WWAO

WWAO is the ABN Network affiliate that serves the Tampa, FL and St. Petersburg, FL areas. It broadcasts on channel 17. It's studios and offices are located at the ABN Tampa Bay Broadcast Center on 1st Street in St. Petersburg, FL. Through a channel sharing agreement, the station transmits using WLCY's spectrum from an antenna in Riverview, Florida.

## History

The station first signed on with a test pattern on May 3, 1953, with regular operations beginning on May 5. It was owned by the city of St. Petersburg, along with WWAO radio (620 AM, now WTWD at 910 AM). It was one of the first UHF television stations in the country. WWAO-TV's studios were located on the first floor of the St. Petersburg Pier, overlooking Tampa Bay. The facility was relatively small – measuring only 35 feet long and 46 feet wide – and had once been a trolley turnaround. This made the production of local programs rather difficult.

The station was originally operated as an independent station, although it held secondary affiliations with all four major networks of the time – CBS, NBC, ABC and DuMont—in part because microwave links for network programming only went as far as Tampa. During its first year of operation, channel 17 relied on film and kinescopes for prime-time programming. Later in the fall of 1953, however, the area's main telephone provider, Peninsular Telephone (later owned by GTE), provided WWAO-TV with a private microwave link in time for the World Series, making it the first television station in the country to receive live programming via microwave relay. The station quickly secured a primary affiliation with CBS, while continuing to cherry-pick programming from NBC, ABC and DuMont.

Due to protracted battles over the other two allocations for Tampa Bay – VHF channels 8 and 13, both licensed to Tampa – WWAO-TV was the only station in the Tampa Bay area for two years. The station's most popular local program during this time was Captain Mac, hosted by Burl McCarty. Channel 17 lost its monopoly in 1955. On February 14 of that year, WLCY (channel 8) signed on and took the NBC affiliation. In April, WTFL (channel 13) signed on and took the CBS affiliation. WWAO continued to cherry-pick DuMont shows during the 1955-1956 TV Season, but finally lost that privilege when DuMont entered the Tampa-St. Petersburg market with a full-time operation of its own, WTSS on September 29, 1956. WTFL's debut hit WWAO particularly hard, as many of the station's staffers bolted to channel 13. One of them was McCarty, triggering a legal battle over whether he or channel 17 owned the Captain Mac character. Ultimately, McCarty was allowed to take his character to WTVT, but not his uniform or the show's format. WWAO was allowed to continue use the Captain Mac name as well. This strange situation prevailed for only six months, until McCarty returned to channel 17 and stayed there until his retirement in 1959.

Sometime in the late 1950s, the Federal Communications Commission announced it was adding a third VHF channel allocation to the Tampa Bay market – channel 10, in Largo, just north of St. Petersburg. WWAO immediately jumped into the bidding for the new license, fearing the loss of ABC programming if another company got the license. After a protracted legal battle, the FCC awarded the channel 10 license to Rahall Communications in 1961. Shortly afterward, ABC decided to move its affiliation in Tampa Bay to the new channel 10, effective with the end of WWAO-TV's contract in 1965. Channel 17 sued ABC to stop the switch, but could not stop Rahall from putting channel 10 on the air as WSUN on July 18, 1965.

After another month of legal fighting, WSUN was finally awarded the ABC affiliation by court order. Channel 10 officially joined ABC in a special ceremony on September 1. But WWAO was far from finished. One of the stations private investors, a man named Hy Levinson was working quietly behind the scenes to bring the recently started-up fifth TV network; the American Broadcast Network to the Tampa-St. Petersburg market. WWAO joined the ABN Network on September 1, 1965, the day after ending its relationship with ABC. ABN would purchase both Channel 17, and a vacant parcel of land in Downtown St. Petersburg near City Hall, for the purpose of building a new larger station facility. The city made the sale to ABN after the network's commitment to quality local programming on Channel 17, and events in Central Florida to a national audience. ABN had delivered good with that pledge out of the gate, before the sale was even made, with the first live televised event from the Daytona Motor Speedway: The Sports Car Club of America National Championship Qualifiers and Finals September 4-5, 1965.

With ABN only having Prime-Time Programming in 1965, Channel 17 took a cue from ABN's Las Vegas affiliate KENO (now KLYG) and filled its daytime hours post-ABC with *FYI Tampa Time & Weather*; 8 hours of a single camera showing the view of the pier from the station. Also, in the right hand corner of the screen, a clock, with an updated weather forecast posted next to it, along with the request line for WWAO Radio, who was providing the audio. This programming lasted until November of 1966, when ABN debuted *The Stock Market Observer*.