WATL

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This article is about the television station. For other uses of WATL, see WATL (disambiguation)

WATL
Atlanta, Georgia
Branding	MyAtlTV
Slogan	It's Your Station
Channels	36 (UHF) analog, 25 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	MyNetworkTV
Owner	Gannett Company
Founded	September 13, 1954
Call letters meaning	W ATLanta
Former callsigns	WQXI-TV (1954-1955) WBMO-TV (1967-1971)
Former affiliations	Independent (1954-1986 and 1994-1995) FOX (1986-1994) WB (1995-2006)
Transmitter Power	2690 kW/313 m (analog) 500 kW/332 m (digital)
Website	www.myatltv.com

WATL, channel 36, is a television station in Atlanta, Georgia affiliated with MyNetworkTV. It is owned by the Gannett Company and is a sister station to WXIA-TV (channel 11), Atlanta's NBC affiliate. WATL's callsign refers to ATLanta, the station's city of license.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Logos 2 Station timeline 3 Transmission tower 4 Trivia 5 External links

[edit] History

Channel 36 originally began operation on September 13, 1954 as WQXI-TV, which was originally placed on the air in a short-lived experiment in UHF television. The station signed off after less than a year. Channel 36 would remain dark until the station was restarted around 1967 as WBMO-TV, under the ownership of U.S. Communications and affiliated with the Overmyer Network. Overmeyer never signed on and the station went on as WATL in 1969. This incarnation lasted only until early 1971, and channel 36 went dark again, this time for nearly five years ^{[citation needed]}.

On July 4, 1976, Don Kennedy of The Popeye Club (a long running Atlanta kids TV show on WSB-TV) returned channel 36 to the air for good. The newly-named WATL-TV had a general entertainment format typical of non-network stations, such as public domain movies, financial news, low-budget local shows, syndicated reruns and cartoons, and a blend of CBS, NBC and ABC shows pre-empted from WAGA-TV (channel 5), WSB-TV (channel 2) and WXIA-TV, respectively. In a common practice among independent stations at the time, the station aired subscription television in the early evening from the late 1970s until about 1981.

ATL Acquisitions Group bought the station in the early 1980s. The subscription TV format moved to new sign-on WVEU (channel 69, now WUPA) in 1982. At that time, most daytime programming now came from the Financial News Network (now part of CNBC). In 1984, the station was sold again, this time to Outlet Communications. By that time, WATL was a general entertainment independent once again. WATL became one of the charter affiliates of the newly-launched Fox Broadcasting Company in October 1986.

The musical chairs of ownership continued in 1989, as Outlet sold WATL (along with WXIN in Indianapolis) to Chase Broadcasting. In 1992, WATL and WXIN were included in Chase's merger with Renaissance Broadcasting. Less than a year later, WATL, along with new sister station KDVR in Denver, were sold to FOX outright, and WATL became a FOX owned-and-operated station. FOX was in the planning stages for a news operation at the station, and WATL had even gone as far as hiring a news director. However, on May 22, 1994, New World Communications announced an affiliation agreement with FOX, months after the network won the broadcast rights to the National Football Conference of the National Football League. In this deal, most of New World's stations, including WAGA, would switch over to the FOX network. As a result, FOX cancelled the plans for a newscast on WATL, and put the station up for sale.

Finding itself about to lose the FOX programming, WATL was then approached with an affiliation offer from CBS, which was losing WAGA as an affiliate. However WATL was not interested. At that point, it almost seemed likely that WATL would join the soon-to-launch United Paramount Network in early 1995. Rival station WGNX (channel 46, now WGCL-TV), then owned by Tribune Broadcasting, was already slated to join the WB Television Network, and had also turned CBS down, forcing CBS to make a deal to buy WVEU. Eventually, however, Tribune agreed to let WGNX join CBS, and WVEU became the UPN affiliate.

Fox programming moved from WATL to WAGA on December 10, 1994. Not long after that, FOX subsequently sold the station to Qwest Broadcasting, a company partially owned by legendary musician Quincy Jones. (FOX would not be without an owned-and-operated station in Atlanta for long, as they bought out New World in late 1996.) Although it lost the FOX affiliation, WATL kept the FOX Kids programming, because WAGA was not interested in it. The station also affiliated with the WB in January 1995. Soon afterwards, Tribune Broadcasting began to manage WATL in tandem with WGNX under a local marketing agreement. WATL continued to air Fox Kids until 1999, when it moved to WHOT (channel 34, now WUVG). Also in 1999, Tribune purchased WATL outright and sold WGNX to the Meredith Corporation. Because Tribune owns a stake in the WB, WATL could have been considered to be a WB owned-and-operated station.

On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation (which split from Viacom at the end of 2005) and Warner Bros. Entertainment (the Time Warner division that operates the WB) announced plans to dissolve WB and UPN, combining them to launch the the CW in September 2006. As part of this joint venture, it was announced that CBS-owned WUPA will become the CW's Atlanta affiliate. WATL was originally slated to revert to independent status, but on May 15, 2006, Tribune announced that WATL would be joining MyNetworkTV, which was formed in response to the CW by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division, Twentieth Television.

On June 5, 2006, Tribune announced that they would sell WATL to the Gannett Company, the owners of Atlanta's NBC affiliate WXIA-TV, for $180 million. The sale was completed on August 7, 2006, giving Gannett the first television duopoly in Atlanta. [1] Like most duopolies consisting of a "Big Four" affiliate and a minor network affiliate, WATL may take up responsibility as an alternate NBC affiliate by airing programs when WXIA cannot such as in a news-related emergency.

Channel 36 introduced its new on-air branding, MyAtlTV, on August 20, 2006, ahead of the September 5 debut of My Network TV (and about a month before The WB's final night on the air). Along with the new network, WATL now airs a WXIA-produced 10 p.m. weeknight newscast, titled My 11 Alive News at 10.

[edit] Logos

WATL's logo as an independent station from December 1994 to January 1995

WATL's WB 36 logo, used from 1995-2004

Logo for the Atlanta's WB branding, used from 2004-2006

WATL's MyAtlTV logo, which debuted in August 2006

[edit] Station timeline

• September 1954: channel 36 signs on as WQXI-TV
• 1955: WQXI-TV signs off
• 1967: channel 36 returns to the air (for the second time) as WBMO-TV
• 1971: WBMO-TV signs off ^{[citation needed]}
• July 1976: channel 36 is reactivated (for the third time) as WATL
• October 1986: becomes a charter Fox network station, later adopted the branding "Fox 36"
• December 1994: reverted back to independent status as "WATL 36" after WAGA-TV (channel 5) became Fox's new Atlanta affiliate
• January 1995: becomes a WB affiliate as "WB 36"
• 2004: adopts the branding "WATL, Atlanta's WB"
• May 2006: WATL is announced as an affiliate of the new MyNetworkTV
• Summer 2006: WATL debuted The Tube on DT2 digital subchannel
• August 2006: Sale of WATL from Tribune to Gannett, announced in June, is completed; adopts the branding "MyAtlTV"
• September 2006 WATL drops its WB affiliation and becomes a MyNetworkTV affiliate; sister station WXIA-TV begins producing a 10 p.m. newscast

[edit] Transmission tower

It is on the same tower, north of Druid Hills, with:

• WUVM-LP (4)
• W24AL (24)
• WUVG-TV (digital 48 only)
• WTBS (digital 20, analog backup 17).

The tower also contains construction permits for:

• WIRE-CA (40)

FM stations on the same tower are: WNNX (99.7, newly moved from the WTBS TV main analog tower), WKHX-FM (101.5) and permits for WRFG (89.3) and as well as an application for a broadcast translator from Immanuel Broadcasing Network on 101.9.

Another tower about 120 meters (400 feet) to the west holds the existing WGCL-TV (46/19), WLTM (94.9), and WKLS (96.1), and applications for translators on 89.7 and 88.9 from WAY-FM Media Group.

[edit] Trivia

• WATL is one of a handful of stations to have been affiliated with both News Corporation-owned networks, Fox and My Network TV.

• Channel 36 signed on as WQXI-TV in 1954. The callsign was used on channel 11 from 1968 to 1974. Today, channels 11 and 36 are owned by the same company, Gannett.

[edit] External links

• Official website
• My Network TV
• WXIA 11Alive
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WATL