WPGH-TV (channel 53) is a television station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside dual CW and MyNetworkTV affiliate WPNT (channel 22). The two stations share studios on Ivory Avenue in the city's Summer Hill neighborhood, where WPGH-TV's transmitter is also located.
Channel 53 was the second TV channel to be activated in Pittsburgh, but the history of this station is discontinuous. It first emerged as WKJF-TV with commercial programming beginning on August 1, 1953. Owned by Agnes Jane Reeves Greer, it had second-choice rights to NBC programming and operated from a site shared with sister FM station WKJF-FM. Like many other ultra high frequency (UHF) TV stations, it struggled economically because not all homes could receive it and its signal was comparatively weak. It left the air on July 2, 1954, but the permit remained alive; the call sign was changed to WAND-TV in 1961, and the antenna was not dismantled until 1962. After federal authorities pushed holders of inactive UHF TV permits to build them, sell them, or forfeit them, Daniel H. Overmyer acquired the station in 1965 as part of a projected independent station group. He was unable to build what he called WECO-TV because of unexpected problems in transmitter site construction and financing difficulties. The independent stations were sold to U.S. Communications, a unit of American Viscose Corporation, which completed construction and put WPGH-TV on the air on February 1, 1969. U.S. Communications struggled with all of Overmyer's permits amid a soft advertising market; WPGH-TV was the third to leave the air on August 16, 1971, and was placed into bankruptcy.
Leon Crosby of San Francisco led an investor consortium named Pittsburgh Telecasting, which bought WPGH-TV out of bankruptcy and returned it to the air, this time for good, on January 14, 1974. Under Crosby and the successive ownerships of the Meredith Corporation, Lorimar-Telepictures, and Renaissance Communications, WPGH-TV endured as Pittsburgh's leading independent outlet. In 1986, it affiliated with Fox at the new network's launch; the Fox affiliation improved the station's ratings and advertising sales.
Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired WPGH-TV in 1991, selling the underperforming channel 22 (then WPTT) to Edwin Edwards in a move that in reality created a local marketing agreement. WPGH-TV started a 10 p.m. newscast, the Fox 53 Ten O'Clock News, in January 1997. It was the first such newscast on a broadcast station in the Pittsburgh market, but it was a ratings underperformer relative to similar newscasts in similarly sized markets. In 2003, Sinclair converted it to its News Central hybrid format, which led to declining ratings. The standalone news department was dissolved in January 2006, and WPGH-TV began airing newscasts produced by Pittsburgh NBC affiliate WPXI (channel 11).
WKJF-TV When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opened up applications for new TV stations after a years-long freeze, in 1952, it allocated three commercial ultra high frequency (UHF) TV channels to the city. The only applicant for channel 53 was Agnes Jane Reeves Greer, owner of WKJF-FM, the city's only standalone FM radio station. The FCC awarded permits for the other two UHF channels, 16 and 47, in December 1952; it deferred action on the channel 53 application until Reeves supplied "further information", granting it on January 8, 1953. Two executives from Pittsburgh's only operating TV station, WDTV, left to take up posts with the new WKJF-TV. Officials expected to be on the air within months based on a prior equipment order. The planned spring date was scrapped when a strike at General Electric delayed fabrication of the antenna, to be fastened to WKJF's tower on Mount Washington. It arrived in July, but a dispute over union jurisdiction held up completion of the job.
On July 11, 1953, WKJF-TV put out its first test picture; it was on the air for five minutes and still elicited a call from a viewer. A regular schedule of test patterns followed starting on July 14. Days before launching, the station finally secured network programming in the form of a secondary affiliation with NBC. WDTV continued to enjoy right of first refusal to telecast NBC programs in Pittsburgh, so WKJF-TV would only get those programs not aired on channel 2. On July 28, the station initiated its first test programs beyond a pattern. From studios on Grandview Avenue, WKJF-TV began airing regular programming on August 1, 1953. At the end of August, after an AT&T network loop was completed to the Mount Washington facility, the first NBC shows appeared on the station. In at least one instance, the station also carried a DuMont Television Network program; WDTV passed over DuMont's Boxing from Eastern Parkway Arena to carry Studio One, so WKJF-TV picked it up.
WKJF-TV was one of two UHF stations to start in Pittsburgh in 1953, the other being WENS on channel 16, which operated at much higher power. UHF stations' signals performed poorly in rougher terrain. Though Pittsburgh had only one pre-freeze and very high frequency (VHF) station, WDTV on channel 2, much of the city could receive a second VHF station, WJAC-TV on channel 6 from Johnstown. These stations could be received by any set, unlike WENS and WKJF-TV, which required converters to view on many VHF-only sets. On July 2, 1954, the station left the air indefinitely, expressing hope of returning if Congress did something to alleviate the plight of UHF stations; it lost $1 million in its operational history. WENS remained on air but struggled to get sponsors despite carrying popular network shows.
A Cleveland mail-order distributor expressed interest in buying WKJF-TV in 1955; he would have renamed the station WDAV and run it for the benefit of disabled veterans. The deal never came to fruition as the owners waited for the UHF situation to change. Rumors circulated that the group putting together Pittsburgh's new VHF station on channel 11 was interested in the property. The call sign on the channel 53 permit was changed from WKJF-TV to WAND-TV on March 13, 1961; the WAND letters had belonged to a Reeves-owned station in Canton, Ohio. The antenna was dismantled in 1962 and replaced with a new FM antenna for the co-located radio station; the former television facility was leased to another tenant.
Overmyer–U.S. Communications era A construction project undermined In November 1964, the FCC told 29 permittees of inactive UHF stations, including WAND-TV, that they faced losing their permits unless action was taken to put them back into service. Faced with the pressing FCC action, in February 1965, Reeves Greer agreed to sell to the New York–based Overmyer Communications Corporation, owned by Daniel H. Overmyer. The purchase presented a complication for Overmyer, as it was the eighth station he was attempting to acquire and the ownership limit was seven stations. The $28,000 transaction did not include any physical facilities. Overmyer, as well as a group attempting to reactivate WENS, were encouraged not only by the FCC's action but by the All-Channel Receiver Act making all new sets UHF-compatible. The FCC denied Overmyer's petition to waive the ownership rule and returned the original filing as unacceptable. It was refiled and approved by the FCC in July.
On November 30, 1965, WAND-TV became WECO-TV, one of four stations named for Daniel Overmyer's children—in this case, Elizabeth C. Overmyer. Overmyer had opted not to lease any facilities from WKJF. By March 1966, Overmyer was preparing to put the station on the air for the fall television season as Pittsburgh's first independent station, with a mix of syndicated shows and network programs preempted by the local affiliates. Even before signing on, the station acquired mobile video tape recording equipment. Overmyer was still promising this in May, along with a series of 22 new warehouses to be located in the Pittsburgh area.
Soon after, Overmyer's quest to build WECO-TV hit a series of snags. The station was on target to launch in September when crews erecting its tower found that the anchor points for two of its three guy wires were over abandoned mine shafts, and a third such tunnel was also found. This forced a change of site for the tower and delayed the prospective launch date to June 1967. The delay prevented WECO-TV from being part of its owner's planned Overmyer Network, which went on the air as the United Network on May 1, 1967. Its lone offering, The Las Vegas Show, aired on WIIC-TV.
Sale to AVC Needing financing to finish construction of WPGH-TV and the other station permits he held nationwide, Overmyer agreed on March 28, 1967, to sell 80-percent majority control of his construction permits to the American Viscose Corporation (AVC). One partner in the investment firm facilitating the sale with Overmyer was a stockholder in WPHL-TV, an existing UHF station in Philadelphia; another partner was appointed to the AVC board of directors after the sale. AVC arranged to merge the Overmyer permits with WPHL's parent company to form U.S. Communications Corporation on June 8, 1967, giving the combined company six television stations in the top 50 markets. The FCC approved the sale on December 8, 1967, waiving a proposed rule in place since 1965 that sought to limit television station ownership within the top 50 markets, a practice the FCC had employed before in similar transactions.
Days after the deal was approved, Rep. Harley O. Staggers, chairman of the House Investigations Subcommittee, summoned all FCC members to testify over the decision not to hold hearings. FCC chairman Rosel H. Hyde testified that if a hearing had been ordered, the sale would have been abandoned. Hyde stated, "I believe that the possibility of refinancing the UHF stations would have failed had we designated the matter for hearing" and that any hearing "...might very well have defeated this effort to salvage a sinking enterprise". Hyde concluded Overmyer's application was sufficient for approval and agreed with commissioner Kenneth A. Cox that the true nature of the transaction was to raise funds to save the warehouse business. Cox criticized the submission of out-of-pocket expenses and the loan and option agreement in the transaction, claiming it violated an FCC policy by providing a profit.
When the deal closed on January 15, 1968, Overmyer received the second $1.5 million portion of the total $3 million agreed to in the loan contract. AVC was an investment company with no experience in television broadcasting and thus only provided financing for U.S. Communications, while WPHL was used for leadership: two WPHL executives became part of U.S.'s management team. Overmyer's role was limited to only his 20-percent stock in the Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Houston permits, with no managerial oversight; U.S. also included a provision that could compel Overmyer to divest his 20-percent interest and an option to purchase it between January 16, 1971, and January 15, 1972. The contract limited the highest purchase price to $3 million, the same amount AVC had loaned to Overmyer; the loan was secured by second mortgages on twenty-three of Overmyer's warehouse properties and his 20 percent interest in the TV stations. U.S. never executed its option to buy the stock, and Overmyer repaid the $3 million loan.
Second on-air stint (1969–1971) After the sale to AVC, planning moved forward in Pittsburgh. By July 1968, the firm was still scouting a site for channel 53, which would have a far more powerful signal than the old WKJF-TV. The station set up its studios, offices, and transmitter at 750 Ivory Avenue in the North Hills area; the Ivory facility had previously belonged to WENS. The Pittsburgh Ad Club held a contest to select new call letters to replace WECO-TV, taking the call sign WPGH on December 7.