WBTV
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WBTV, channel 3 (known on-air as "WBTV-3") is the CBS affiliate in Charlotte, North Carolina, the 28th largest market in the United States. It is owned by Greensboro-based insurance and broadcasting conglomerate Jefferson-Pilot Corporation (http://www.jpfinancial.com), which also owns WCSC-TV in Charleston, South Carolina and WWBT-TV in Richmond, Virginia. Jefferson-Pilot's broadcasting operations are headquartered in Charlotte, making it one of only three locally-owned and operated stations in the market (the others being Fox's WCCB-TV and independent WHKY-TV).
Jefferson-Pilot (then known as Jefferson Standard) took this station to the air on January 15, 1949 as the first television station in the Carolinas and the oldest between Richmond and Atlanta--beating Greensboro's WFMY-TV by a few weeks. Jefferson-Pilot got into Charlotte broadcasting two years earlier when it bought the city's oldest radio station, WBT (AM) 1110--the first fully licensed radio station in the South. It still owns the radio station today.
WBTV has always been a CBS affiliate, but had secondary affiliations with NBC until 1957 (when WSOC-TV signed on) and with ABC until 1964 (when WCCB signed on). Despite this, it is one of only a few non-network owned stations in the country that has had the same call letters, the same owner, the same channel and the same network affiliation throughout its history. When Atlanta's WAGA-TV switched to Fox in 1994, WBTV became the longest continuously-affiliated CBS station south of Washington, DC.
For many years, WBTV was the far-and-away market leader. In fact, its dominance was so absolute that it was once said the dials of most Charlotteans' TV sets were "rusted on channel 3." Since the 90s, however, WSOC has taken a large lead in the news race. However, WBTV still has a small lead sign-on to sign-off because it's the only Charlotte station that puts a decent signal into the mountains (the Charlotte market includes several counties in the Blue Ridge region) without the need for translators.
External links
- WBTV's Web site (http://www.wbtv.com)