| WTTA | |
|---|---|
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| St. Petersburg / Tampa, Florida | |
| Branding | My TV Tampa Bay |
| Channel | Digital: 38 (UHF) |
| Subchannels | 38.1 MyNetworkTV |
| Owner | Bay Television, Inc. (operated through LMA by Sinclair Broadcast Group) |
| First air date | June 21, 1991 |
| Callsign meaning | Television TampA |
| Former channels | Analog: 38 (UHF, 1991-2009) Digital: 57 (UHF, 1998-2009) |
| Former affiliations | Independent (1991-1998) The WB (1998-2006) |
| Effective power | 1,000 kW |
| Height | 438 m |
| Facility ID | 4108 |
| Antenna coordinates | 27°50′33″N 82°15′45.1″W / 27.8425°N 82.262528°W |
| Website | mytvtampabay.com |
WTTA is the MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station for the Tampa Bay Area that is licensed to St. Petersburg. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 38 from a transmitter sourh of Bloomingdale. Owned by Bay Television, the station is operated by the Sinclair Broadcast Group through a local marketing agreement (a.k.a. LMA). WTTA has studios on Bald Cypress Place in the West Park section of Tampa. Syndicated programming on the station includes: Everybody Loves Raymond, Seinfeld, Family Feud, The People's Court. On cable, it can be seen on Bright House and Knology channel 6, Comcast channel 11 in Sarasota County, and Comcast channel 29 in Hardee County.
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History
The analog channel 38 location had previously been home to the area's first television station, WSUN-TV, which operated from 1953 to 1970. It also served as the area's first ABC affiliate until WLCY (now WTSP) signed-on in 1965 making WSUN an independent until going dark in 1970. In 1986, a local group won a new license for channel 38. WTTA was originally scheduled to sign-on in Fall 1990 with programming from the "Star Television Network" which offered a mix of old programming and infomercials under the "TV Heaven" name. In September 1990, there was also an ad for "TV Heaven 38" in the Tampa / Sarasota edition of TV Guide magazine. However, the station was not ready to broadcast yet since Star was in financial trouble and the network went dark on January 16, 1991.
On June 21 of that year, WTTA began its regular broadcasting schedule consisting mainly of syndicated shows passed over by other stations, barter programming, uncleared network shows, and infomercials. Due to the station's low budget, weekend programming tended to consist entirely of infomercials. WTTA also presented a televised version of WRBQ's morning radio program, Q Morning Zoo, until that station changed formats to country music in the early-1990s. In December 1994, Fox programming moved from WFTS-TV to WTVT as part of a group deal with WTVT's then-owners, New World Communications. Upon the changeover, that station did not pick up Fox Kids which was passed over to WTTA. Fox Kids would later move to independent station WMOR-TV that also aired the later 4Kids TV block on Sunday mornings until its shutdown on December 28, 2008.
At the same time, the E.W. Scripps Company (owners of WFTS) cut an affiliation deal with ABC which resulted in WFTS selling most of its syndicated shows to WTTA. Meanwhile, CBS would move from WTVT to WTSP. In 1998, WTTA’s owner (Bay Television) entered into a management agreement with the Sinclair Broadcast Group that in years to come would become one of the nation's largest broadcast companies. However, Bay Television is effectively a subsidiary of Sinclair. It is owned by David Smith, J. Duncan Smith, Frederick Smith, Robert Smith, and Robert Simmons. The Smith brothers also control Sinclair making Bay Television a de-facto subsidiary of Sinclair. Also in 1998, WTTA became the Tampa Bay affiliate for The WB in a group deal with Sinclair stations. It used the on-air moniker "WB 38". It ran cartoons from WB during the week until January 2006 when WB discontinued the weekday kids block.
On January 24, The WB and UPN announced that they would end broadcasting and merge. The new combined network would be called The CW. The letters would represent the first initial of its corporate parents, CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. On February 22, News Corporation announced that they would start up another new network called MyNetworkTV. This new service, which would be a sister network to Fox, would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created in order to give UPN and WB stations, not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates, another option besides becoming independent. It was also created to compete against The CW.
Tampa Bay's UPN station, WTOG (which is owned by CBS) was confirmed as Tampa Bay's CW station. WTTA's future was uncertain until Sinclair announced that it, along with most of Sinclair's WB and UPN affiliates, would affiliate with MyNetworkTV. The station branded as "My TV Tampa Bay" a week before the station began to air the new network. There were rumors that Fox would buy WTTA and create a duopoly with WTVT and make WTTA a MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated station. As of 2009, this has not occurred.
On September 3, 2007, they began airing the controversial Live Prayer with Bill Keller. Keller had been bounced from station to station in the Tampa Bay area and landed on WTTA after a sudden departure from WTOG. The show would move to WXPX in November 2007 after WTTA imposed new restrictions regarding live programming. Like most Sinclair-owned stations, WTTA has broadcast digital-only since February 17, 2009. This station and competing CW affiliate WTOG moved back to their respective analog channels at the end of the U.S. analog shutdown in 2009 because of the FCC auctioning UHF channels 52-69 for non-television use. Originally, the station had aired a digital signal on UHF channel 57 before moving back to channel 38. In October 2009 the FCC approved the request by WTTA to relocate to channel 32 to avoid adjacent channel problems from WFTV in Orlando.
News operation
In August 2003, WTTA started a news department and launched a prime time broadcast known as WB 38 News at 10. As part of Sinclair's News Central operation, local news originated from their studios while national news, sports, and weather aired from Sinclair's headquarters in Hunt Valley, Maryland. This made WTTA one of a few WB stations to offer local news. The show and the station's news department was shut down on March 31, 2006 due to poor ratings replaced with syndicated programming. On October 8, 2007, Sinclair and NBC affiliate WFLA-TV entered into a news share agreement resulting in a weeknight 10 o'clock newscast produced by that station debuting on WTTA. Original personnel included anchors Peter Bernard and Katie Coronado with weather from Mace Michaels or Leigh Spann. The broadcast aired from WFLA's studios on South Parker Street in downtown Tampa. This arrangement was similar to ones established at Sinclair stations in Raleigh, Buffalo, Flint, Charleston, and Las Vegas. The news share and WFLA broadcast ended on April 30, 2009.
Past personalities
+ denotes WFLA personnel seen on WTTA
Anchors
- Susan Casper - local
- now at KNXV-TV as 4 P.M. anchor and reporter
- David Klugh - now at KIMA-TV as an anchor
- Summer Smith - now at Bay News 9 as a reporter and fill-in anchor
- Jennifer Gladstone - national news
- Morris Jones - national news
- + Peter Bernard - weeknights
- + Katie Coronado - weeknights
- + Keith Cate - weeknights
- + Stacie Schaible - weeknights
- Wendy Brockman
Meteorologists
- + Mace Michaels - weeknights
- + Leigh Spann - weeknights
- + Steve Jerve - weeknights
- Megan Glaros - now at WCBS-TV as meteorologist
- Chuck Bell
- Kristin Emery
- Elizabeth Hart
- Scott Padgett
- Vytas Reid
Sports
- Mike Nabors - local
- Chris Garrido - local
- Mark Armstrong - national
- Jonas Schwartz - national
- + Dan Lucas - weeknights
Reporters
- Jon Leiberman - News Central Washington D.C. Correspondent
- Mark Hyman - "The Point" segment producer
- John McQuiston - freelance
- now at WFTS-TV as freelance traffic reporter
- Dawn Pellas - fill-in anchor
- was at WFTS-TV as reporter
- Tara (Feather) Donovan - weekend producer
- now Director of Resource Development at United Way of Manatee County
- Jason Goodwin - now at WPIX as writer / producer
- Diolinda Vaz - now media consultant in Boston
- Rodney Tims
Videographers
- Michael Kuehner
- Walter Patterson
- Vinny Notto
- Evan Smith
- John Biebrich
External links
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