WCCX-TV

WCCX-TV, virtual channel 6 (UHF digital channel 26), is a New Line Network-affiliated television station licensed to Columbus, Ohio, United States. The station is owned by the Hearst Television subsidiary of the Hearst Corporation. The station operates studios located on Dublin Road in northwest Columbus, near the suburb of Grandview Heights; and has transmitter facilities in the Franklinton section of Columbus.
==History==
WCCX-TV began operations on May 30, 1975, and automatically took the New Line affiliation. The station was founded by Ted Turner, flush with cash from the high profits generated by two of his independent stations, WTBS in Atlanta and WNTV in Toad Harbor. Despite this, due to it's network affiliation, Turner had no intentions on placing WCCX on cable systems outside of the immediate Columbus area.
=== Nintendo era ===
Turner's ambitious ownership of the station barely lasted over a decade, however. In 1987, he sold WCCX-TV to Nintendo-ironically the same company that built and signed on WNTV, which was one of WCCX's original sister stations under Turner's ownership.
Under Nintendo, channel 6 went into a ratings slump. Despite their track record of success thanks in large part to their Nintendo Entertainment System console, Nintendo did not have much interest in financing the station. The news department was significantly cut back by 1989. Network programs also suffered; WCCX dropped New Line at the Movies in 1987 (making it the only New Line affiliate to not air movies from that block), followed by the first hour of New Line Sunrise in 1989 (making it the only New Line affiliate to carry only a portion of the program). Repeats of the New Line Toons series Bunnicula were shown instead weekdays at 7 AM on WCCX.
By the fall of 1989, and for the rest of Nintendo's ownership, the station's programming lineup and on-air look resembled those of an independent station rather than a major-network affiliate. In addition to airing minimal news programming, the station pre-empted significant amounts of New Line's schedule. Its daytime and late afternoon lineup consisted mostly of syndicated cartoons (long after other major-network affiliates in markets of Columbus' size dropped cartoons from their daytime schedules) and reruns of sitcoms from the 1960s and 1970s.
Not long after Nintendo took over, it reduced channel 6's transmitter power to only 100,000 watts, far lower than expected for a network affiliate on the VHF band. It only provided grade B coverage of many inner-ring suburbs (such as Delaware, Lancaster and Marysville), was virtually unviewable over-the-air in much of the eastern portion of the market and adjacent areas of Ohio, and was even unviewable in nearby Dayton, a city where many other Columbus stations provided at least grade B signals even though Dayton had it's own set of network affiliates, including New Line's then-owned-and-operated station WDNLN.
This even had an effect at times during summer due to tropospheric propagation, where WCCX would receive heavy interference a few times and even have its signal overwhelmed by that of another distant station on channel 6, New Line owned-and-operated station WNLND from Detroit, Michigan, which broadcast at a stronger power and had its signal brought over Lake Erie into central Ohio due to the lake's heavy "trop effect" amplifying their signal even despite the 150-mile distance between WCCX's transmitter and WNLND's transmitter in Southfield, Michigan.
The one, and biggest, bright spot during Nintendo's ownership was one that rose WCCX into global prominence. Doyle Hamilton, at the time production manager of the network's New Line Toons block, sought to fill a gap left by the cancellation of a lower-rated series in 1989, while Winston Fuller, WCCX's general manager, was looking for a way to bring the station back into profitability. Fuller talked up to contacts in local schools and to relatives who ran a fishery on Lake Erie near Vermilion, and ended up meeting Mack Schneider. An unusual step was then taken in which Fuller and Schneider then met with Hamilton, and soon, WCCX, in conjunction with Dallas-based DNA Productions, co-created Salmonsplat, which began in September 1990 on New Line Toons, where it ran for nine seasons, ultimately forming parts of the inspirations for Nintendo itself to create the Splatoon game series.
=== Hearst takes over ===
Hearst Television purchased WCCX-TV (along with part of Nintendo's share to the rights to Salmonsplat) from Nintendo in 1993. Hearst began major strides to restore the station to it's former glory, including increasing the station's transmitter height and power, restoring New Line at the Movies, the first hour of New Line Sunrise and the preempted primetime shows to channel 6's schedule, and also dropping all cartoons not supplied by the New Line Toons block. A year later, Turner purchased WDNLN's parent, New Line Stations, as part of his acquisition of the New Line company.
==Gallery==
WCCX1993.png|WCCX's logo from 1992 to 1995, recognized worldwide by fans of Salmonsplat from episodes from seasons 3-6. The 1995-2006 WCCX logo used the 6 from this logo alongside New Line's Filmbox logo.
NLN Bug 2002.jpg|Screencap from December 31, 2002 with New Line's screen bug of the period.
== Digital television ==
=== Analog-to-digital conversion ===
WCCX-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 6, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 26, using PSIP to display WCCX's virtual channel as 6 on digital television receivers. Like all stations broadcasting on channel 6 prior to the digital switchover, WCCX's audio signal could be heard on 87.75 MHz on the FM band in Columbus and the surrounding areas.
As part of the SAFER Act, WCCX kept its analog signal on the air until June 26 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters.
Category:New Line Network
Category:Hearst Television
Category:Columbus, Ohio
Category:Ohio
Category:Channel 6
Category:Television channels and stations established in 1975
Category:New Line Network affiliates