WLTW

**WLTW** (channel 2), is a television station in Liberty City, Liberty State, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by the Dorado Media Group alongside CW affiliate WQHT (channel 22). Both stations share studios along the Northern Expressway in Bohan, while WLBD’s transmitter facilities are located atop Outlook Park, near the Broker neighborhood.

## History

The station first signed on the air by Francis Broadcasting Corporation on October 11, 1971. It was the second independent television station in the Liberty City market after WLOC-TV (channel 45) launched on April 11, 1971. The station's first broadcast was a basketball game between the Liberty City Warriors and the Buffalo Braves. The station originally operated from studios located in Broker. It operated as an independent station; it maintained a general entertainment format featuring a mix of dramas, classic movies, cartoons, and religious programming that the other stations in the market declined to air. WLTW also aired a significant amount of paid programming.

### **As a Fox station**

#### **New World Communications ownership**

Fox originally approached the fellow independent station WLI-TV (channel 22, now WQHT) to negotiate an affiliation agreement with the network in the fall of 1986. Channel 22 was originally among the television stations in the process of being acquired by New World Communications that were slated to switch to Fox under a long-term affiliation agreement announced between New World and then-Fox network parent News Corporation. Channel 22 station management would later turn the offer down; Fox instead reached an agreement with Francis Broadcasting to launch the affiliation on WLTW.

On May 23, 1994, as part of a $500-million overall deal in which network parent News Corporation also purchased a 20% equity interest in the group, New World signed a long-term affiliation agreement with Fox to switch thirteen television stations—five that New World had already owned and eight that the company was in the process of acquiring through separate deals, including WLTW—to the network. The stations involved in the agreement—all of which were affiliated with one of the three major broadcast networks (CBS, ABC, and NBC)—would become Fox affiliates once individual affiliation contracts with each of the stations' existing network partners had expired.

As with most of the other New World-owned stations affected by the agreement with Fox, WLTW retained its longtime "WLTW 2" branding upon the affiliation switch, with references to the Fox logo and name limited in most on-air imaging; it also retained the news branding it had been using before it joined the network—in its case, The 2 News Team, which the station adopted in November 1990. In addition to expanding its local news programming at the time it joined Fox, the station replaced its daytime and late-night programs with an expanded slate of syndicated talk shows as well as some documentary-based reality series and off-network sitcoms, and also acquired some syndicated film packages and first-run and off-network syndicated drama series for broadcast in weekend afternoon timeslots on weeks when Fox did not provide sports programming.

#### **News Corporation/Fox ownership**

On July 17, 1996, News Corporation announced that it would acquire New World in an all-stock transaction worth $2.48 billion, with the latter company's ten Fox affiliates being folded into the former's Fox Television Stations subsidiary, making them all owned-and-operated stations of the network (the New World Communications name continued as a licensing purpose corporation for WLTW and its sister stations until 2007 under Fox, and from 2009 to 2011 under Provincial Media ownership); upon the completion of the merger on January 22, 1997, WLBD became the first network-owned station in the Liberty City market. Under Fox ownership, programming began to change very slightly as WLTW (through Fox) began to add stronger first-run syndicated shows as well as stronger off-network sitcoms to the programming mix.

#### **Provincial Media and Dorado ownership**

On December 22, 2007, Fox sold WLTW and other owned-and-operated stations to Provincial Media for $1.1 billion; the sale was finalized on July 14, 2008. On July 1, 2013, the Dorado Media Group acquired the Provincial Media stations for $2.75 billion; the sale was completed on December 27.

On September 17, 2008, Provincial Media LLC entered into a local marketing agreement with the Dorado Media Group, under which it assumed some operational responsibilities for CW affiliate WLCW (now WQHT). The agreement, which took effect on October 1, allowed WLTW to provide advertising and promotional services as well as news operations for WLCW, while Dorado would retain responsibilities over channel 22's programming (although both stations would share certain syndicated programs), master control and production services. The LMA resulted from the formation of a "broadcast management company" that was created to provide management services to stations owned by both Dorado and Provincial Media. Although it was the senior partner in the agreement, WLTW vacated its longtime studios in the Broker neighborhood and moved its operations to WLCW’s facility in Bohan.

On July 1, 2013, Dorado acquired WLTW and Provincial Media’s other television stations outright for $2.75 billion; the sale received FCC approval on December 20 and was completed on December 27, creating the first legal station duopoly in the Liberty City market between WLTW and WLCW. As FCC rules prohibit the common ownership of two of the four highest-rated television stations in the same market, Dorado’s direct purchase of WLTW to form a duopoly with WLCW was permissible because WLCW ranked in fifth place in total day ratings at the time of the purchase.

## Programming

WLBD currently carries the majority of the Fox network schedule; however, it delays the network's Saturday late-night block (currently, as of September 2016, consisting of reruns of Fox prime time reality series) by a half-hour in order to air its 10:00 p.m. newscast. The station may preempt some Fox programs in order to air long-form breaking news or severe weather coverage, although live sports events may require such coverage to air simultaneously with the scheduled Fox Sports telecast. Fox prime time shows preempted or otherwise interrupted by such content may either be rebroadcast on tape delay over WLTW's main channel in place of syndicated programs normally shown during overnight timeslots. Syndicated programs broadcast by WLTW as of September 2020 include *Judge Judy, Rachael Ray, The Drew Barrymore Show, Hot Bench, Access Hollywood, Dish Nation, and TMZ on TV.*

### **News operation**

WLTW presently broadcasts a combined 63½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 10½ hours each weekday and 5½ hours each on Saturdays and Sundays); in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the highest local newscast output among Liberty City’s broadcast television stations. WLBD’s Sunday 5:00 p.m. newscast is subject to preemption due to network sports coverage, as is standard with Fox stations that carry early evening weekend newscasts (though the Saturday 5:00 p.m. newscast is usually delayed to 6:00 p.m. due to baseball or college football coverage).

In mid-2019, WLTW/WQHT introduced a revamped version of *EyeOpener*. While branded for both stations, it is largely targeted toward the WQHT audience, as it is part of Fox 2 News in The Morning.

## Technical information

### **Subchannels**

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

 **2.2** | 480i
 **2.3** | MYSTERY
 **2.4** | DABL

WLTW began carrying Antenna TV upon its launch on January 1, 2011, on digital subchannel 2.2. As of January 2016, digital subchannel 2.3 started showing colored bars with a pending affiliation to Escape.

### **Analog-to-digital conversion**

WLBD shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 2, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcasts on its pre-transition UHF channel 43. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 2.