WMC-TV

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WMC-TV
Memphis, Tennessee
Branding	WMC-TV 5 Action News 5
Channels	Analog: 5 (VHF) Digital: 5 (VHF)
Affiliations	NBC NBC Weather Plus (DT2)
Owner	Raycom Media (WMC License Subsidiary, LLC)
First air date	December 11, 1948
Call letters’ meaning	Memphis Commercial Appeal
Former callsigns	WMCT (1948-1960)
Former channel number(s)	4 (1948-1952)
Former affiliations	All secondary: DuMont (1948-1955) CBS (1948-1953), ABC (1948-1955)
Transmitter Power	100 kW (analog) 394 kW (digital) 7300 watts (after 2009)
Height	309 m (analog) 338 m (digital)
Facility ID	19184
Transmitter Coordinates	35°10′9.2″N, 89°53′10.2″W (analog) 35°16′31.3″N, 89°46′38.7″W (digital)
Website	www.wmctv.com

WMC-TV is the NBC affiliate for the Memphis, Tennessee metropolitan area. The station serves roughly the western third of Tennessee, northwestern Mississippi, eastern central Arkansas and the southeastern corner of Missouri over the air on satellite and on various cable systems. Its transmitter is located in Memphis. News 5 WeatherPlus is offered through WMC's digital signal.

[edit] History

WMC-TV, Tennessee's first television station, started as WMCT on December 11, 1948 on channel 4, and broadcast from the Goodwin Institute Building in Downtown Memphis. It was owned by the E.W. Scripps Company along with the city's main newspaper, The Commercial Appeal, and WMC radio (AM 790 and FM 99.7). As the only television station in Memphis for the first several years of operation, it aired programming from all four national networks of the time: NBC (primary affiliation), CBS, ABC and the now-defunct DuMont Television Network. It lost CBS when WHBQ-TV signed on in 1953, but continued to share ABC programming with WHBQ until 1956, when WREC-TV (now WREG-TV) signed on as a full-time CBS affiliate and WHBQ took the ABC affiliation full time. It lost DuMont when that network ceased operations in 1956.

It moved to channel 5 in 1952 due to interference with WSM-TV in Nashville (now WSMV), incidentally also an NBC affiliate (however, this would later make WMCT short-spaced to another Nashville station, WLAC, now WTVF). It dropped the "T" from its callsign on New Year's Day 1967 (at the same time, the co-owned FM station changed its calls from WMCF to WMC-FM). The longtime "5" logo (resembling the font found on a five-dollar bill) debuted on this date, and would be used for over two decades. The WMC stations moved to their current location at 1960 Union Avenue in Midtown Memphis in 1959 and celebrated with a broadcast hosted by comedian George Gobel. Some of its most notable broadcasts in 1960 were live remotes of John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, who both came to Memphis to campaign for President. When Dr. Martin Luther King came to Memphis to support the sanitation workers' strike that set the stage for his assassination in 1968, then-station general manager Mori Greiner established an unprecedented program called "The 40% Speaks," in an effort to promote racial healing in the community.

Like many NBC affiliates during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, WMC-TV began pre-empting a handful of NBC shows, mostly a good part of the network's daytime lineup, for syndicated talk fare, although NBC's daytime reruns of sitcoms could often be found airing early in the morning (between 5 and 6 a.m.). In 1979, in an effort to build its viewership for The Today Show, WMC created a lead-in program titled Wake-Up Call. For the first three years it was hosted by Dick Hawley and Peggy Rolfes. Denise DuBois replaced Rolfes in 1982 and co-hosted for the next ten years. By the mid-1980s, Wake Up Call was the highest-rated local TV talk show in the U.S., with a 52% share of the viewing audience.

After many years of solid management, Scripps sold WMC-AM-FM-TV to Ellis Communications in 1993; Ellis in turn sold to a new broadcasting group formed by the Retirement Systems of Alabama, and subsequently named Raycom Media, that also purchased AFLAC's broadcasting unit in 1996; Raycom sold the radio stations off in 2002.

One of the station's first broadcasts was a live football game at Crump Stadium in Memphis. WMCT first broadcast wrestling by stringing cables across the street from its studio to Ellis Autorium (no longer standing) in downtown Memphis early in the 1950s. Wrestling returned to Channel 5 in 1976, after some years on WHBQ-TV, and for many years the very popular live in-studio professional wrestling program was broadcast live 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 eventually became the last remaining program of its kind in the U.S., before its cancellation in the 1990s. Long before national PGA Tour broadcasts began, WMC-TV broadcast live professional golf from the Memphis Open, with a three-camera remote truck providing coverage from three greens.

Another popular local series was Magicland, a live-audience magic series for children, hosted by WMC-TV anchor/announcer Dick Williams. Magicland aired Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. from 1966 until "Mr. Magic" retired in 1989. It is cited in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest running magic series in television history, having amassed 1200 original episodes in its 23-year run.

Recently, the station's newly renovated newsroom was named after long time employee Ed Greaney, who died June 19, 2005. Greaney began at WMCT in 1949, only two months after the station started operations and worked until late 2000. In October 2006, WMC debuted a fresh news set, along with updated graphics and music. The set makeover was the first at the station since 1995.

WMC TV5 news set circa late 1970s

[edit] Digital Television

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

Digital channels

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] Anchors & Reporters

• Joe Birch - Action News 5 @ 5,6 &10
• Donna Davis - Action News 5 @ 5,6 &10
• Kym Clark - Action News 5 Today
• Bill Lunn - Action News 3 Today / Midday
• Ursula Madden - Midday Anchor / Reporter
• Anna Marie Hartman - Reporter/Weekend Anchor
• Janice Broach - Reporter
• Ben Watson - Reporter
• Andrew Douglas - Reporter
• Kontji Anthony - Reporter
• Brooke Sanders - Morning Reporter
• Nick Kenney - Reporter
• Lori Brown - Reporter
• Jason Miles - Reporter
• Justin Hanson - Reporter
• Blair Simmons - Reporter
• Andy Wise - Chief Investigator

• Jarvis Greer - Sports Director
• Dave Cera - Sports Anchor / Reporter
• Carrie Anderson - Sports Reporter

[edit] Weather

• Dave Brown, Chief Meteorologist, weekdays 5 PM, 6 PM & 10 PM
• Ron Childers, Weekdays 4:30 AM, 5 AM & 6 AM
• Tim Van Horn
• John Bryant

[edit] Former News Staff

Anchors

• Dick Hawley
• Peggy Rolfes
• Denise DuBois
• Mason Granger
• Brenda Wood - WXIA
• Kim Hindrew
• Warren Williams
• Mearl Purvis - WHBQ
• Jack Eaton - Sports
• Richard Ransom - WREG
• Jane Segal
• Carrie McClure - KUSA
• Jovita Moore - WSB
• Mike Puchinelli - WBBM
• Terry Lee - Sports
• Ed Getz
• Norman Brewer - WREG
• Ray Sherman
• Dave Patterson
• Clyde Lee
• Don Hickman
• Myron Lowery
• Syan Rhodes - WESH
• Nick Paranjape - WZTV

Weather

• David Tillman - KTRK
• Bob McClain
• Dick Williams
• Lee Edwards
• Larry Nobles
• Dick Hawley
• Derek Rooke
• Carolyn Ogilby
• Bob Bruce

Reporters

• George Brown-WREG-TV
• Basil Hero
• Nancy Hart
• Janet Morris
• Myron Lowery
• Rusty Ruffin
• Harold Graeter
• Les Smith
• Greg Shackleford
• Michelle Loibner
• Steve Shular
• Greeley Kyle - Univ. of Missouri
• David Trust
• Jackie Nedell
• Paul Morrison
• Joyce Peterson - WPTY
• Julie Ryan
• Geraud Moncure
• Rudy Koski - KVUE
• Rod Starns
• Terry Mann
• Keith Daniels - WBFF
• Jeff Abell - WBFF
• Yvette Mena
• Tommy Stafford
• Buddy Sanders
• Eileen Jones
• Phyllis Armstrong -WUSA
• Jovita Moore - WSB
• Arnie Dengler
• Ron Michaels
• Roger Cooper
• Ray Sherman
• Ron Arlene
• Larry Barr
• Mason Granger
• Joe Lesem
• Carolyn Brookter
• Sally Sears
• Mary Earle
• Norm Schroeder
• Greg Johans

Producers

• Dick Byrd
• Kit Rushing
• Drew Hadfield
• Gaylon Reasons
• Susan Jerkins
• Pat Neal
• Darlene Smith
• Chuck Bark
• Steve Crain
• Bonnie Daws

Managers

• Henry Slavick 1948 -
• Mori Greiner
• Ed Greaney
• Ron Klayman
• Mason Granger
• Bill Applegate

[edit] Other Details

• WMC has included, since at least the 1950s, with its logo an illustration of a riverboat, a symbol of the Mississippi River region which the station serves. For many years, the station's sounder included the riverboat's whistle--something which dates to the 1930s on its former AM sister. The whistle is still heard at the opening of WMC-TV's current newscasts. The station was known as: "The Showplace of the South" during the 1960's.
• WMC's current logo resembles the same style of logo also used by Cox's stations WSB-TV Atlanta, WHIO-TV Dayton and KIRO-TV Seattle. This graphics package was adopted when long time Atlanta businessman Bert Ellis purchased WMC-TV, Raycom Media and several other stations in 1993 to create Ellis Communications. Ellis was a long time fan of WSB-TV and subsequently styled his new broadcast chain after WSB-TV. Many Raycom Media stations still use the basic graphics style today.
• During the early 1970's the news on TV 5 was known as "On the Scene News."
• During the 1950's anchor Dick Hawley was "your Esso reporter" and did both the news and the weather. He would do commercials live including smoking cigars on the air.
• Syndicated programming on Channel 5 includes The Rachael Ray Show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Dr. Phil, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and Wheel of Fortune.

[edit] External links

• WMCTV.com Home
• Query the FCC's TV station database for WMC-TV
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on WMC-TV