The TVX years
In November 1981, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) designated 13 competing applications for UHF channel 30 in Nashville for comparative hearing.[1] The very large field featured names well-known in other cities, including Carolina Christian Broadcasting, Golden West Broadcasters, and American Television and Communications (the cable TV division of Time, Inc.). By January 1982, only five of the applicants were still seeking for the construction permit: Television Corporation of Tennessee, a company headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia, in which mayor Richard Fulton became a minority investor; Music City Thirty, owned primarily by Methodists; Satellite Broadcasting Systems of Tulsa, Oklahoma; Nash Broadcasting; and Page Broadcasting.[2]
The FCC granted the construction permit to Television Corporation (TVX, later known simply as TVX Broadcast Group) in August 1983. By that time, the call letters of WCAY-TV had been selected, as had a tower site.[3] Meanwhile, the Nashville market—already having WZTV, an independent in service since 1976—gained a second independent station with the launch of WFYZ in Murfreesboro on December 31.[4] What was once a mid-April launch target moved up to February as TVX signed for studio space at Third Avenue South and Peabody Street.[5]
WCAY-TV began broadcasting on February 18, 1984.[6] It immediately entered into a money-losing competition with WFYZ; however, TVX outlasted the Murfreesboro station, with its limited financial resources. In September 1984, WFYZ executed the first of several rounds of cutbacks.[7] That station, sold and renamed WHTN in 1985,[8] exited the battle by converting to a Christian format in May 1986.[9]
In January 1986, TVX—already having relegated WHTN to the status, per company chairman J. Timothy McDonald, of showing "freebies no one else wants"—refocused its attack on WZTV, Nashville's leading independent. While TVX's independents had mostly risen to lead their markets, WCAY-TV was the exception.[10] The station became affiliated that fall with the new Fox network,[11] but TVX continued to need to devote additional attention to improving channel 30's ratings against WZTV, hiring new management and increasing its promotional efforts.[12]
Despite the fact that WCAY-TV was not TVX's most successful station, the company expressed its resolve to stick with the Nashville market. However, financial circumstances combined to change that policy. In 1987, TVX acquired five major-market independent stations from Taft Broadcasting. This purchase left TVX highly leveraged and highly vulnerable. TVX's bankers, Salomon Brothers, provided the financing for the acquisition and in return held more than 60 percent of the company.[13] The company was to pay Salomon Brothers $200 million on January 1, 1988, and missed the first payment deadline, having been unable to lure investors to its junk bonds even before Black Monday.[14] As a result, TVX sought buyers for some of its smaller stations to reduce its debt load. That May, TVX announced the sale of WCAY-TV to SouthWest MultiMedia Corporation of Houston for $6 million.[15] However, this deal fell apart over the intervening months.[16]
MT Communications ownership
In the wake of the SouthWest MultiMedia sale effort stalling, TVX found another buyer for WCAY-TV: MT Communications, the company of Michael Thompson. Thompson already had a history with independent television in Nashville; he had been one of WZTV's executives when it went back on the air in 1976.[17] The call letters were changed to WXMT in October 1989 as part of the insertion of "MT" into the call signs of its stations.[18]
MT Communications assumed the challenge TVX had faced in its entire history running channel 30: passing WZTV in the ratings. As MT was buying WCAY-TV, Act III Broadcasting acquired WZTV. Act III would make a reputation as a consolidator of independents in medium markets. In 1988, Act III simultaneously acquired Richmond, Virginia, independent WRLH-TV and the programming of competitor WVRN-TV, incorporating the latter's programming and physical assets into the former as the latter went off the air permanently.[19] The next year, it agreed to acquire WUTV in Buffalo, New York, along with the programming inventory of competitor
Sullivan and Sinclair management
In 1996, Sullivan Broadcasting, which had purchased WZTV from Act III the year prior,[26] entered into a local marketing agreement—with an option to buy—to run most of the operations of WXMT, concurrent with Mission Broadcasting acquiring WXMT's license assets.[27][28] The call letters were changed that August to WUXP-TV, reflecting the UPN affiliation.[29] In 1998, Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired Sullivan Broadcasting, including WZTV and its agreement to manage WUXP-TV.[30] In 1998, Sinclair announced its intent to purchase Sullivan outright; the LMA with WUXP was included in the deal.[31] Two years later, after the FCC legalized outright duopolies, Sinclair acquired WUXP-TV from Mission as well as three other stations it had been programming.
