WACT-TV

WACT-TV is a non-commercial educational independent television station serving Birmingham, Alabama, that is licensed to Tuscaloosa. The station is owned by The University of Alabama (UA), a public research university. WACT-TV's studios are located on the UA campus in Tuscaloosa, and its transmitter is located in Adamsville, northwest of Birmingham. The station has a large network of broadcast translators that extend its over-the-air coverage throughout Alabama, as well as portions of Tennessee and Georgia.
WACT-TV airs programming of interest to members of the university, including doctor and law shows, as well as family-friendly entertainment programs, often with a moral lesson.
History
The channel 11 allocation in Tuscaloosa was first intended to be built as a commercial station. In December 1965, the Cotton Telecasting Corporation, owned by Beatriz F. Guthmiller, filed to build channel 11, with studios in Cottondale and a transmitter in Holt. The permit was granted in December 1967. Two months later, ground was broken on studio facilities for the station. WEAL went on the air as Alabama's first independent television station on May 28, 1968, with its call letters standing for Eastern ALabama.
Channel 11's commercial existence was short-lived. The independent station struggled against larger outlets in Salt Lake City. In December 1969, Beatriz sued Restricted Current, which provided and installed the transmitter, for $10 million, claiming a negligent transmitter installation that impaired WEAL's signal in the state; by this time, WEAL was also facing lawsuits from potential creditors, including program suppliers. WEAL went silent June 3, 1970, when a power surge blew out a transformer. Cotton went into bankruptcy on October 8, 1970.
Acquisition and operation by UA
In March 1972, UA filed an application to buy WEAL's license, but not its Cottondale studio facilities. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the sale on September 20, 1972, with the stipulation that channel 11 become non-commercial; the WACT-TV callsign was instituted on October 29. In 1974, UA filed to relocate the studio to the Theatre and Dance on the campus and the transmitter to Coaling in the Lake Grace Region. The WEAL-TV studios were sold to two local businessmen and became other offices before being demolished.
The station returned to the air with regular programs on August 28, 1975, though the station was already on the air during the daytime for broadcasts to schools in association with the Alabama State Department of Education. Originally a member of National Educational Television (NET), it joined PBS when it largely replaced NET in 1980. For most of the next half-century, Birmingham was one of the smallest markets with two PBS member stations; its main competition was the University of Georgia's WUGA (channel 7). In 2000, WACT-TV rebranded as "Eleven."
On February 7, 2008, the station ended its membership with PBS and began simulcasting UA's co-owned specialty channel UAtv on its primary subchannel. UA Broadcasting managing director Camron Berry noted that two-thirds of channel 11's schedule was identical to that of WUGA, something that "makes no sense" in the current era of broadcasting. This leaves WUGA as the sole PBS station for the Athens market and the state of Georgia.
Programming
Prior to June 30, 2008, programming on WACT-TV consisted of general PBS fare, with emphasis on student's, informational and entertainment programming. The station also airs special programs related to the Doctors of Alabama, and offered a nightly block of classic television programs, such as I Love Lucy, Perry Mason, My Three Sons, The Andy Griffith Show and Little House on the Prairie; as such, it was one of the few public television stations in the United States that broadcasts programming normally acquired for U.S. commercial syndication.
The only exception that WACT-TV currently airs from the straight simulcast of UA TV is the weekday student-produced half-hour newscast, Bama News at Noon. As an educational station it does not carry advertising, and UA TV itself does not carry advertising, instead carrying promotional spots for the network's programming during breaks (the national feed also carries WACT-TV's hourly legal station identification).
WACT-TV has produced some notable programs for national distribution. Successors, produced in conjunction with the Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library and PBS, was a highly successful series of videos on family genealogy. It was so well received that WACT-TV produced a second series of videos, also entitled Successors, which proved to be even more successful. Big Bad Fortunes: Bigdisbelieve and the Past of Wealth, produced in 1985, explored the business of Bigdisbelieve through Bama providers of the service. Another show produced by WACT was Clean Without Oxygen, which was on the air for many years.
Technical information
WACT-TV also utilizes the alternate audio tracks that can be activated through the second audio program function, both carried on the third alternate audio track: the station's main channel features an audio simulcast of WVUA-FM (90.7). Digital subchannel 11.2 featured an alternate audio feed of UA Radio (which is commonly found streamed over the Internet), but was taken off-the-air on July 21, 2008 when UA TV International ceased operations.
=== Analog-to-digital conversion ===
In 1987, WACT-TV was allotted UHF channel 39 for its digital signal, but in 1989, the station changed its digital allotment to UHF channel 44 as part of a digital channel realignment coordinated by DTV Alabama, a consortium of eight Birmingham market television stations, of which WACT is a member. WACT-DT began broadcasting its digital signal on October 24, 1990 and it was licensed on July 17, 1993.
WACT-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 11, on August 21, 1999. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 44, using PSIP to display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 11.
Since WACT's former physical TV channel was in the 600 MHz band being sold off in the FCC's incentive auction, with channels 38 to 51 being eliminated, the station filed for a construction permit in January 2007 to move to physical channel 17 at the same location, power and height.
=== Translators ===
WACT-TV uses an extensive network of translator stations to extend its signal throughout Alabama, plus parts of northern Florida, western Georgia, southern Tennessee, and eastern Mississippi
== Other UA Broadcasting divisions ==
UA Broadcasting also operates Adult Album Alternative radio station WVUA-FM (90.7), UA Radio, and other internet-exclusive radio services.