WMC-TV

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WMC-TV
Memphis, Tennessee
Branding	Action News 5
Channels	5 (VHF) analog, 52 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	NBC
Owner	Raycom Media
Founded	December 11, 1948 on channel 4 (moved to channel 5 in 1952)
Call letters meaning	W Memphis Commercial Appeal
Former callsigns	WMCT (1948-60)
Former affiliations	DuMont (secondary, 1948-56), CBS (secondary, 1948-53), ABC (secondary, 1948-55)
Website	www.wmctv.com

WMC-TV "Action News 5" is the NBC affiliate for the Memphis, Tennessee metropolitan area. The station serves portions of Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri over the air on satellite and on various cable systems. The signal, on certain occasions, can be received in portions of Kentucky, southern Illinois and Alabama via terrestrial means. Its transmitter is located in Memphis.

Contents 1 History 2 Newscasts 2.1 Weekdays 2.2 Saturdays 2.3 Sundays 3 Other Details 4 External links

[edit] History

WMC-TV, Tennessee's first television station, started as WMCT on December 11, 1948 on channel 4. It was owned by the E.W. Scripps Company along with the city's main newspaper, The Commercial Appeal, WMC (AM) 790 and WMCF (FM) 99.7. It moved to channel 5 sometime in 1952 due to interference with WSM-TV in Nashville (now WSMV), incidentally also an NBC affiliate. It dropped the "T" from its calls on New Year's Day 1960 (at the same time, the co-owned FM station changed its calls from WMCF to WMC-FM). The longtime "5" logo (resembling the style found on a five-dollar bill) debuted on this date, and would be used for over two decades.

As became the case in many medium-sized markets, WMC developed a habit of dropping or pre-empting a considerable amount of NBC programming, especially from the late 1970s through the late 1990s, when the station substituted syndicated programming for a major part of the network's morning daytime lineup. On top of that, channel 5 also had a reputation for airing daytime reruns of NBC network comedies (like Diff'rent Strokes and The Facts of Life) early in the morning, mostly between 5 and 6 a.m. Practices like this, and those of other affiliates, likely prompted NBC to gradually phase out most of its morning daytime lineup during the 1990s, to the two hours the network currently airs.^{[citation needed]}

Scripps sold WMC-AM-FM-TV to Ellis Communications in 1993; Ellis in turn merged with Aflac's broadcasting unit in 1996 to become Raycom Media. Raycom sold the radio stations off to Infinity Broadcasting (now CBS Radio) in 2002. CBS Radio had announced its intention to sell WMC and WMC-FM to Entercom; however, FCC approval of this sale is contingent on Entercom's divestiture of three radio stations in Rochester, New York.

One of the station's first broadcasts was a live football game at Crump Stadium in Memphis. For many years beginning in 1976, channel 5 broadcast a highly popular live in-studio professional wrestling program on Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Some of the wrestlers became regional celebrities from their exposure on the program, perhaps most notably, Jerry "The King" Lawler, whose fame earned him his own locally-produced TV sports show, seen on channel 5 on Sundays during the 1980s. The wrestling show eventally became the last remaining program of its kind in the U.S., before its cancellation in the 1990s. Prior to WMC picking up the program, it had aired on WHBQ-TV in that same time period from 1972 to 1976, when WMC made a better deal with the promoters.

For many years, WMC led the Nielsen ratings in local television news. However, WREG has taken the lead in the morning and late evening newscasts, in the February, May, and July 2006 ratings books. WMC still leads the early evening newscasts.

Recently the station's newly renovated newsroom was named after long time employee Ed Greaney, who died in 2005. In October 2006, WMC debuted a new news set, along with updated graphics and music. The set makeover was the first at the station since 1995.

WMC TV5 news set circa early 1970s

[edit] Newscasts

WMC produces more than 30 hours of news each week.

[edit] Weekdays

• 4:30am - 7:00am: Action News 5 Today

Bill Lunn, Kym Clark, Ron Childers - Weather

• 12:00pm - 1:00pm: Action News 5 at Noon

Bill Lunn, Ursula Madden, John Bryant or Tim Van Horn - Weather

• 5:00pm - 5:30pm: Action News 5 at 5pm

Joe Birch, Donna Davis, Dave Brown - Weather

• 6:00pm - 6:30pm: Action News 5 at 6pm

Joe Birch, Donna Davis, Dave Brown - Weather, Jarvis Greer - Sports

• 10:00pm - 10:35pm: Action News 5 at 10pm

Joe Birch, Donna Davis, Dave Brown - Weather, Jarvis Greer - Sports

[edit] Saturdays

• 8:00am - 10:00am: Action News 5 Today

Anna Marie Hartman, Tim Van Horn - Weather

• 5:00pm - 5:30pm: Action News 5 at 5pm

Syan Rhodes, Nick Paranjape, John Bryant - Weather, Dave Cera - Sports

• 6:00pm - 6:30pm: Action News 5 at 6pm

Syan Rhodes, Nick Paranjape, John Bryant - Weather, Dave Cera - Sports

• 10:00pm - 10:30pm: Action News 5 at 10pm

Syan Rhodes, Nick Paranjape, John Bryant - Weather, Dave Cera - Sports

[edit] Sundays

• 8:00am - 9:00am: Action News 5 Today

Anna Marie Hartman, Ben Watson, Tim Van Horn - Weather

• 5:00pm - 5:30pm: Action News 5 at 5pm

Syan Rhodes, John Bryant - Weather, Dave Cera - Sports

• 10:00pm - 10:30pm: Action News 5 at 10pm

Syan Rhodes, Nick Paranjape, John Bryant - Weather, Dave Cera - Sports

• 10:30pm - 11:00pm: Action News 5 at 10:30pm

Syan Rhodes, Nick Paranjape, John Bryant - Weather, Dave Cera - Sports

[edit] Other Details

• WMC's logo includes a riverboat, a longtime symbol of the station as a testimony to the Mississippi River. For many years, WMC's station ID included the riverboat's whistle sounding. The whistle is still heard as WMC-TV's current news opens.
• WMC's current logo is similar to another Raycom station's logo, WECT in Wilmington, North Carolina.
• After the digital transition ends on February 17, 2009, WMC's digital channel 52 will no longer be available, since the top of the UHF band will be truncated to channel 51. However, rather than demand another channel, WMC chose to keep its analog channel 5 as its new digital channel, even though it is a "VHF-low" channel commonly thought to be undesirable for digital broadcasting. [1]

[edit] External links

• WMCTV.com Home
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WMC-TV

NBC Network Affiliates in the state of Tennessee
WRCB 3 (Chattanooga) - WSMV 4 (Nashville) - WCYB 5 (Bristol) - WMC 5 (Memphis) - WBIR 10 (Knoxville)
See also: ABC, CBS, CW, Fox, i, MyNetworkTV, PBS and Other stations in Tennessee