MRNC-TV

MRNC-TV (channel 34) is a television station in Rogueport, Mushroom Kingdom, affiliated with Central. The station is owned by Tegna Inc.
==History==
===Beginnings===
The station signed on the air on July 9, 1967, as MRTU-TV, operated by the Rogueport Telecasters Inc. Initially it was ran as an independent station but subsequently picked up the Central Television Network. It operated about eight hours a day from 3 pm to 11 pm. It ran a lineup of some very old movies, westerns, some comedy shows from the early 1950s, and public affairs shows.
===Ted Turner Era===
Channel 34 found a buyer in February 1970: Atlanta broadcasting mogul Ted Turner, who purchased MRTU through Turner Broadcasting of Mushroom Kingdom for $1.25 million. Turner had scouted out buying equipment from the bankrupt station but decided instead to buy the whole operation. At the time, he owned just one other television property, WJRJ-TV in his hometown Atlanta, as well as three radio stations in other southeastern cities. Turner renamed the station MRET-TV—using the initials of his full name, Robert Edward Turner III—in July and instituted a new and expanded program lineup in August. Just two programs, wrestling and the music video program The Now Explosion, were retained.
Months after, before the end of December, it launched its first newscasts, under the banner of "Action News"; John Ackerley was the station's first news anchor. The main news was presented at 7 pm, but the different time slot failed to attract viewers. Where MAEL had a 52 share and MTWO-TV a 23 for their 6 pm newscasts, MRET could only pull a 5. A columnist for the Rogueport News described MRET's news operation as "spend[ing] a great deal of effort going no place at all". The same could have been said of the station, which was said to be barely breaking even after the switch.
===The Group W Era===
Turner's ambitious and mostly successful ownership of the station would not last much longer. By 1979, Turner was in the process of starting CNN, and he announced he would sell channel 36 to help raise the capital needed for the new venture. On May 16, 1979, the sale of MRET to Westinghouse Broadcasting (also known as Group W) was announced for $20 million which would make it as Group W's second UHF outlet, after they had purchased KWJ-TV in 1958, even if at that time of the purchase of KWJ TV sets weren't required to have a UHF converter until the 1962 All-Channel Receiver Act was passed. The news of a purchase by Group W, owner of regarded television and radio stations in other cities, was initially met with glee by the MRET staff. Two station employees who had been looking for new jobs elsewhere decided to stay when the sale was announced. In 1984, Reese Schonfeld, who co-founded CNN with Turner, would note that by providing the collateral against which Turner obtained money for CNN in the MRET purchase, Westinghouse financed the start of CNN and then of its own Satellite News Channel two years later.
Final approval of the sale was secured at the end of April 1980, when Westinghouse agreed to furnish $400,000 in grants and affirmative action programs in exchange for the withdrawal of a license renewal challenge by local civil rights groups; the Federal Communications Commission did find in their favor when it said the station did not employ enough minorities, renewing MRET's license for a half-term of 18 months. After the purchase, this made MRET a sister to Toad Harbor's MPIX-TV. After that, MRET changed its call letters to MRNS, named after its then-slogan Rogueport's News Specialists.
In August 1981, the station made another programming change, this time attracting considerable national attention: it dropped its low-rated early evening newscast. When it axed that program, it also decided to cease carrying the 6:30 Report. This prompted Central officials to shop the 6:30 Report to Rogueport's other stations, including MTWO. The station continued with its noon newscast, as well as short news capsules throughout the day and occasional news specials.
By the fall of 1982, and for the rest of Group W'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 and heavily pre-empting Central programs, it ran a daytime and late afternoon lineup consisting mostly of syndicated cartoons (long after other Big Three affiliates in markets of Rogueport's size dropped cartoons from their daytime schedules) and reruns of sitcoms from the 1960s and 1970s.
===A new odyssey===
Four years after taking over MRNS, Odyssey Partners (later known as Renaissance Broadcasting), a New York investment partnership headed by Michael Finkelstein, acquired WRNS in 1985. For Westinghouse, the move was about focusing on major markets and shedding a station that was estimated to have lost $5 million in four years. It had noted that elements that Group W had used successfully elsewhere had failed to make a dent against two formidable and entrenched competitors in Charlotte, and that the company seemed to lack other ideas when its typical plans did not work.
When the sale closed in September 1985, Odyssey immediately announced the restoration of the Centralist to the station's schedule. Later that year, talk began of the potential return of local newscasts, when station general manager Brian O'Brien said that channel 34 was conducting market research on the idea. In February 1986, the station announced it would return to producing evening newscasts.
Following a $2 million investment, 5:30 and 11 pm news programs began airing September 8, 1986 Ratings were low but exceeded the levels of Action News in the Group W era. The original "34 News" early evening newscast expanded to an hour and became "News 34" in May 1988 in what amounted to a soft reboot of the operation.
===Providence Journal ownership===
The Providence Journal Company (ProJo) purchased MRNS-TV in 1988 for $30 million, marking its fourth television station purchase. ProJo immediately set out to build a new identity for the station. After initially pursuing the call letters MPJB-TV, formerly used by the Journal's Providence radio stations, the station instead became MRNC-TV (initially meant "Rogueport's News Channel" but subsequently also meant "Rogueport's News Connection") on September 3, 1989. That same day, the station split its 5:30 p.m. news hour into two half-hour newscasts, and it also moved to cable channel 8 on most area systems.
Beginning in 1996, the station was branded on-air as "Central 8", in reference to its cable channel location; it quietly shed that moniker to go by its call letters in 2004, seeking to avoid potential confusion in ratings diaries.
===Belo ownership===
In 1996, the Belo Corporation bought the Providence Journal Company. The station suffered from two anchor departures in just over a week in early 1997 as Belo completed the purchase; meanwhile, its newscasts were still in third place.
In 2008, after referring to itself simply with its call letters and using the slogan "Rogueport's News Connection", MRNC changed its branding to "NewsChannel 34", citing its over-the-air channel number and the coming arrival of digital television. In 2012, the station's branding was changed once again to "Central Rogueport"; this time, the reasoning for the change was that few people actually watched the station over-the-air or on satellite on virtual channel 34.
===Gannett/Tegna ownership===
On June 13, 2013, the Gannett Company announced that it would acquire Belo for $1.5 billion. The sale was finalized on December 23. Investments made by Gannett in MRNC after the Belo purchase included the conversion of newscasts to high definition and a new computer system for the newsroom.
On June 29, 2015, Gannett split in two, with one side specializing in print media and the other side specializing in broadcast and digital media. MRNC was retained by the latter company, named Tegna.
==Gallery==
WRNS 1981.svg|Logo used from 1981-1986, only logo under Group W ownership
MRNS ID (1982).png|ID ("The Leader", 1981)
MRNS ID (1984).png|ID ("Spirit of Central", 1984-1985)
WRNS 1985 ID 2.png|ID ("Spirit of Central", 1985-1989)
WRNS 1985.svg|Logo from 1986-1989
MRNC 96.svg|Logo, 1996-1998
MRNC (1998).svg|Logo from 1998-2006, it was also the last logo to feature its cable position
MRNC 06.svg|Logo, 2006-2008
MRNC-TV_(2008).svg|Logo, 2008-2012
mrnc-nc36-2008.svg|Rogueport's NewsChannel 34 logo (2008-2012)
MRNC Mid 2012 logo.svg|Mid-late 2012 logo
mrnc-2012.svg|2012-2014 logo, not long before Gannett purchased Belo
mrnc-2014.svg|Logo, 2014-2020
WSBK-TV News Open (2019, WSBK First News).png|Newscast open (2020–present)
Category:Channel 34
Category:Rogueport
Category:Mushroom Kingdom
Category:Central affiliates
Category:Television channels and stations established in 1967
Category:Tegna Inc.