until their 2021 sale.

In early March 2009, it was announced that WSMV's master control operations would be hubbed at Meredith-owned sister station WGCL-TV (now WANF) in Atlanta. The new hub operation launched in summer 2009.

On September 8, 2015, Media General announced that it would acquire Meredith for $2.4 billion, with the combined group to be renamed Meredith Media General. Because Media General owned WKRN-TV, and the two stations rank among the four highest-rated stations in the Nashville market in total day viewership, the companies would have been required to sell either WSMV-TV or WKRN to comply with FCC ownership rules as well as recent changes to those rules regarding same-market television stations that restrict sharing agreements.[11]

Sale to Gray Television

On May 3, 2021, Gray Television announced its intent to purchase the Meredith Local Media division for $2.7 billion. The sale was completed on December 1.[15]

Gray also immediately changed the station's positioning from "News 4" to "WSMV 4" and implemented a new graphics scheme, resulting in the 4 logo switching from primarily black to primarily white. In 2022, the station launched a heavily localized imaging campaign, reviving the "Nashville's Station" nickname, and inviting viewers to "Come On Back" after years of ratings losses.

In December 2023, the NBC Peacock was removed from WSMV's logo as part of a company-wide initiative within Gray to strip network marks from station logos.

Country music programming

The WSM stations' close ties to Nashville's country music business has meant that the Knob Road facility and/or its personnel was, from time to time, used for the recording of network and syndicated programs featuring Nashville-based performers. This was especially the case during the 1960s and 1970s. Most if not all of these shows were packaged by Show Biz, Inc., headquartered in Nashville and a subsidiary of Holiday Inn. Show Biz, Inc. produced The Porter Wagoner Show, That Nashville Music, The Bill Anderson Show, Dolly! and several other programs seen throughout the United States, especially on stations in the South and rural Midwest. The company dissolved in the late 1970s when its president, Jane Grams, became vice president and general manager of WTVC-TV in Chattanooga, Tennessee. However, the Show Biz programs were seen on some stations well into the early 1980s.

Sports programming

Since 2006, channel 4 airs any Sunday Night Football games that involve the market's NFL team, the Tennessee Titans. The station also aired Nashville Predators games via NBC

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

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Analog-to-digital conversion

WSMV-TV ended regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 4, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition VHF channel 10,[44][45] using virtual channel 4.

Translators

South-central Kentucky

For its first 50 years on the air, WSMV had been the default NBC affiliate of record for the Bowling Green media market in south-central Kentucky, since it did not have an NBC affiliate of its own, especially after Arbitron first assigned Bowling Green into its own media market in 1977 following the success and growth of that area's ABC affiliate (and now sister station) WBKO, which, until 1989, was the only commercial television station in the Bowling Green area at the time.[46] The station, as WSM-TV, once applied to set up a low-powered translator on the campus of Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green in 1968 as part of an arrangement with the University; it lasted a short time in the 1970s.[47][48] WSMV's historical monopoly in providing NBC programming for that area over-the-air and on local cable systems ended on March 27, 2001, when WKNT (channel 40, now WNKY