WTXX

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WTXX
Waterbury-Hartford-New Haven, Connecticut
Branding	CW 20
Slogan	Connecticut's CW 20
Channels	20 (UHF) analog, 12 (VHF) digital
Affiliations	CW
Owner	Tribune Company
Founded	1953
Call letters meaning	Waterbury (city of license) Television XX (20) (channel number in roman numerals)
Former callsigns	WATR-TV (1953-1982)
Former affiliations	ABC (1953-66, secondary from 1956) DuMont (1953-56) NBC (1966-82) Independent (1956-66, 1982-95) UPN (1995-2000) WB (2001-2006)
Website	cw20.trb.com

WTXX, channel 20, is a CW affiliate licensed to Waterbury, Connecticut. Owned by Tribune Broadcasting, it serves the Hartford-New Haven market. Co-owned with sister station WTIC-TV (channel 61) in Hartford, the station is located at the channel 61 studios in Hartford. From January 2001 to September 2006, WTXX was affiliated with the WB Television Network.

[edit] History

WTXX signed on in June 1953 as WATR-TV on channel 53. It was owned by the Thomas family along with WATR radio (1520 kHz.). In 1962, the station relocated to channel 20 in order to allow WEDH, the flagship station of Connecticut Public Television, to sign on. (WEDH has since relocated as well, and is now on channel 24.)

WATR-TV was originally a primary affiliate of the DuMont Television Network [1]. It also shared ABC with WNHC-TV (channel 8, now WTNH-TV). DuMont ceased broadcasts in 1956, and shortly afterward WNHC-TV became an exclusive ABC affiliate. WATR-TV became an independent station on paper, but picked up ABC shows turned down by WNHC-TV. In 1966, WATR switched networks and joined NBC. NBC's primary affiliate in Connecticut, WHNB-TV (channel 30, now WVIT) in New Britain, served Hartford and eastern Connecticut, but its signal was not strong enough to cover New Haven and the southwestern portions of the state. In the 1970s, WATR-TV offered very little local news, and instead aired older syndicated programs and religious shows, such as Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's The PTL Club, when NBC programs were not offered.

When WVIT's transmission power was increased to reach New Haven in 1980, WATR-TV was forced to discontinue NBC programming, though channel 20's affiliation contract had close to two years remaining. In March 1982, in a move which coincided with the end of the station's network relationship, the Thomas family sold WATR-TV to Odyssey Television Partners (to later become Renaissance Broadcasting). The new owners subsequently converted NBC-affiliated WATR-TV into WTXX, the state's first full-service independent since Hartford's WHCT-TV (channel 18, now WUVN) operated under the ownership of RKO General. The station took a general entertainment format featuring cartoons, off network sitcoms, movies, and drama shows. WTXX also carried some sports, most notably New York Mets telecasts from WOR-TV (now WWOR-TV) in New York City. WTXX prospered in its new status, and continued to do so even after WTIC-TV signed on in 1984, and also after WTIC took on the Fox affiliation two years later.

In late March of 1993, Renaissance Broadcasting sold the station to a Roman Catholic group called Counterpoint Communications. Renaissance had recently purchased Chase Broadcasting, which owned WTIC-TV, and Federal Communications Commission regulations of the time did not allow common ownership of two stations in the same market. However, Renaissance retained the rights to all the programming it bought for channel 20. WTIC wanted a full-time local marketing agreement with WTXX, which basically amounted to channel 20 being programmed by its competitor. Counterpoint balked, wanting only a part-time agreement. Renaissance then moved nearly all of channel 20's stronger shows to channel 61, leaving WTXX with a weakened schedule. Under the terms of the sale to Counterpoint, WTXX retained some cartoons, syndicated shows and movies, and ran programming from the Home Shopping Network for fifteen hours a day, in daytime and primetime. In addition, channel 20 would air a Catholic Mass daily, and other Catholic religious programs for one hour per day. WVIT entered into a LMA with WTXX in July 1993, which provided WTXX with a nightly, half-hour 10 p.m. newscast produced by channel 30. From 10:30 p.m. to 1 a.m., the station ran syndicated programs aired earlier in the day by WVIT.

WTXX became Connecticut's UPN affiliate in April 1995. By the spring of 1996, the station began reacquire stronger syndicated programming, and soon after Home Shopping Network programming completely disappeared from the schedule. In 1998 WTIC-TV, now owned by Tribune Broadcasting, replaced WVIT as WTXX's LMA partner, and the WVIT-produced newscast at 10 p.m. was replaced with a simulcast of the first half-hour of channel 61's news program. The LMA change caused no impact on WTXX's daily broadcasts of the Catholic Mass, which continues to the present day. On April 24, 2006, WTXX began simulcasting the full WTIC 10 p.m. news hour.

On January 1, 2001, WTXX and WBNE (channel 59, now WCTX) swapped affiliations. WTXX became "Connecticut's WB", and later that year Tribune purchased channel 20 outright, creating a duopoly with WTIC. Tribune, having already received a temporary waiver from FCC rules barring common ownership of a newspaper and a television station in the same area when it purchased the Hartford Courant a year earlier, received an additional waiver for their purchase of WTXX. Tribune is still seeking a waiver in anticipation of the FCC relaxing its rules to allow such media combinations to exist with the agency's blessing, and that television duopolies would be included. However, that has not yet happened, and in March 2005 the FCC requested that Tribune sell WTXX to a new owner (though none have surfaced as of this writing).

On January 24, 2006, the WB and UPN networks announced that they would merge. The newly combined network is called The CW, the letters representing the first initial of its corporate parents CBS (the parent company of the former UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner (parent of the former WB). On September 18, 2006, WTXX became the CW's Connecticut affiliate.

[edit] External links

• WTXX Website
• WTXX's tower
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WTXX