WVTM-TV

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WVTM-TV
Birmingham / Anniston / Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Branding	NBC13
Slogan	We've Got You Covered
Channels	13 (VHF) analog, 52 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	NBC (1954-present)
Owner	Media General (through Birmingham Broadcasting, LLC)
Founded	May 2, 1949
Call letters meaning	Vulcan (in reference to statue) Times Mirror (former owners)
Former callsigns	WAFM-TV (1949-1953) WABT (1953-1958) WAPI-TV (1958-1980)
Former affiliations	CBS (primary 1949-54, secondary 1961-70), ABC (secondary, 1949-61)
Website	www.nbc13.com

WVTM-TV is the NBC affiliate station in the Birmingham-Anniston-Tuscaloosa, Alabama television market. The station is owned by Media General. Its transmitter is located on Red Mountain in Birmingham. NBC13's current news graphics package was created by Emmy Award winner Randy Pyburn of Pyburn Films, who originally created the package in 2003 for WNBC-TV in New York for their NewsChannel4 newscasts.

Contents 1 History 2 Newscasts and Local Programming 3 Notable past personalities 4 Past logos 5 External links

[edit] History

The station signed on the air on May 2, 1949 as WAFM-TV, owned by The Voice of Alabama, Inc. along with WAPI-AM 1070 and WAFM-FM 94.5 (now WYSF). It is Alabama's oldest television station. In the beginning, channel 13 carried programming from CBS and ABC.

In 1953, the Birmingham News bought Voice of Alabama and changed WAFM-TV's calls to WABT (for Alabama's Best Television). A year later, WABT switched its primary affiliation to NBC. In 1956, the Newhouse newspaper chain bought the News.

The station changed call signs again in 1958 when it became WAPI-TV to match its sister radio station WAPI-AM. (The calls stood for Alabama Polytechnic Institute, who owned WAPI radio from 1925 until 1932.) When WBRC took the ABC affiliation on a full-time basis in 1961, WAPI was forced to shoehorn both CBS and NBC programs into its schedule. This was rather unusual, since in most two-station markets both stations either shared ABC programming, or one station carried ABC as a secondary affiliation. While WAPI tried to carry the most popular NBC and CBS shows (slightly favoring NBC), a lot of very popular shows did not air in Birmingham. One of the more popular shows that WAPI didn't clear was The Ed Sullivan Show, meaning that central Alabama viewers missed The Beatles' American debut unless they were lucky enough to pick up stations in Atlanta, Huntsville or Montgomery. WAPI strongly favored NBC for news, so when CBS and NBC expanded their news programs to 30 minutes in the early 1960s, Walter Cronkite was not seen on Birmingham-area television screens for several years. This was due, of course, to both networks' feeding the newscasts to affiliates at 5:30 p.m. Central Time (like today); channel 13 had its local newscast at 6 p.m., and prior to 1971, prime-time network programming began at 6:30 p.m., leaving no slot on the schedule for "CBS Evening News" to air, even had station management wanted to.

When WBMG-TV (now WIAT), signed on in 1965, it nominally had CBS affiliation, but CBS allowed the higher-rated WAPI to continue airing its higher-rated programming. In return, WBMG, a UHF station that many area households could not receive due to their TV sets having been made before 1964 (the date when the FCC finally began requiring manufacturers to include UHF tuning), aired some leftover NBC programming (such as The Tonight Show). Both stations listed "CBS/NBC" as their affiliation. However, in May 1970, for a number of reasons, WAPI became an exclusive NBC affiliate, handing CBS programming over to WBMG, channel 42. At the same time that WAPI became an exclusive affiliate of NBC and WBMG aligned with CBS, WCFT in Tuscaloosa and WHMA in Anniston also affiliated with CBS; prior to then, the primetime schedule of WCFT and WHMA virtually mirrored that of WBMG.

The Newhouses' company, Advance Publications, got out of broadcasting in the early 1980s. WAPI-TV was sold to Times-Mirror Broadcasting in 1980, and as a result the station became WVTM (for Vulcan Times-Mirror), and remains so to this day.

In the early 1990s, the station was purchased by Argyle Broadcasting. In 1994, New World Communications, which had recently cut an affiliation deal with Fox Broadcasting Company, agreed to purchase WVTM along with sister stations KTVI in St. Louis, KDFW in Dallas, and KTBC in Austin, Texas. However, New World also decided to purchase Great American Broadcasting, which owned WBRC. Great American agreed to exclude WBRC from its deal with New World, and to sell WBRC directly to Fox instead. As such, WVTM retained its NBC affiliation, while KTVI (former St. Louis ABC affiliate), KDFW (former Dallas/ Fort Worth CBS affiliate) and KTBC (former Austin CBS affiliate) became Fox affiliates. Fox operated WBRC as an ABC affiliate until 1996.

New World sold off all its stations in late 1996. Its Fox affiliates were sold to Fox outright, while its two NBC stations (WVTM and KNSD 39 San Diego) were sold to NBC.

The station also went through numerous name changes from NewsCenter13, to NewsWatch13 and its AM newscast 13 Alive to 13 Action News and then 13 and You, an ode to NBC and You to Alabama's 13, People Who Care to today's NBC13, We've Got You Covered. WVTM, currently known on air as NBC13, runs more than 35 hours of local news a week along with NBC network news.

Also in 2004, WVTM became the first television station in Alabama to obtain a 1-million watt doppler radar system dubbed "Skywatch Doppler One Million", located on Bald Rock Mountain in St. Clair County, Alabama. However, the station rarely uses the radar unless a serious weather situation threatens central Alabama.

WVTM was one of four NBC O&Os in smaller markets that were put up for sale on January 9, 2006, along with WJAR-TV in Providence, Rhode Island, WCMH-TV in Columbus, Ohio, and WNCN in Raleigh, North Carolina. On April 6, 2006, NBC Universal and Media General announced that Media General would purchase WVTM-TV as part of a $600 million four station deal between the two companies[1]. Media General has announced that it will sell its existing station in Birmingham, WIAT, since the FCC doesn't allow one person to own two of the four largest stations in a single market. Media General closed on all four stations on June 26, 2006, after the FCC granted the company a temporary waiver allowing it to keep both WVTM and WIAT for six months. On August 2, it was announced that Media General sold WIAT to New Vision Television. [2]

For several months after Media General acquired the stations from NBC Universal, WVTM's website and those of the other three stations remained in the format used by the websites of NBC O&O stations. In early December 2006, the WVTM website, as well as that of sister station WNCN and WJAR, were redesigned; they now credit Media General in their copyright notices, and are no longer operated by Internet Broadcasting.

[edit] Newscasts and Local Programming

Weekday

• NBC13 Today in Alabama - 5:00-7:00AM
• NBC13 Midday - 11:00AM-12:00PM
• NBC13 4:30 - 4:30-5:00PM
• NBC13 News at 5:00 - 5:00-5:30PM
• NBC13 News at 6:00 - 6:00-6:30PM
• NBC13 News at 10:00 - 10:00-10:35PM

Saturday

• NBC13 Saturday Today in Alabama - 8:00 - 9:00AM
• NBC13 News at 5:00 - 5:00-5:30PM
• NBC13 News at 10:00 - 10:00-10:30PM

Sunday

• NBC13 Sunday Today in Alabama - 8:00 - 9:00AM
• NBC13 News at 5:00 - 5:00-5:30PM
• NBC13 News at 10:00 - 10:00-10:35PM
• The Mike Shula Show - 10:35-11:05PM (only during the college football season)
• NBC13 Sports Extra Sunday - 10:35-11:05PM (11:05-11:35PM during the college football season)

[edit] Notable past personalities

• Bob Jones: News Anchor
• Wendell Harris: News Anchor
• Ken Snow: News Anchor
• Pam Huff: News Anchor (currently on Birmingham's WBMA/WCFT/WJSU)
• Phil Rozen: News Anchor
• Steve Sanders: News Reporter (currently on WGN-TV, Chicago)
• David Mattingly: News Reporter (currently on CNN)
• Gene Lively: News Anchor
• Mike Moore: News Anchor (currently on WGCL-TV, Atlanta)
• Buddy Rutledge: Sports Anchor
• Gary Sanders: Sports Anchor
• Scott Palmer: Sports Anchor
• Herb Winches: Sports Anchor (currently on WJOX-FM/WSPZ, Birmingham)
• Ken Lass: Sports Anchor, later Morning News Anchor (currently on WDJC-FM, Birmingham)
• Rosemary Lucas: Weather Reporter
• James Spann: Meteorologist (currently on WBMA/WCFT/WJSU)
• Larry Nobles: Meteorologist

[edit] Past logos

One of the first WAFM slides from the late 1940's.

WABT logo from the mid 1950's

This logo from when WVTM was WAPI in 1978; using the standard NBC font (Helvetica) at the time, as well as the infamous "N" logo. The 13 is almost the same font used for the current WVTM logo.

WVTM logo from 1998 to 2005.

[edit] External links

• WVTM Homepage
• Birmingham Rewound -- classic TV
• Birmingham TV News: Station Histories
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WVTM

Broadcast television in the Central Alabama (Birmingham / Anniston / Tuscaloosa) market  (Nielsen DMA #40)
WBXA-CA 2 (MTV2) - WBRC 6 (Fox) - WVUA-CA 7 (i/A1/ShopNBC) - WCIQ 7 / WBIQ 10 (PBS/APT) - WVTM 13 (NBC) - WOTM-LP 19 (Ind) - WTTO 21 / WDBB 17 (The CW) - WUOA 23 (i/A1) - WJXS 24 (FamNet) - WBUN-CA 28 (Daystar) - WCFT 33 (ABC) - W34BI 34 (HSC) - WJSU 40 (ABC) - WIAT 42 (CBS) - WPXH 44 (i) - W49AY 47 (Ind/Rel.) - WOIL-LP 47 (Daystar)- WBMA 58 (ABC) - WTJP 60 (TBN) - WABM 68 (MNTV)